In the bottom line definition of how much a player is worth to a team, Andre Iguodala is a $12.9 million a year player.
However, there is no one definitive way to judge a player’s worth — not money, not points per game, not PER, not All-Star appearances, not rings. None of it alone defines a player, and the gray areas of this are what we fans like to argue about.
Iguodala is one of the players that can be hard to pinpoint an exact worth because he’s the ultimate glue guy. Yes, he’s athletic and can score (15.1 points a game career average) and shoot threes (33 percent for his career), he has handles and can make plays in transition, plus he’s one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. He doesn’t have to score to make you better.
In the same AP interview where Iguodala said the Warriors were shooting for more than 50 wins (as they should), he also said he was undervalued, for example in Denver (hat tip Ball Don’t Lie).
Iguodala gets some recognition — he’s been an All-Star and he has a gold medal. But is it as much as he deserves?
Denver had its best season last year and Iguodala as a glue guy who helped their defense was a key part of that.
Golden State also can be a great fit — this team has scoring, but Iguodala gives them another shot creator in the half court as well as a threat in transition. But mostly it’s defense that matters — Golden State wasn’t very good at it last season and if Iguodala and a healthy Andrew Bogut can change that the Warriors are a much bigger threat.
But Iguodala will still be underappreciated, because Stephen Curry’ll awe us all.
