I will start this section by offering a disclaimer that, once again, the player evaluation is based around FiveThirtyEight's Raptor WAR. As with all advanced metrics, they are not perfect. There are certainly players (*cough cough* Rudy Gobert) who inspire fierce debate on if they are as impactful as the advanced stats say they are. For example, advanced metrics still are flawed when estimating a player's defensive impact. So, take these values in the context of advanced stats as a whole (maybe you don't put as much stock into players who are offensively limited but have a ton of defensive value). Another thing I'd like to point out is that WAR is a cumulative stat. Players who play more minutes have more chances to accumulate WAR. Players like Kevin Durant who have missed a lot of time over the past couple of years may have lower value than you'd expect simply based of the fact that they haven't been on the court as much. I would argue that availability is inherintly valuable, so this penalty is fair, but you may very well say that superstar talent compensates for that missed time. Overall, I find this to be an interesting and productive thought exercise. On that same note, looking at the player valuation results as well as the differences between those values and corresponding salaries allows us to see several key patterns amongst undervalued and overvalued players.

Starting with the undervalued players, there appear to be 2 major categories that players fit into. The first one is superstar players that have giant Raptor WAR numbers. Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jayson Tatum are three players that have large contracts, but are so good that they are still undervalued anyways. These are 10 plus WAR players that are durable enough to play a lot of games to accumulate these massive WAR totals. The next category, which is much more prominent, are good to great players that are on rookie contracts. Players like Mikal Bridges, Franz Wagner, and Desmond Bane all have WARs between 5 and 8, but are on such cheap contracts that they are immensely valuable. Finally, these two groups are NOT mutually exclusive. Luka Doncic is a prime example of a superstar player that is on a rookie contract.

Transitioning to the overvalued players, we see the exact opposite of the two groups above. The overvalued players are either young players who post such terrible WAR values that they are overvalued no matter how much they're paid, or aging players who are being paid based on past performance. For the first group, there are players like Jalen Green and Killian Hayes that are posting negative WAR seasons, hence they are overvalued despite being on rookie contracts. On the other hand, the more prominent group we see for overvalued players are players such as Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin, and Kevin Love that are in their 30s and making 30 million dollars or more. Even though these are solid players who in some cases are even posting slight positive WARs, they make more money than they are worth at this stage of their careers. One other interesting pattern that we see is that older injury prone players on large contracts such as Klay Thompson show up on the most overvalued players list. I would hold off on calling these players overvalued until we see what they look like post recovery.

Overall, I think there are a few informative points to take away from this exercise. Firstly, just because a great player makes a max contract, doesn't mean that they are paid what they deserve. Based on what these superstars bring to the table compared to a replacement player, they should be paid more (the NBA salary rules don't allow it though). Another key takeaway is that oftentimes the worst players aren't actually the least valuable. The least valuable players in today's NBA are declining veterans who are being paid for past performance. In fact, in some cases, these players even have a positive impact for their teams. Having a positive impact does not necessarily mean you are not overvalued. The final takeaway I'd like to point out is the duality of rookie contracts. On one hand you have good to great rookie players who make so much less than they deserve due to the rookie contract system, but on the other hand some of these young players are so bad initially, that they aren't valuable no matter how much they're paid.