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Abstract

an his brother, and his 48/43/85 slash line in 2000+ minutes may leave him just a few free throws short of joining the vaunted 50/40/90 group. He’s averaging almost 15ppg since the turn of the calendar.</p><h2 id="93f6">F James Johnson, Miami — $4m</h2><p id="6bff">JJ is having one of the all time out-of-nowhere seasons. At age 29, he suddenly broke out to the tune of 12+ points, 3+ assists, and 5 boards a game off the bench for a resurgent Heat team. Those are all career highs, and he’s added a 36% shot from downtown this year too. Johnson’s just as valuable on defense, where he’s one of twelve players in the league with a steal and a block per game. Add all that to <a href="https://readmedium.com/whats-the-best-nba-nickname-sweet-16-to-championship-a711007817d4">a bamf nickname Bloodsport</a>, an allusion to his 20-0 lifetime kickboxing record. James Johnson switched teams six times in the last six years. Now he’s a legitimate candidate for both Most Improved and 6th Man of the Year at age 29. Incredible.</p><h2 id="9543">F JaMychal Green, Memphis —$ 980k</h2><p id="7122">The average NBA fan probably hasn’t even heard of JaMychal Green, let alone knows that he is the starting power forward in Memphis, not Zach Randolph. Green’s nine points and seven boards in 27 minutes don’t look like anything special, but it’s his 37% three pointer that really opens up the Memphis offense providing spacing next to Gasol that Z-Bo just can’t give. He’s also allowed Z-Bo to dominate second units as a go-to bench scorer, a bonus hidden value and all for under a million dollars. Green was a Spur only two years ago. Could he be a thorn in their side in this year’s playoffs?</p><h2 id="8e66">C Dewayne Dedmon, San Antonio — $2.9m</h2><p id="6228">By advanced metrics, Dewayne Dedmon is the best defender on the best defensive team in the league. Of course Kawhi Leonard is the more valuable individual defender, but Dedmon’s 98-points-per-100-possessions defensive rating is tops in the league and he’s by far the best Spurs big man defender with Pau Gasol and David Lee the other options. Not enough? Dedmon also has the best <i>offensive</i> rating on the Spurs at 124, and he’s top five in the league in true shooting percentage. Dewayne Dedmon has been the second most valuable San Antonio Spur this season.</p><div id="d816" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/you-should-listen-to-sports-podcasts-15-youll-probably-love-ede95f70db10"> <div> <div> <h2>You Should Listen to Sports Podcasts: 15 You’ll Probably Love</h2> <div><h3>Sports are even better with friends — so try a new podcast!</h3></div> <div><p></p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*mWMuIAEFmeESUDivnEha2g.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><h1 id="6622">Tim Duncan All-Star Bench</h1><h2 id="b710">G Yogi Ferrell, Dallas —$ 307k</h2><p id="a980">Dallas gets two guards on the TD All Stars, and both of them are still signed for next season, too. Ferrell is a rookie, but he was undrafted and signed off a pair of ten-day contracts so he’s not really on a “rookie” deal. He played ten games early in the season for the Nets but they couldn’t find any use for him so Dallas threw him into their starting lineup to the tune of 11 points and 4 assists a game with a surprising 42% three-point shot to boot. All that for just 1.4% of the cost three different NBA teams are combining to pay the man Ferrell replaced in the starting lineup, Deron Williams.</p><h2 id="56d3">G Dion Waiters, Miami — $2.9m</h2><p id="a509">By efficiency numbers, Waiters Island is probably the worst player on this team, and it’s the same “probably” as how Dion Waiters “probably” thinks he’s the best player on the court at all times. Plus he’s missed 30 games. But he’s also provided an immense amount of fun for fans all season playing at the veteran minimum, and he’s averaging 16/4/3 with a career-best 39% shot from downtown. You can’t put a price on entertainment.</p><h2 id="10a

