3 ways to estimate how much Miles Bridges should be paid this offseason
By Mat Issa
(User note: In this article, we will strictly be discussing Miles Bridges' value from an on-court perspective. I do not in any way condone any of his past behaviors.)
With the first day of free agency quickly approaching (June 30), I wanted to kick off a new series looking at how much potential players the Sacramento Kings could be targeting should be paid based on their past/future production.
In this series, I am going to look at three different methods (one on each slide) for estimating how much a player should be making next season. To some degree, all of these approaches are similar to the calculus front offices are doing when they are trying to ascertain the value of a particular player. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the first installment of this series on De'Anthony Melton.
Today, we will be doing the same exercise for Miles Bridges. As I mentioned in a recent article, Bridges could be a strong option for the Kings to use their Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level (which is worth about 12.9 million dollars) on if they can't retain Malik Monk (one of the best combo guards in basketball).
Bridges gives the Kings some functional size that their current front court is sorely lacking. Plus, Sacramento can look to replace Monk's on-ball creation through the 2024 NBA Draft or via trades. But before we get into all that, we must first figure out just how much a player of Bridges' caliber is worth. Let's go through our three methods for projecting player value and find out.
(Sidebar #1: For those wondering, I have actually conducted this exercise for Malik Monk. That article can be found here.)
Method #1: A Revised Version of Seth Partnow’s Formula
In his book, “The Midrange Theory,” NBA analyst for The Athletic and former Director of Basketball Research for the Milwaukee Bucks, Seth Partnow, discusses a formula that teams use to estimate a player’s monetary value.
In its essence, the formula involves multiplying how many points a player is “worth” by the amount a win “costs” in a given season. Unfortunately, Real-Adjusted Plus-Minus (RAPM) — a major component in the formula — is no longer available. So, I've revised Partnow’s formula a bit.
The website Dunks & Threes has a statistic called Estimated Wins (EW). Last season, Bridges had 4.4 EWs. Next year, with the salary cap being estimated to be around 141 million dollars (per Spotrac), a single win will “cost” roughly 3.4 million dollars. Based on those two numbers, Bridges should make about 15 million dollars next season (roughly 10.7% of the salary cap).
So, in a similar ballpark to the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level. Remember, that 12.9 million dollar mark is the highest the Kings can offer this offseason to a free agent (also, they can only use it if Monk walks).