Is Dwyane Wade worth it for the Chicago Bulls?
— -- Going forward, how much is Dwyane Wade worth?
How much can he help the Chicago Bulls? Is this a good fit?
Evaluating Wade
While Wade stayed mostly healthy during 2015-16, playing 74 games -- his most since 2010-11, the first year of Miami's "Big Three" era -- his performance suffered. Across the board, Wade's advanced statistics were either career lows or his worst marks since his rookie season.
Notably, Wade was a far less efficient scorer, making a career-worst 46.8 percent of his 2-point attempts. No longer capable of getting to the basket for high-percentage finishes as frequently, Wade has increasingly had to rely on the in-between area from 3 to 16 feet to score.
In 2008-09, when Wade peaked by most value stats, 17.8 percent of his shots came from this range, according to Basketball-Reference.com. By last season, that figure had grown to 40.9 percent, and Wade sunk just 37.8 percent of those attempts.
Once, Wade provided both high volume and high efficiency, which made him one of the league's best scorers.
As he has aged, he has become a volume scorer in the pejorative sense -- a player who still uses a high percentage of his team's plays (31.6 percent last year, which ranked fifth in the league) but does so inefficiently. Wade's .517 true shooting percentage ranked 11th among the 12 players with usage rates of 30 percent or greater, ahead of only Kobe Bryant (.469).
Wade's ability to create shots does still seem to have value. The Miami offense was more efficient with Wade on the court during both the regular season and the playoffs, according to NBA.com/Stats, but the Heat played better overall with Wade out of the game because their defense improved so much.
Though that's partially a function of players like Josh Richardson and Justise Winslow coming off the bench, even after adjusting for teammates, ESPN's real plus-minus rated Wade in the bottom third of shooting guards defensively and as a below-average player overall.
Projecting Wade going forward
If Wade was possibly below average at age 34, what kind of performance should we expect by the end of a two-year contract, when he'll be 36? My SCHOENE projection system is not optimistic.
According to SCHOENE, the most similar player to Wade at the same age was Bryant during the season he ruptured his Achilles in April. If we throw Kobe out because his subsequent decline was accelerated due to the injury, the rest of the 10 players most similar to Wade averaged 7.0 wins above replacement player (WARP) at the same age as Wade was last season -- a little better than Wade's actual 6.0 WARP.
The following season, they declined to an average of 3.7 WARP, then 3.0 WARP in what would be Wade's age-36 season.
Even with prices escalating in free agency thanks to the rising salary cap, that kind of production wouldn't be worth Wade's asking price. Wade's projections are most similar to those for fellow shooting guard J.R. Smith, who remains on the market and is unlikely to make $50 million during the next two years.
Based on my estimate that each win (each WARP) will cost about $4.5 million in salary above the veteran's minimum this summer, Wade's projected production would be worth about $17.5 million in 2016-17 and about $14.5 million in 2017-18 -- a combined $32 million. Wade is getting a reported two-year, $47 million deal from Chicago.
Wade's fit with Bulls
It would be one thing for Miami to have offered Wade more money than he's likely to be worth on the court the next two seasons. Such an overpay would have compensated Wade for taking far less money each of the past two seasons than he could have commanded -- money he gave up to help the Heat manage free agency and their tax bill.
Justifying the cost for the Bulls is more difficult, particularly because Wade doesn't appear to fit very well with the rest of the roster.
A Wade return to his native Chicago makes little sense in the context of the Bulls agreeing to sign Rajon Rondo during the weekend. Even granting that Wade's cutting has forced defenses to guard him off the ball more than his dismal 3-point shooting would suggest, his desire to play with the ball in his hands could render Rondo useless on offense and negate what might be Jimmy Butler's best skill, creating his own shot.
Chicago has plenty of shot creation and needs more help at the defensive end of the floor, where Wade will further weaken its perimeter D.
Yet the Bulls pushed forward, apparently believing Wade would make them a better team this year and a more attractive free agent destination next summer. Consider me skeptical on both counts.
