Who Is The Most Average Player In The NBA?

How often do you hear fans complain that a player on his favorite team is a bust? Or he sucks. Or he just doesn’t contribute. This kind of criticism bothers me since any player who makes it to the NBA is one of the top 400 players in the world. Of course, some players never find their best situation and never reach their potential, but it shouldn’t take away from what they’ve accomplished just making the NBA.

What I set out to do was look at the average player. What does the average player at each position look like? If we could go into Frankenstein’s lab, grab various body parts, and stitch them together, what kind of production would you expect from the average Small Forward?

And how about if we looked at the average salary at each position and compared it to the players who most closely resembled our FrankenAverage Player? All of a sudden, a player who we thought sucked ends up being very average — not good, but not bad. And perhaps his salary is lower than the average salary at that position, making him an overall value.

So this is what we did: With the help of Arturo Galletti’s expert number crunching machine (elves?), we computed the exact average production for all five positions. Granted, we are slowly moving more towards positionless basketball, where point guards score more and small forwards play the 4. But to keep it simple, we calculated a player’s position using Basketball Reference’s position data, which is why you’ll see Avery Bradley in the point guard group, and Terrence Jones at center.

From this, wesee that Jordan Clarkson’s numbers were closest to the average point guard data, and as a rookie at this tough position, this was a revelation that earned him All-Rookie 1st Team honors. Factor in his low rookie salary, and he’s an absolute bargain — in fact, he’s among the best values of any of the backcourt players.

On the flip side, Avery Bradley made the most money out of the 10 most average point guards, which means he’s making over $3.5 million more than the average salary. As the Celtics begin their ascent as a power in the East, they will certainly expect his production to improve, or realize they’ve got a problematic contract on their hands. That said, he makes up for his offensive shortcomings with stellar defense at a key position.

To read the rest of this article, visit our website HERE