Options

1">G Will Barton, Denver — $3.5m</h2><p id="9c5f"><a href="https://readmedium.com/whats-the-best-nba-nickname-sweet-16-to-championship-a711007817d4">The People’s Champ</a> is still under contract this cheap another season, and he remains one of the league’s best bench weapons. He’s the sort of player that’s a B- at everything on both ends of the court, and this year he’s added a career-high 37% shot from downtown and 3 and a half dimes per game. He’s one of many criminally underpaid Nuggets and might have stolen Jameer Nelson’s spot on the Tim Duncan All Stars.</p><h2 id="a63e">F Joe Ingles, Utah —$ 2.1m</h2><p id="e6da">Joe Ingles might be the most fun white player in the league, which is a tough break for Gordon Hayward who can’t even win the award on his own team. Ingles’s 7 points, 2 and a half assists, and 3 boards per game doesn’t look like much, but that really undersells his value to the Jazz as a playmaker and shooter off the bench. He’s second in the entire league at 44% from downtown, over 60% true shooting. Ingles is a legitimate 6th Man of the Year candidate, even though he probably won’t pick up many votes.</p><h2 id="dde8">F Kyle O’Quinn, New York — $3.9m</h2><p id="a8d6">O’Quinn is a must-have on this squad, even if his own team is too dumb to give him minutes. K.O. averages 15 points and 13 boards per 36 minutes, but the horrible Knicks can only find 15 minutes a game for him for some reason. He’s a good defender and has a 20.7 PER, among the top 40 players in the league. O’Quinn leads New York in both offense and defensive rating. Maybe they should’ve just played him instead of flushing$ 72 million on Joakim Noah.</p><h2 id="6543">F Alan Williams, Phoenix — $875k</h2><p id="b6c0">Big Sauce was in the D-League as recently as December, but it’s hard to figure out why. The guy is putting up 17 points and 15 rebounds per 36 minutes but can barely stay on the court. It’s the rebounds that really catch one’s eye — Williams has the sixth best rebounding rate in the NBA behind only Andre Drummond, Boban Marjanovic, Hassan Whiteside, DeAndre Jordan, and Dwight Howard. Guess that’s why they call him Beast Warrior.</p><h2 id="f054">C JaVale McGee, Golden State —$ 1.4m</h2><p id="9218">Shaqtin a Fool aside, JaVale McGee is quietly having a really strong season off the bench for the Warriors. He only plays ten minutes a game, but his numbers extrapolate to 23 points and 12 boards per 36 minutes. On a team with four superstars, McGee has the second best defensive rating and the third best offensive rating. His 24.6 PER is 15th in the entire NBA, tied with a teammate that happens to be the defending MVP. McGee represents Ian Clark, Matt Barnes, Zaza Pachulia, and David West for the Warriors here. You can sign the whole quintet for $7.2 million.</p><h2 id="dfe0">C Nene Hilario, Houston —$ 2.9m</h2><p id="7229">Nene is finally healthy for the first time in six seasons (knock on wood). He’s hitting 63% of his twos, 13th in the league even if it’s only third on his own team behind Clint Capela and Montrezl Harrell, both still on rookie deals. The trio comprise an uber-efficient big rotation that plays tough versatile defense while rolling to the rim for easy dunks and lay-ins when opponents race out to cover the three-point line. Nene is also the best defender on a surprisingly passable Houston defense. He gets the last slot over a slew of other cheap useful bigs like Cristiano Felicio, Willie Reed, Mo Speights, and others.</p><figure id="b93a"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*x_2CMe_sahwLoLc4T-koBA.gif"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><p id="6c60"><i>Thanks as always to <a href="undefined">Basketball Reference,</a> second only to oxygen among daily necessities. If you enjoyed this, please recommend by clicking the ❤ so others can too. Follow Brandon <a href="https://upscri.be/6e365d/">on Medium</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/wheatonbrando">@wheatonbrando</a> for more sports, humor, pop culture, & life musings. Visit the rest of Brandon’s <a href="https://readmedium.com/brandon-anderson-writing-archives-6b3ee1a29301#.6cteu050v">writing archives here</a>.</i></p></article></body>

The 2016–17 Tim Duncan All Stars

Who are the best bargain players in the NBA this season?

For years, Tim Duncan took a below-market-value contract for the Spurs despite putting up mirror image per-36 numbers every year for two decades. Last season he made only $5 million after just $10 million each of the three years prior, a steal for a guy still among the very best in the league when he stepped on the court. His value to San Antonio these past years has been just as much off the court as on. Signing that cheap deal allowed the Spurs to keep Danny Green around and bring in LaMarcus Aldridge.

