Unbelievable advanced stat shows next level genius of Brad Stevens

There’s no perfect way to quantify how good an NBA executive is at their job, but one stat, shared recently by Bball Index, does a pretty good job of demonstrating how thoroughly Brad Stevens and the Celtics’ front office are dominating the league.

The stat utilized is LEBRON, or Luck-adjusted player Estimate using a Box prior Regularized ON-off. It has become a popular metric for measuring a player’s overall impact, and as the creators describe it in layman's terms: 

“LEBRON evaluates a player’s contributions using the box score (weighted using boxPIPM’s weightings stabilized using Offensive Archetypes) and advanced on/off calculations (using Luck-Adjusted RAPM methodology) for a holistic evaluation of player impact per 100 possessions on-court.”

Boston has best value contracts in the NBA by far

With the regular season ending on Sunday, Bball Index posted that during the 2025-26 season, seven players outperformed their salary by $30 million or more based on LEBRON; four budding stars on rookie contracts: Victor Wembanyama, Jalen Duren, Chet Holmgren, and Donovan Clingan, and three Boston Celtics: Payton Pritchard, Neemias Queta, and Derrick White.

Pritchard has one of the best bargain contracts in the league, making just $7.2 millio this year, which LEBRON had him outproducing by $34 million. Then there’s Queta, who is playing on a minimum deal but broke out as an above-average starting center, who overperformed by $32 million.

And perhaps the most remarkable player on the list, White, who makes $28.1 million this season, has still outproduced that number by $31 million. LEBRON isn’t a perfect stat, but it may be the best we have, and it’s amazing how much it illustrates the surplus of value on Boston’s roster.

Stevens and company have operated at another level when it comes to analyzing talent that will fit in their scheme, and developing those players, whether they be late draft picks like Pritchard, other teams’ castoffs like Queta, or undervalued trade targets like White.

Celtics finding value from every part of the roster

Everything the Celtics touch has turned to gold, and this stat proves that to a ridiculous degree. But the value up and down the roster goes well beyond these three players, who are driving home the message the most.

The Celtics have also gotten outstanding play from Sam Hauser on a cheap, $10.1 million deal, Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman, and Hugo Gonzalez, all on cheap rookie deals, Luka Garza, a minimum offseason free agent signing, and they even seem to have found a solid rotation player from a two-way contract with Ron Harper Jr.

Basketball games aren’t won on spreadsheets, but it’s obvious to anyone who follows the game that Stevens and his team are creating a massive advantage on the court by maximizing value better than any other team in the league.

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