Malik Monk

Worth is what his projected DRBL wins would cost on the open market. We count wins above a minimum-salary player in the same minutes and price them at what teams paid per DRBL win from 2020-21 to 2025-26: 9.8% of the cap, about $16.2M in 2026-27.

Projections weight his last 3 seasons 3, 2 and 1, newest first, and pull toward what players at his salary usually produce, then adjust for age. Playing time comes from recent minutes, age and salary, since teams play the players they pay. A season lost to injury still pulls the playing time down.

Surplus is worth minus salary. A team can always bench a player, so worth never drops below the minimum salary. A player option leaves the team only the downside, because he walks when he could earn more. A team option or a non-guaranteed year leaves only the upside.

To test it, we refit the model three times, each with only the seasons through 2022-23, 2023-24 or 2024-25, valued what players were actually paid afterward, and compared with what they did. The typical miss the next season was 0.91 wins, against 1.09 for assuming a player repeats his last season. Three seasons out it was 1.18 wins, against 1.54. 12% of players beat the top of the range. Fewer than 2% fell below the bottom, since worth can't drop under the minimum salary.

Cap figures after 2026-27 assume 5.8% growth a year, the recent average. The percentile compares total surplus across the 407 current contracts we can estimate.