Is Ryan Anderson a max player?

[Panic!]

Ryan Anderson is a specialist.

He's a quantity-plus-quality shooter, averaging better than two triples per game on 38-plus percent shooting in five of the last six seasons. To appreciate the significance of that combination, only Stephen Curry has matched that production (though the reigning MVP has done it during all six campaigns).

Adding to Anderson's appeal is the fact he stands 6'10". For teams that crave a floor-spacing big—which is basically every club that doesn't have one—the 27-year-old free-agent-to-be should be at or near the top of their wish list.

"Ryan Anderson is pretty close to the perfect stretch 4 for today's NBA," CBS Sports' Matt Moore wrote. "He's not a great defender, but he's an active rebounder, a smart guy and an absolutely disgustingly good shooter."

Anderson's strengths are clear, but so are his deficiencies. He's a turnstile defensively—ESPN.com's real plus-minus puts him 91st among 92 power forwards on that end—and he's only tallied over one assist per game during two of his eight big league seasons.

With 470 regular-season outings under his belt, it's unlikely his game will grow beyond its current limits. But given today's value on long-range shooting, one executive told Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times he "expects Ryan Anderson to be a max player this summer, just based on market."

It's hard to imagine a max price tag on a one-dimensional player, but Anderson might have the right dimension for the current climate.

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ates-for-the-2016-nba-free-agent-class/page/2

I don't think he's a max player.

But he'll probably get a 60M/4yrs contract.

 

[Stray32]

No, not a max player, but he will get paid a ton. Of course it only takes one team so it wouldn't surprise me

 

[Cloud 9]

No, Max player is absurd. But with the new TV deal set to kick in, I guess you have to look at it in terms of relativity. If everything's essentially doubling, then maybe they mean he gets a max type deal in terms of current cap structure. So if the new cap max is say like 30M, then yeah maybe he does get 15M cuz that's like giving him 7.5M under current/old structures. That's the only reasonable way I can potentially interpret this, cuz he's a glorified role player. He's very good at what he does, but that doesn't make sense for someone to max him based off the 1 proprietary skill he has, even if that 1 skill provides him with a positional mismatch. It's just bad for business IMO, the opportunity cost is not in the organizations favor if they make a move like that.

 

[BNC]

He'll get like $16-$18M a year this summer. Probably would have signed for about $12M last summer