Which Suns are Over, Underpaid? Real Value Assesses Contracts

HoopsHype's advanced metric helps determine which players are over and underpaid according to their contracts.

With team success comes a large amount of money, and the Phoenix Suns are no strangers to that. 

The core players that have helped reinvigorate basketball in the Valley (Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges) are set to make a combined $114.14 million during the 2022-23 season.

As it stands, the Suns are set to enter the luxury tax for just the fifth time in franchise history. 

With any large sum of money, talk will be had on which players are either over or underpaid for their respective efforts. HoopsHype created an advanced metric called "real value". 

How Real Valued is Defined

Here's HoopsHype's definition of the metric:

"Valuing every player in the league, no matter if they are under contract or free agents, is one of the most important duties for NBA execs around the NBA. To bring that knowledge to you without having to ask your favorite GM, we introduce Real Value, a new statistical measure to calculate the market value of every NBA player.

"Using Global Rating as the main performance metric, Real Value takes into account the productivity of each player from the last three seasons, giving extra value to the official NBA games played in the last 365 days. That includes regular season, play-in and playoffs. With that base, we calculate how that would translate to the “deserved” average salary per year.

"Also factoring into Real Value: A player’s age, availability, defensive performance and off-court issues. For example, if a player gets admonished by his team due to detrimental conduct, it will be directly reflected in his value. Our NBA insider Michael Scotto will help us with direct insight from executives, coaches and scouts around the league to make Real Value as accurate as possible."

Unsurprisingly, superstars dominate the top of the list. Guys such as Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic top the list for the upcoming season. 

Using the "best value" table that takes their real value metric and compares it to their 2022-23 salary, here are the Suns who are currently marked as undervalued/underpaid compared to their current deal:

Best Valued Suns 

SG Devin Booker

NBA Rank: 12

2022-23 Salary: $33.83 million

Real Value: $62.46 million

Difference: +$28.62 million

Booker finished as the highest ranked Suns player on the list, landing just above Desmond Bane and right behind Jordan Poole. 

PG Chris Paul

NBA Rank: 34

2022-23 Salary: $28.4 million

Real Value: $40.51 million

Difference: +$12.1 million

Paul is the second-highest ranked Suns player on the list, barely eclipsed by Kevin Durant and ahead of freshly paid Jalen Brunson. 

SF Mikal Bridges

NBA Rank: 37

2022-23 Salary: $20.1 million

Real Value: $31.7 million 

Difference: +$11.61 million

Bridges ranks as No. 3 for Phoenix players in terms of best value. He finishes just over Immanuel Quickley and one spot behind RJ Barrett. 

PF Cameron Johnson

NBA Rank: 45

2022-23 Salary: $5.88 million

Real Value: $14.74 million

Difference: +$8.85 million

Johnson is the fourth-best Suns player in terms of contract value, finishing behind Fred VanVleet and one spot above Bobby Portis. 

C Deandre Ayton

NBA Rank: 108

2022-23 Salary: $30.91 million

Real Value: $33.6 million

Difference: +$2.69 million

Ayton is the fifth and final starter for the Suns on this list, finishing behind Cam Thomas and just above Trendon Watford. 

Just About Right Valued Suns

There's always going to be some difference when it comes to exact monetary value. For this category, we're using a difference of $2 million or less on either end of the spectrum. 

Cameron Payne: +$1.49 million 

Duane Washington Jr.: +$1.12 million 

Josh Okogie: +$967,148 

Damion Lee: +$626,480

Jock Landale: +$74,448

Ishmail Wainright: $0 

Bismack Biyombo: -$38,892

Worst Valued Suns

These are the players deemed overpaid by the Real Value metric. For reference, Russell Westbrook was ranked as the worst player based on his current salary. 

Jae Crowder: -$2.80 million 

Torrey Craig: -$3 million 

Landry Shamet: -$3.97 million 

Dario Saric: -$4.96 million 

In short, there’s little to complain about when it comes to Phoenix’s spending. 

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