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Best contract values in the NBA. Players producing elite stats on affordable deals represent the smartest investments in basketball.
Contract value in the NBA is about production relative to cost. Young stars on rookie-scale contracts provide enormous value because their salaries are fixed regardless of performance. A player averaging 25 PPG on a rookie deal is worth far more to a team than the same production from a max-contract veteran.
Our Value Score estimates production per dollar by weighting statistical output heavily while giving bonuses to younger players who are likely on cheaper contracts. This identifies players whose contributions far exceed their salary cap hit.
Young players on rookie contracts provide elite production at below-market rates. A 22-year-old All-Star earning $10M contributes far more value per dollar than a 30-year-old earning $40M for similar stats.
A steal is when a player significantly outperforms their salary. This happens most often with late draft picks who develop into stars, or veterans who signed team-friendly deals before breakout seasons.
We use age as a proxy for salary since actual salary data is not in our dataset. Younger players are on cheaper rookie-scale deals, making this a reasonable approximation.