Sixers: Overpaid or Underpaid, end of season edition

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(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /

The NBA is all about allocating your resources in the best way possible. On their path to the number one seed in the East, the Sixers used their resources as well as any team in the NBA. The Sixers stars performed at a high level, the rookie-scale players developed into contributing roles, and the veterans stabilized the rotation across the board.

The most important resource in the NBA is money. The average NBA team salary is $128 million and the average team will win 36 games in this shortened 72 game season. This means that each win is worth about $3.5 million. Because Embiid makes $29.5 million, he needs to contribute at least 8.3 wins to be worth his contract.

We can break this down even further. Using the same analysis from the equivalent midseason article, let’s take a look at how much each Sixer was overpaid or underpaid using Basketball Reference’s win shares.

Sixers contract value: Overpaid

Tobias Harris ($7.0 million overpaid)

While being $7 million overpaid may seem like a significant amount, this is actually very good value for Tobias Harris. Out of 21 players making at least $30 million, Harris’s $7 million overpaid is the sixth lowest. Basically, living up to a max contract is insanely difficult, but Harris came fairly close this season. If Tobias did not have to sit out a few games for nagging injuries and health and safety protocols, his value would look even better.

Also worth noting, only the Knicks and Hawks did not overpay a player by more than Harris’s value. The other 27 NBA teams have a contract worse than Tobias, and many are significantly worse. The Sixers have really done an amazing job avoiding crippling contracts.

Ben Simmons ($6.9 million overpaid)

Ben Simmons is making $29.5 million but is only worth about $22.6 million, still a strong number and around strong players like Jaylen Brown and Draymond Green. Win shares tend to struggle to measure perimeter defense, so Ben is certainly undervalued here. Still, Simmons will need to continue developing his offensive game to be worth a max contract.