Biedrins: Unappreciated and Undervalued

Biedrins: Unappreciated and Undervalued 

Dick, you believe in me right? Right?

This article is meant to put Andris Biedrins past performance and contract into perspective. It seems as if people only remember how bad Andris was last season and forget how good he was the previous three, ignoring that Andris had a legit excuse for his poor play: injury. The "what have you done for me lately?" mentality has fans and Larry Riley looking to "dump" Andris and his contract to another team, but is that the right move?

To answer this question we will look at Andris' play measured by WP and WP48. All the data was taken from the Wins Produced Test Suite. This is important to note because the definition of "center" relates to any player who spent at least 50% of the time at center for their team. So this will include players like Pau, Boozer, Amare, etc. who played both PF and C for their teams.

WP48 (average player is .100)

2006 .150 #27 among centers (>500 min)

2007 .215 #15 among centers (>500 min)

2008 .301 #4 among centers (>500 min)

2009 .283 #5 among centers (>500 min)

2010 .205 #17 among centers (>500 min)

Those WP48 shows that even injured Biedrins is at worst a middle tier center and when healthy he is one of the best in the league in terms of WP48. 2006 is his career low but that was his 2nd season in the NBA. Looking from 2007 on will show you how good Andris has been as a starter for the Dub.

People look at the money Biedrins is making and wonder if he is worth that much to the Warriors so let's look at wins produced/million since his new contract came into effect (2009).

WP/Million

2009 1.22 win/million #15 among centers (>500 mins)

2010 .362 win/million #44 among centers (>500 mins)

Looking at these numbers does not tell the whole story because they include players on their rookie contracts. This will favor productive players on rookie deals such as Noah, Love, and Lee. In 2009, 9 out of the 14 centers ahead of Biedrins were still on their rookie contracts. If you throw those guys out Biedrins ranked #6 in wins produced/million among players on non-rookie deals. This means Biedrins provided more bang for the buck outside of McDyess, Przybilla, Howard, Okafor, and Camby in 2009. Even with rookie contracts factored Biedrins would be better than half the starting centers.

You can see 2010 was a disastrous year for Biedrins. I'm not even going to bother to determine what it is compared to those not on rookie deals because Biedrins sucked. People have to remember he played the whole season with a misdiagnosed injury. The previous 2 years of health and stable playing time would be a better barometer of Biedrins' play compared to last years injury plagued campaign.

However, the NBA doesn't base salaries on Wins Produced so let's see how Biedrins' contract fares in absolute terms compared to other players who played the center position as defined by Wins Produced Test Suite.

Overall Per Year Rank Among Centers

2009: #22 in millions per year

2010: #23 in millions per year

In 2009, Biedrins was a great value as the 22nd highest paid center but ranking 10th in Wins Produced (10.98 wins) and 5th in WP48. That production far exceeds his pay rank. The interesting thing is when you view Biedrins' 2010 season through comparison of salary. Biedrins was the 23rd highest paid center in the league and while the injury limited his overall contribution to only 3.26 wins, good for 33rd in Wins Produced (3.26), the quality of the minutes Biedrins did play in ranked 17th (WP48). So even in his injury plagued season Biedrins played well enough to justify his contract, but he did not play enough minutes to earn it.

Now this brings us to the present where Biedrins is the center of trade discussions involving Denver in a straight salary dump it appears for Kenyon Martin. Heading into 2011 Biedrins would be projected as the 18th-19th highest paid center in the league with Dirk, Amare, Bosh, and Boozer commanding more than 9 million with their new contracts and David Lee probably receiving a contract similar to Biedrins. Jermaine O'Neal, Shaq, Brad Miller, and Z would be the only FA centers paid more than Biedrins last year who most likely won't eclipse his 9 million annual salary in 2011.

Since Biedrins became a starter in 2007 he has ranked in Wins Produced as follows:

Wins Produced

2007: 10.67 #12

2008: 13.03 #7

2009: 10.98 #10 vs #22 in salary

2010: 3.26 #33 vs #23 in salary

Now to me that looks like the previous 3 years were similar and 2010 appears to be an aberration due to injury. Despite how bad he was last season, when Andris played he was worth the money (#17 WP48 vs #23 contract). When you look back at his career as a starter Biedrins has ranked no worse than 15th in either WP or W48, but is slated to be only the 18th or 19th highest paid center. In the future, his salary should remain in the same range with players like Noah, Horford, Kendrick Perkins, etc all receiving new deals.

Considering Biedrins' past WP and WP48 it is a safe bet that a healthy Biedrins should outplay his 18th or 19th richest center contract in 2011. So why again are we dumping his salary if it's nearly impossible to replace his production at center by spending the same amount of cash? The only way to get more bang for your buck is drafting a 10/10/60FG% rookie big man or trading for someone like Dwight Howard. Both scenarios are difficult to do, so it doesn't make sense to dump a player who has a history of playing at a higher level then he is paid for.

After looking at his contract in comparison with other centers it looks like Biedrins is not OVERPAID, but UNDERPAID! "Dumping" his salary is giving another team a productive player at below cost. While Biedrins isn't the best center in the league he is far from the worst when healthy (Remember Dampier and Foyle?) and his contract is hardly dead weight. Give him year to rebound into form and he'll go from salary dump to a legitimate trade chip that could get more in return than insurance money... that is if we still want to dump him.

BONUS: Just for those wondering how Biedrins stacks up using PER and Win Score. Using B-R.com this provides a smaller pool of "centers" compared to the Wins Produced Test Suite (listed at center vs play center at least 50% of time) so you can't directly compare it to the salary rankings listed above. However, again it shows when healthy Andris is in the top half of centers and arguably Top 7.

PER (center > 500 min according to B-R)

2006: 13.6 #25

2007: 16.2 #13

2008: 19.2 #4

2009: 19.1 #5

2010: 13 #26

WS (center > 500 min according to B-R)

2006: 2.9 #24

2007: 6.7 #6

2008: 8.0 #5

2009: 5.4 #14

2010: 1.6 #31

Thanks for the REC!