With the prospect of Hill leaving UTA next year or, possibly, getting overpaid to stay, I decided to look at the recent gap between Hill and Exum. Exum has played in 21 games since Feb. 1 (Hill 18) – that is a decent sample size.

Here are per 36 min numbers (yeah, yeah, I already hear the criticism):

Hill 3.4 reb, 4.6 ast, 2.0 tov, 1.2 stl, 0.3 blk, 2.7 pf, 18.7 pts, 5.4 3PA, 5.2 FTA, 48% FG, 41% 3P, 80% FT

Exum 4.2 reb, 3.4 ast, 3.4 tov, 0.8 stl, 0.2 blk, 4.4 pf, 16.0 pts, 4.0 3PA, 3.6 FTA, 49% FG, 33% 3P, 78% FT

Bambi needs to decrease TOVs and PFs and increase AST but otherwise compares favorably. Well, Exum may never match Hill’s 3PAs and 3P%, so that’s a substantial deficiency. Might Exum shoot 35% from 3 at some point?

Turning to team performance, Exum compares even more favorably! Since Feb. 1:

Hill 574 minutes OffRtg 109.3 DefRtg 101.4 Net +7.9

Exum 358 minutes OffRtg 106.4 DefRtg 101.5 Net +4.9

Hill with Gobert and Hayward (397 mins) +13.9

Exum with Gobert and Hayward (171mins) +13.1

Hill with Gobert, Ingles and Hayward (248 mins) +13.0

Exum with Gobert, Ingles and Hayward (72 mins) +22.0

Hill with Gobert, Johnson and Hayward (164 mins) +10.5

Exum with Gobert, Johnson and Hayward (61 mins) +17.8

I want DL to re-sign Hill. He has made an undeniable difference in UTA’s winning performance and has fantastic advanced numbers (until recently one of about 15 players with PER >20, WS/48 >0.2, and BPM >4). He makes Hayward better. I think he is worth $20-25M/year. But if NYK et al. offer him anything approaching a max deal, I regretfully think it will be time to let him walk. Roll the dice, instead, on the skinny joey who used to hide in the corner.