Of course, if you replace some NBA player who never plays with a G-Leaguer, it won’t affect the quality of league play. But 2/3 of players on NBA rosters usually see reasonable playing time during a season (eight to ten players are in a regular rotation and then injuries add numbers to this). That leave only 5 players per team you could change with a D-Leaguer and have no effect. So you can’t change half the players in the NBA without actually affecting who plays. I guess you could claim that NBA bench warmers are the actual “replacement players” in the NBA (which would be far from the original definition), but, from the statistics I looked at, probably all of them are in the negative as far as VORP goes. If the numerical value of a “replacement player” is significantly below zero, then it’s still labeled in a basically lying way as far as I am concerned.

I will also comment that I didn’t say that you could replace half the players in the league with G leaguers and not see a change. That is a complete mis-statement of what I said. I said that the literal reading of the name of the stat would suggest you could do this.

If KL plays 78 games this season, plays up to par for his career on offense and defense, that would be good enough for me to determine whether health would be a factor in offering him a four year max deal.

Hmmmm… While every sane fan and NBA Executive loves KL, guess who played 78 games his first season with the Knicks at a plus all-star level before falling into rapid decline with a serious injury history (and KL’s injury has to be deemed serious) and maybe/probably chronic……

I’ve never heard of a professional athlete missing 5 months with just a quad injury.

If KL plays 78 games this season, plays up to par for his career on offense and defense, that would be good enough for me to determine whether health would be a factor in offering him a four year max deal. Obviously injuries happen, but that’s the risk with guaranteed contracts in professional sports.

Considering KP isn’t going to back until sometime in 2019, I think 78 games this season might be a stretch unless he pulls a lazarus and is ready on opening night. Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment.

That is, literally half of NBA players have a VORP of zero or below

This isn’t surprising. VORP is a counting stat, so even good players can have very low VORPs if they never play. Your conclusion that half the league could be replaced with G-Leaguers to improve is a misreading of the data. If the G-Leaguers replaced end-of-bench minutes, you wouldn’t see much of a difference at all.

It’s not surprising that Porzingis rates higher (in VORP percentile) than most other NBA players — few players are allowed to play as much as he does.