The league spent $3.75 billion on player salaries this year, and a replacement-level player would command the veteran’s minimum of $1,618,520. Work backward and overall, a player who was 1 point per 100 possessions above replacement level (say, Landry Shamet or Langston Galloway) was worth $3,183 more than the minimum for every minute he played. Such a player playing 1,000 minutes over the course of the season was worth just less than $5 million. The most valuable player based on this was (duh) Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose production this year was worth $63.75 million in my methodology. I didn’t use negative values for players — the vast majority of the most terrible players are rookies or developmental players who are holding down roster spots for future purposes. For the curious, the two least valuable by this metric were both 20-year-old guards — Cleveland’s Darius Garland and Portland’s Anfernee Simons.
