It’s back despite absolutely no popular demand! The final installment of the 2015-16 Toronto Raptors player stock game. Cue the theme music and play along at home as we look in at how the player’s have changed their arbitrarily set prices from the start of the season. We’ll go over the rules again quickly, for a full refresher, check out the last edition of the game here.
The rules are as follows:
Efficiency matters:
Why? In the words of our fearless new national leader, “Because it’s 2015.” Efficient play can make up for your lack of playing time. Per 100 possessions is counted on more heavily than per game stats. Shooting 40% from 3 but not getting a wealth of opportunities to shoot is better for your stock price than scoring more points from 3 overall, but doing so while shooting 28%. That doesn’t mean traditional counting stats don’t matter for the game; of course they do. But they aren’t valued in a vacuum. A player’s shooting numbers are compared to league averages. If they shoot above, their price rises, below and they drop. The degree to which this effects your price is also tied to shot volume.
Minutes played matter:
You need to play to make a contribution. Not playing or being a big minutes guy that gets pulled in important or end of game situations speaks volumes about how the coaching staff evaluates that players performance and ability to contribute or hurt the team, often on a more nuanced level than most of us watching at home are educated or informed about behind the scenes details to perceive. They may also know about injury situations, team chemistry or conditioning issues that we as fans don’t know about, no matter how loud we scream James Johnson’s name. A big part of minutes mattering is, Injuries matter. Despite what magic the wizards of Phoenix’s world famous training staff appear to wield or what the thin-skinned World Champs might think, luck and chance play a major role here. Chance can dictate fate in sports, in the real stock market and in the rest of life. That’s just the way it goes. If a player tears an ACL or Achilles or a big man breaks his foot, that hurts his stock price bigger than if he just rolls an ankle or breaks a finger. Your stock is going to plummet, sorry. Have fun telling little Johnny how you blew his college fund thinking you were the Wolf of Wall Street. Injuries play a major role in determining a player’s real life value, that’s why so many NBA players in free agency this last summer scooped up whatever long term money was available instead of investing in themselves, playing a one or two year deal and then cashing in when the cap jumps up each of the next two seasons. They know much an injury, bad play or bad luck could harpoon that future price.
Starting is irrelevant:
Too many NBA players are too concerned about the ego of starting or coming off the bench and it sets team back with chemistry, balancing lineups and matching up with specific opponents. 2 points scored at the start of the second quarter count for the same 2 points that they do at the start of the first. Being a starter or a bench guy doesn’t influence your price. Would you have rather had James Harden when he came off the bench for the 2012 OKC Thunder or any team in the league’s 3rd or 4th starter? Andre Igoudala just won Finals MVP. Let’s be grown ups.
Awards matter:
Winning an Eastern Conference player of the week or player of the month has a big boost to a player’s value for that quarter. The same goes for all-star appearances or end of season awards.
At the end of the first quarter, a player’s value will go up or down based largely on where their numbers are now in relation to where they were last season. If they’ve improved, With each passing quarter, more weight will be given to comparing numbers in the most recent quarter with those of the completed quarters thus far in addition to last season. Play better; your stock value goes up. Go on a prolonged cold shooting steak, get benched, tear a rotator cuff or stop rebounding and your value plummets. Simple.
Kyle Lowry:
Mid-season: 43-41-88 shooting, 4.9 reb, 6.0 assists, 2.3 steals, 0.7 blocks, 21.3 points, 5.9 FTA 35.7 mins
Now: 43-38-81 shooting, 4.8 reb, 6.5 assists, 2.1 steals, 0.4 blocks, 21.5 points, 6.6 FTA, 37.2 mins
Lowry’s shooting efficiency numbers have slipped a little bit since December, but they haven’t fallen off a cliff. Making up for that, he’s also putting up half an assist more per game while getting nearly a full additional free throw every night. He’s playing more minutes, which might be the biggest surprise. He’s also been the January Eastern Conference co-player of the month and twice received the player of the week nod. Skinny Kyle Lowry has been the Apple of stocks, as it continues to rise and rise.
Old Price: $60 New Price: $80
DeMar DeRozan:
Mid-season: 43-24-84 shooting, 4.3reb, 4 assists, 1 steal, 0.3 blocks, 21.7 points, 8.3 FTA 36.2 mins
Now: 45-34-84 shooting, 4.4 reb, 4.4 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.3 blocks, 23.7 points, 8.6 FTA, 36.2 mins
The biggest surprise of the season for me has been DeRozan’s sudden willingness to shoot 3s, and knock them down at an acceptable rate. DeMar is having the best overall shooting efficiency stretch of his career in the second half of the season, all while mirroring almost exactly or even slightly improving upon his reliable production in every other category. Throw in that co-player of the month award for January with Kyle Lowry and DeMar’s value has ballooned up to near max contract level.
Old Price: $42 New Price: $75
DeMarre Carroll:
Mid-Season: 39-37-63 shooting, 5.1 reb, 1.3 assists, 1.9 steals, 0.2 blocks, 12.2 points, 34.2 mins
Now: N/A
Uh-oh. That make believe DeMarre Carroll purchase is going to end up costing you the hypothetical beach house you were all set to buy with your pretend Lowry and DeRozan investment. Rough. The rules of the game are clear that you have to play to have value, and Carroll has done an awful lot of none of that. Hopefully you diversified your portfolio; otherwise you might be living out of your car.
Old Price: $15 New Price: $1
Jonas Valanciunas:
Mid-Season: 55-78 shooting, 9.0 reb, 0.4 assists, 1.3 blocks, 11.8 points, 26.1 mins
Now: 56-76 shooting, 9.2 reb, 0.7 assists, 1.3 blocks, 12.8 points, 26.2 mins
Valanciunas’ mid-season stock value was hampered by missing games with his hand injury. Bouncing back as well as he has and not missing any more time boosts his price right away. Most of his numbers have been up in the second half of the season just by virtue of his slightly by noticeably increased involvement in the team offense. He’s been improved rebounding, beating up on increasingly small teams on the boards. But the most pleasant surprise of Valanciunas’ season has been the second half improvement in his assists. He’s not passing like Chris Webber out there, but he has actually been effectively passing. Recognizing open spot-up shooters when the double team collapses on him in the post and recognizing the occasional cutter. It’s been noticeable, and he’s almost double his (previously atrocious) assist rate. It all adds up to money made on the big man.
Old Price: $18 New Price: $25
Luis Scola:
Mid-season: 48-42-80 shooting, 9.2 points, 5 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.5 blocks, 0.6 steals, 23 mins
Now: 45-41-74 shooting, 8.8 points, 4.8 rebs, 0.9 assists, 0.4 blocks, 0.6 steals, 21.8 mins
Well, I guess the dream of the 50-40-90 Scola season didn’t come true. His shooting numbers have taken some expected drops, but the fact that he’s still shooting over 40% from deep on the season is crazy. Scola has hit more 3s this season than he’s even attempted in his 8 previous seasons combined. His production has tapered off ever so slightly, but he’s been reliable. His price isn’t going to maintain it’s inflated price when all of this looked crazy at mid-season, but he’s proven that he is more than capable of reliability in the role that the team is using him, meaning that his price won’t fall to anything nearly as low as the expert fat cats on fake Wall Street predicted that it would.
Old Price: $20 New Price: $17
That’s it for the starters. Come back for part 2, when we’ll look at the price breakdowns of the bench unit and add up all of the totals to see how much make believe money we all hypothetically did or didn’t make.
