Hoopinion: Basketball Prospectus: Ranking the Free Agents

[Hawksquawk]

Regular readers might remember a post from February which discussed Kevin Pelton's projections for 2010 free agents, projections which suggested 16 potential free agents would be more productive over the next three seasons than Joe Johnson.

Pelton's updated those projections, adding the 2009-10 statistics for each player and having made adjustments to the projection system:

First, we've refined the process by which we use comparable players to project each player going forward, using larger groups of up to 50 players with a similarity score of 90 or higher to reduce the influence of any one comp. Second, our updated WARP formula (WARP 2, if you like) rewards players who can stretch the floor with their three-point shooting.

Those adjustments have improved the outlook for Joe Johnson. Previously projected at 7.1 WARP over the next three seasons, Johnson now projects to earn 10.9 WARP over the next three seasons. That's still a quarter of the projected production for LeBron James, a third of the projected production for Dwyane Wade, and less than half of the projected production for Chris Bosh (though Johnson's projects to produce two-and-a-half times that of John Salmons) but Johnson now, at least, projects to be better over the next three years than Paul Pierce, Ronnie Brewer, Brendan Haywood, and Shaquille O'Neal.

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