Monday, February 14, 2011

Fair$, what is it?

The Fair Salary (Fair$) component of the TEN+ statistic allows for a quick glance of what a player would likely command on the open market.  There are a lot of factors that could affect the salary of a player such as role, injury history, age, lack of free agent options, etc.


Generally speaking, offense commands higher salary.  As such, the Fair$ component (and TEN+, itself) are roughly two parts offense to one part intangibles/defense.  Two players could have equal TEN+ ratings but, depending how they got there, they could have wildly divergent Fair$.

At the team level, the more successful teams will likely have combined Fair$ numbers that add up to the $85-100M+ range.  That may seem counter-intuitive to some but it makes perfect sense.  Contending teams are able to maintain payroll and roster flexibility by having rookie contracts, veteran minimums and just undervalued players, in general. Teams that try to keep everybody, even the better contributors, end up like the Mavericks of a few years ago.

The mid-2000's Detroit teams were able lock up their best players at below market levels for a good bit of time. Recognizing that, it is not very surprising with the run and success they had. Sure, avoiding major injuries played into that, too, but I would point first and foremost to the salary structure.

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