But Duncan isn’t the only one giving up money for the betterment of his team. Dirk Nowitzki did the same thing for Dallas the past couple years before getting rewarded with a max $25 million deal this season. Manu Ginobili took only $2.8 million last year and has made $125 million his entire career. Would you rather pay for an entire Hall of Fame career or just four years of Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng? You still have $12 million left if you picked Ginobili.

And thus was born the Tim Duncan All-Star team. In a salary cap league, every dollar matters. Superstars will always be king, but any successful NBA team will have to hit on cheap veteran deals to reach the highest heights. There are two simple qualifications to be a Tim Duncan All Star:

You must make $5 million or less this season.
No rookie deals allowed. Any good young player on his first contract is especially valuable, but we already know Karl-Anthony Towns and Nikola Jokic are really good so that’s no fun.

Many of the players below will be free agents this summer and should get a big raise on their next contract. That was the case for some of last year’s Tim Duncan All Stars like Hassan Whiteside, Evan Turner, Kent Bazemore, and Bismack Biyombo. One season’s bargain is the next year’s overpaid veteran if you’re not careful.

This year’s Tim Duncan All-Star starting lineup makes under $14 million combined, yet they may have made the playoffs in the East. The entire 13-man roster makes under $32 million. In fact, you can cut Barton, Waiters, and Nene off the bench and still have a nice 10-man squad for the small price of just 675 minutes of Chandler Parsons.

So who all is on the 2016–17 Tim Duncan All Stars?

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Tim Duncan All-Star Starting Lineup

G Patty Mills, San Antonio — $3.2m

Mills is the unofficial starting point guard (RIP Tony) of the second best team in the league. He leads the Spurs in three pointers, making 41% of them, and he’s only a dozen assists away from leading the team there too — all this for a 60-win team that remains among the league’s best at shooting and moving the ball. Mills has made under $14 million total in six years in the league. He should get more than that per year as a free agent this summer… so don’t be surprised when he signs that 3-year $40m extension to stay in San Antonio.

G Seth Curry, Dallas — $2.9m

The “other” Curry has had himself a pretty fine season for a guy who got only nine starts from Sacramento, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Memphis the past two years. He’s hitting 43% of his threes, even better than his brother, and his 48/43/85 slash line in 2000+ minutes may leave him just a few free throws short of joining the vaunted 50/40/90 group. He’s averaging almost 15ppg since the turn of the calendar.

F James Johnson, Miami — $4m

JJ is having one of the all time out-of-nowhere seasons. At age 29, he suddenly broke out to the tune of 12+ points, 3+ assists, and 5 boards a game off the bench for a resurgent Heat team. Those are all career highs, and he’s added a 36% shot from downtown this year too. Johnson’s just as valuable on defense, where he’s one of twelve players in the league with a steal and a block per game. Add all that to a bamf nickname Bloodsport, an allusion to his 20–0 lifetime kickboxing record. James Johnson switched teams six times in the last six years. Now he’s a legitimate candidate for both Most Improved and 6th Man of the Year at age 29. Incredible.

F JaMychal Green, Memphis — $980k

The average NBA fan probably hasn’t even heard of JaMychal Green, let alone knows that he is the starting power forward in Memphis, not Zach Randolph. Green’s nine points and seven boards in 27 minutes don’t look like anything special, but it’s his 37% three pointer that really opens up the Memphis offense providing spacing next to Gasol that Z-Bo just can’t give. He’s also allowed Z-Bo to dominate second units as a go-to bench scorer, a bonus hidden value and all for under a million dollars. Green was a Spur only two years ago. Could he be a thorn in their side in this year’s playoffs?

C Dewayne Dedmon, San Antonio — $2.9m

By advanced metrics, Dewayne Dedmon is the best defender on the best defensive team in the league. Of course Kawhi Leonard is the more valuable individual defender, but Dedmon’s 98-points-per-100-possessions defensive rating is tops in the league and he’s by far the best Spurs big man defender with Pau Gasol and David Lee the other options. Not enough? Dedmon also has the best offensive rating on the Spurs at 124, and he’s top five in the league in true shooting percentage. Dewayne Dedmon has been the second most valuable San Antonio Spur this season.

