To whom it may concern,
Good morning General Manager. I am reaching out to you to provide you with the report that you requested in your search for a few new players for the Washington Wizards roster. With my background in machine learning, I used a KMeans clustering algorithm on an extensive data set focused on player salaries and their performance metrics last year in order to formulate clear visualizations of who we should look into adding to the Washington Wizards franchise. Let me know what you think of my research!
This first graph illustrates a two color representation of the current salaries of NBA players and their average points per game last season. I believe that these two measurements will be key in determining the most undervalued players to look into. Points win games in the NBA, so looking for someone that is productive on offense can be a great first sign and from there we can look to see how they may fit into our exact offensive scheme.
The second graph is the same as the first one except it has a gradient color scheme that has 3 significant colors: dark blue, blue, and light blue. These three colors follow the salaries of the players so that we can visually see how appealing an player is strictly upon their current salary. Since cap room is always a looming issue, we want to make sure to get the most players for the least amount of money instead of spending the entire budget on one player who may or may not step up and succeed with us.
The third and final graph is my favorite and the one that I believe to be the most important in deciding which players to look into acquiring. This is a three dimensional representation of my research and has a color gradient to help designate players, on one axis the age of the player, one axis the salary of that player, and the other axis the average points per game last season for that player. The other two graphs depicted earlier in this report included points per game and salary, but I thought it would be helpful to include the age of a player as well since getting a younger player who may seem to be underpaid for their talents/performance could end up being more beneficial for us than paying $40,000,000 for someone who may retire in 5 years or less.
Ja Morant should be a player that we try extremely hard to get. He is an outlier in the sense that he is fresh out of college, one of the leading scorers in the NBA last year, and is still on a cheap rookie contract.
Anthony Edwards is another player that we should look at acquiring. He is also fresh out of college and is averaging welll over 20 points per game, and is also on a $10.7 million rookie contract.
Finally, RJ Barrett is the final player that we should look at immediately acquiring. He is also only a couple years out of college, averaging 20+ points per game, and is finishing up his $10.9 million rookie contract.
Cade Cunningham is a player that we should maybe be considering if one of our top choices falls through. He is coming off of an impressive rookie season, averaging 17.4 points per game, and is on a $10.5 million rookie contract.
Next on the list is DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan brings alot of offensive firepower to the table as he averages 27.9 points per game and is very consistent on the rest of his performance metrics. However, the downsides to DeRozan is that he is getting older so it may be unsafe to beat out his current $27.3 million contract due to him possibly retiring soon.
Finally, Jayson Tatum is the third player that I think we should maybe look into aquiring if one of our top choices falls through. Tatum is putting up 26.9 points per game and is consistent in his performance on all ends of the court. He is still quite young and should have many years left of his career in the NBA. The only downside to Tatum is that he is currently on a $30.35 contract with the Celtics which may be too much to worry about right now.
P.J. Tucker is first on my list of players that we should avoid at all costs. Tucker is one of the oldest active NBA players, and although he is only on a $10.49 million contract, he only averages 7.6 points per game which is just not acceptable for a franchise like us looking for young offensive firepower.
JaMychal Green is next on my list of players that we should stay away from. Green is slightly younger than Tucker and is also on a $10 million contract. In addition to that, he only has about 6.4 points per game to show for his team that is forking out that money. I do not see this as a financially intelligent decision.
Finally, on the list of players that I believe we should stay away from is Derrick Favors. Favors is slightly younger than Green and Tucker, is on a slightly more expensive contract than Green ($10.18 million) and is only averaging 5.3 points per game. With the lack of offense that Favors produces even after being in the NBA for several years, and the over ten million dollar contract he currently has, I do not see this as a good investment for the Wizards franchise.
Once again, General Manager I want to thank you for taking the time to read through this report and please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have after reading and analyzing this report. Have a great weekend!
Best regards, Alexander Williams