Sim League Nirvana

Salary Concentration Part 2: How many contenders had significant contributors on rookie contracts?

For my 100th post of this content frenzy, I’m back with another analysis, this time a follow up to my prior analysis on salary concentration and competing. In the thread, Merv posted a really interesting comment: “So if you have the guy on a rookie deal, don’t be afraid to go for it”. This got me thinking - have historical contenders had major players on rookie contracts giving them “leverage” to spend their salary cap elsewhere? And the inverse: do champs and runners-up typically have rookies playing significant minutes for the team?

Dataset and Methodology:

• I compiled the set of all players who were on a champion or runner-up team from creation to now, but not counting the creation year itself ('96) as there were no true rookie contracts

• This led to 392 total player-years from 30 total teams (as a reminder, the ‘98 data is corrupted for some reason)

[list[I marked if the player was on a rookie contract, and if so, which year of the contract [/list]

• I annotated the average number of minutes each player on a rookie contract played that year.

Key Takeaways:
- Of the 392 total player-years who have played in the finals:

• 49 were players on their rookie contracts

• 9 were true rookies

- Rookies on contending teams played an average of 25 minutes. Interestingly, about 25 minutes also seems to be the natural cutoff for which FBB allocates minutes to “significant” players vs “insignificant” players on a team (histogram below)


- Of the 30 finals teams considered in this dataset (all years minus '96 and '98):

• 22 teams (73%) had a player on a rookie contract playing any minutes at all

• 17 teams (57%) had a player on a rookie contract playing >10 min/game

• 16 players (53%) had a player on a rookie contract playing >25 min/game, with one team having 4 players (‘04 Grizzlies) and one team having 3 players (‘00 Jazz)

- The 16 teams with players on rookie contracts playing >25 min/game were:
‘00 Bucks: Antawn Jamison
‘00 Jazz: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Derek Anderson, Ruben Patterson
‘01 Bucks: Brian Skinner, Antawn Jamison
‘01 Jazz: Kris Clack
‘02 Jazz: Kris Clack
‘02 Pacers: Chris Andersen, Manu Ginobili
‘03 Celtics: Tyrone Nesby
‘03 Sonics: DeSagana Diop
‘04 Grizzlies: Tayshaun Prince, Jay Williams, Caron Butler, Dwyane Wade
‘04 Hornets: Gilbert Arenas, Yao Ming
‘05 Hornets: Yao Ming
‘99 Clippers: Brevin Knight, Vince Carter
‘99 Heat: Ron Mercer, Rip Hamilton
‘06 Raptors: Kendrick Perkins, Tony Allen
‘08 Raptors: Lou Williams
‘12 Rockets: Blake Griffin, Julian Wright

- Of the players playing >25 min/game:

• Only 2 were true rookies: Rip Hamilton for the ‘00 Heat, and Ruben Patterson for the ‘00 Jazz

• 3 were in their second year: Vince Carter for the ‘00 Clippers, Kris Clack for the ‘01 Jazz, and D-Wade for the ‘04 Grizzlies

• 11 were in their third year

• 12 were in their fourth year

With >50% of Finals teams having at least 1 player on a rookie contract playing >25 min/game, the lesson should be clear: If you have a strong player on a rookie contract playing significant minutes, you should consider contending.
- It's really, really tough to contend in the first or second year of their contract
- The best time is when that player is in the third or fourth year of their contract
- Notably, the player on the rookie contract doesn’t have to be one of the all-time greats (e.g. LeBron, Tony Parker, etc). Many of the greats didn’t even make this list - they can be complementary players like Ron Mercer, or Brian Skinner - the most important thing is that the team gets the salary cap leverage to spend elsewhere

Thanks fam, and let me know what you think!

How quickly we forget what a lord the NESbandit was

so many goddamn smart people in this league

The NBA functions very similarly. When you have a really good player on a rookie deal, it enables you to spend that money in other places usually on luxury players. This offseason will be a great case study with the IRL Magic.

Kipke with Steph, Jordo with Kawhi, Pistons with Kyrie, and Pacers with Jimmy are all examples of this right now. Nets are probably a year away.

It’s more notable to me that most of these teams didn’t have multiple rookie contributors or stars. Some of that is because their young prospects probably got traded for the guy who helped take them to the Finals

Awesome work! I think the NDL affects things a bit though; Ruben spent two years in the NDL and Clack also spent a year down as well.

GrundleSauce wrote: April 19th, 2024, 10:36 am Awesome work! I think the NDL affects things a bit though; Ruben spent two years in the NDL and Clack also spent a year down as well.

This is a really good point! Good follow up idea

tonger wrote: April 19th, 2024, 10:39 am

GrundleSauce wrote: April 19th, 2024, 10:36 am Awesome work! I think the NDL affects things a bit though; Ruben spent two years in the NDL and Clack also spent a year down as well.

This is a really good point! Good follow up idea

Would love to see an article on NDL vet contribution towards contenders! I remember I had Ira Newble playing decent minutes during that period too. A lot of teams get good bench contribution from callups, so would be cool to quantify that impact.

1000 RP (1.25x frenzy multiplier + primo content boost)

Kipke wrote: April 25th, 2024, 12:03 pm 1000 RP (1.25x frenzy multiplier + primo content boost)

Forgot to add in post multiplier here:

1175 RP is final tally with post multiplier