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Tim Duncan All-Star Bench

G Yogi Ferrell, Dallas — $307k

Dallas gets two guards on the TD All Stars, and both of them are still signed for next season, too. Ferrell is a rookie, but he was undrafted and signed off a pair of ten-day contracts so he’s not really on a “rookie” deal. He played ten games early in the season for the Nets but they couldn’t find any use for him so Dallas threw him into their starting lineup to the tune of 11 points and 4 assists a game with a surprising 42% three-point shot to boot. All that for just 1.4% of the cost three different NBA teams are combining to pay the man Ferrell replaced in the starting lineup, Deron Williams.

G Dion Waiters, Miami — $2.9m

By efficiency numbers, Waiters Island is probably the worst player on this team, and it’s the same “probably” as how Dion Waiters “probably” thinks he’s the best player on the court at all times. Plus he’s missed 30 games. But he’s also provided an immense amount of fun for fans all season playing at the veteran minimum, and he’s averaging 16/4/3 with a career-best 39% shot from downtown. You can’t put a price on entertainment.

G Will Barton, Denver — $3.5m

The People’s Champ is still under contract this cheap another season, and he remains one of the league’s best bench weapons. He’s the sort of player that’s a B- at everything on both ends of the court, and this year he’s added a career-high 37% shot from downtown and 3 and a half dimes per game. He’s one of many criminally underpaid Nuggets and might have stolen Jameer Nelson’s spot on the Tim Duncan All Stars.

F Joe Ingles, Utah — $2.1m

Joe Ingles might be the most fun white player in the league, which is a tough break for Gordon Hayward who can’t even win the award on his own team. Ingles’s 7 points, 2 and a half assists, and 3 boards per game doesn’t look like much, but that really undersells his value to the Jazz as a playmaker and shooter off the bench. He’s second in the entire league at 44% from downtown, over 60% true shooting. Ingles is a legitimate 6th Man of the Year candidate, even though he probably won’t pick up many votes.

F Kyle O’Quinn, New York — $3.9m

O’Quinn is a must-have on this squad, even if his own team is too dumb to give him minutes. K.O. averages 15 points and 13 boards per 36 minutes, but the horrible Knicks can only find 15 minutes a game for him for some reason. He’s a good defender and has a 20.7 PER, among the top 40 players in the league. O’Quinn leads New York in both offense and defensive rating. Maybe they should’ve just played him instead of flushing $72 million on Joakim Noah.

F Alan Williams, Phoenix — $875k

Big Sauce was in the D-League as recently as December, but it’s hard to figure out why. The guy is putting up 17 points and 15 rebounds per 36 minutes but can barely stay on the court. It’s the rebounds that really catch one’s eye — Williams has the sixth best rebounding rate in the NBA behind only Andre Drummond, Boban Marjanovic, Hassan Whiteside, DeAndre Jordan, and Dwight Howard. Guess that’s why they call him Beast Warrior.

C JaVale McGee, Golden State — $1.4m

Shaqtin a Fool aside, JaVale McGee is quietly having a really strong season off the bench for the Warriors. He only plays ten minutes a game, but his numbers extrapolate to 23 points and 12 boards per 36 minutes. On a team with four superstars, McGee has the second best defensive rating and the third best offensive rating. His 24.6 PER is 15th in the entire NBA, tied with a teammate that happens to be the defending MVP. McGee represents Ian Clark, Matt Barnes, Zaza Pachulia, and David West for the Warriors here. You can sign the whole quintet for $7.2 million.

C Nene Hilario, Houston — $2.9m

Nene is finally healthy for the first time in six seasons (knock on wood). He’s hitting 63% of his twos, 13th in the league even if it’s only third on his own team behind Clint Capela and Montrezl Harrell, both still on rookie deals. The trio comprise an uber-efficient big rotation that plays tough versatile defense while rolling to the rim for easy dunks and lay-ins when opponents race out to cover the three-point line. Nene is also the best defender on a surprisingly passable Houston defense. He gets the last slot over a slew of other cheap useful bigs like Cristiano Felicio, Willie Reed, Mo Speights, and others.

Thanks as always to Basketball Reference, second only to oxygen among daily necessities. If you enjoyed this, please recommend by clicking the ❤ so others can too. Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, & life musings. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here.