I do recall this myth being repeated many times but I don't recall anyone actually diving into the numbers. Perhaps you can provide a link to such a thread. It would be an interesting read. In fact, this is the first time I've seen a thread that actually has the link to the article which makes sense since it doesn't support the myth, it actually debunks it.
About that article...
First off, anyone who says that "good teams spend 60% of the salary cap on their top 10 players" clearly didn't understand the article or statistics. It states that of the 224 team years between 2011-2017,
only 8 teams used 60% or more of their salary cap on the top 10 players. So that is only 3.6% of time and that the
average wins was only 5.5.
So not only do teams NOT spend 60%+ on only 10 players, when they do the teams generally suck hard.Note that the 11 win 2017 Rams is included in that 5.5 win average which brings the average for the other teams down. And the 2017 Rams are an anomaly since so many high impact players were on cheap rookie contracts - as made clear in the article.
So if you are going to take anything away from that article in relation to the 60% number it is DON'T DO IT. And especially don't spend 60% on only 8-9 people. YIKES.Going back to the first table in that article,
only 11.6% of teams spent 56-59% on the top 10. Their average wins were 9.2.
While 22.3% of teams (almost twice as many) spent only 52-55% with average wins of 8.9.
This is only .3 wins more, which is statistical noise with such a small sample size.20.5% of teams spent between 48-51% on the top 10 with averages wins of 8.3 - less than a 1 game difference between those that spent 56-59%.
Going down one more grouping 22.8% of teams spent between 44-47% with average wins of 8.0.
So there are two more take aways from that first table (other than don't spend 60% or more on only 10 players).
* Most teams, 65.6%, actually fall into the 44-55% range (only 15.1% of teams were at 56%+ with about 19.2% being below 44%).
* The difference in wins is in the range that most teams fall into is only 1.2.
Statistically speaking, between 8.0 and 9.2 wins is just barely above average considering that average wins across all teams is 8.
The second table is more interesting and tells you more about where the "good" teams fall, using 10 wins as a measure for a "good" team.
13-15 win teams averaged 52.5%
11-12 win teams averaged about 50.4%
10 win teams averaged 51.8%
Again, there is some statistical noise here as we would expect the 11-12 win teams to have spent more than the 10 win teams. But what it does tell us is that
"good" teams actually fall into a fairly narrow range of 50.4-52.5%.Finally, your two examples of Carolina and Seattle use 2019 numbers. These examples are invalid because the rosters and final contracts are not set. Looking at those same two teams from last year, Carolina (7-9) comes in at 52.4% and Seattle (10-6) at 47.9%.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2019 05:16AM by CeeZar.
