Hollinger: The 10 NBA free-agent contracts that look the worst right now由卡哇伊爱小西瓜 发表在ClipsNation https://bbs.hupu.com/672
Winning in free agency is hard. Really hard.
This is the thing fans miss in the excitement of free agency. The possibilities of cap space are exciting, but in the absence of a sure-thing superstar, signing a contract that generates value comparable to the pay is actually really difficult.
Part of this is the economics theorem called “winner’s curse” that I’ve mentioned in previous columns – in a multi-bidder scenario, the team that wins the bidding on a player is the one that most badly overestimates his value. But in addition, the NBA offers a second level of difficulty – free agent deals are already the hardest contacts to “win” on because most of the surplus contract value is in rookie deals and extensions signed off of them.
Some teams were able to overcome that issue, as my piece on the best values in free agency showed, but today it’s time to look at the flip side: The worst free-agent contracts currently in circulation.
Before we start, let’s go over the ground rules one more time.
First of all, we’re talking about free agency and not any other type of contract. For that reason we won’t be listing extensions here, which takes several stinkers off the list – you won’t be seeing names like John Wall, Andrew Wiggins, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon or CJ McCollum in the list below.
Also, since we’re focusing on bad free-agent decisions, I left out situations where a player’s remaining season or two on a contract might not project to deliver value, but previous seasons had. That would exclude the likes of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and Mike Conley, who are entering the back end of long-term free-agent deals that have already delivered hugely positive returns to the teams that signed them.
Finally, I want to set aside a few injury cases. In particular, your feelings on the contracts of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving depend in large part on how much you think they can stay on the court. Each would need to play over 2,000 minutes at an All-Star-ish level over the coming three seasons to justify what they’re making, and we’ll just have to see if they’re capable of doing it.
However, that still leaves several contracts with significant likely negative equity going forward. Once again, I’ve used my player valuation method outlined in the best free agents piece to help guide us; you can find a description there.
With that said, here are the 10 free-agent contracts that look the worst going forward:
1
Klay Thompson
Warriors
4 years, $157M
-$108M
Signing Thompson to a five-year max in the summer of 2019 would have been a risky-to-bad proposition even if Thompson hadn’t hurt his ACL. Combined with the knee injury, it has the potential to be the worst contract in the league. I say this as somebody who knows a thing or two about possessing the worst contract in the league.
It seems impossible that a good player could be this bad a value, but it’s true. The problem is that he’s making such a huge sum – near the top of the salary scale as a veteran of six to nine years when he signed, for the maximum five years of duration, with the maximum eight percent raises.
Thompson is making so much that he’d have to be a top 15 player in the league each of the next four seasons to justify the deal. The 25-year-old version of Thompson at least had a case to be worth something close to this; the 30-year-old, post-ACL version who will be 34 at the end of the deal does not. The Warriors have already taken a $33 million dead loss on the first season, so they have no chance of coming out ahead on the overall bargain, but Years 2 through 5 aren’t looking so rosy either.
Thompson is 30 and had a torn ACL when the contract was signed. Even if one optimistically presumes a full recovery, the other issue here is that advanced stats have never been as over the moon about Thompson as his fans have been, with the exception of his amazeballs 2014-15 season.
Why is that? Offensively, his shooting is deadly and the terrifying threat of it opens the floor for everyone else, but he’s never been as efficient as most elite shooters because of his amazingly low free-throw rate. Thompson took nine field goal attempts for every free throw he earned in 2018-19 – the lowest rate in the league among high-usage guards by a wide margin. This is what you might expect from a stand-in-the-corner fifth option like Tony Snell or Terrance Ferguson, not a five-time All-Star. (Irony alert: Thompson tore his ACL while drawing a foul.)
As a result, Thompson somehow had a TS% of 57.1 in 2018-19 despite making 40.4 percent of his 3s that season – still good, but not the torrid mark of a Reggie Miller-type threat (or even a Bojan Bogdanovic-type threat). Given that he’s not an on-ball creator or a gifted distributor, this makes his overall offense more good than great.
Defensively, Thompson earns plaudits for his solid positioning and on-ball work, but his impact has never shown up in either the individual or team data. He doesn’t rebound at all, which is another demerit. Again, it’s not that he’s bad or anything, it’s just … not $35 million worth of good.
That’s what the numbers said about the 28-year-old Thompson. He’s now 30. As a result, I have him projected as the 20th-best non-rookie shooting guard in 2020-21. That’s just based off his stats, mind you, with no accommodation for the ACL. Maybe that rating seems harsh given his rep, but it doesn’t strike me as wildly unrealistic either.
Combining that with a mildly conservative post-injury estimate of his minutes this season, I came up with a projected value of $12.3 million for Thompson this season – a far cry from the $35 million he’ll be paid.
One can argue my methodology is too harsh here, but even if we soften it up, this contract still would rank at the top of the “worst” list by a large margin. For instance, let’s assume for a minute that I’m horribly wrong about both Thompson’s future minutes and the quality of his play. If we instead say that Thompson will play 2,000 minutes at the level of the 10th-best shooting guard over the next four seasons – a wildly optimistic scenario, but humor me – Thompson would grade out as worth $77 million over the remaining life of the contract.
Pretty good, right? But that still is half what he’s making, and the negative equity of that proposition ($80 million under water) would still make it the worst-performing contract in the league by a significant margin. Overall, even if Thompson is reasonably healthy and plays decently, it’s very possible the last four years of this deal will have more than $100 million in negative equity.
2
Tobias Harris
76ers
4 years, $140M
-$55M
The word for today is “sunk cost.” The Sixers had a sunk cost in Harris when they gave up two first-round picks, two second-round picks and Landry Shamet to the Clippers to add him in early 2019, even though he was about to enter free agency.
Not wanting to lose all those assets for nothing, Philly did something that may have been worse by locking up Harris for $175 million over five years.
Make no mistake, Tobias Harris is a pretty good player – my valuation estimate ranked him as a top-15 player per-minute at either forward slot in 2019-20, and he’s been extremely durable (zero games missed in three seasons). That latter part gets underestimated at times, but it matters. Between those two things, he nets out at a projected $21.5 million in value for next season.
That’s good! Alas, the Sixers are paying him nearly double that. Philly owes him $140 million over the next four seasons, and Harris projects to deliver only $85 million in value over that time frame. The $65 million in negative equity may force Philly into some tough decisions in the coming years – including Harris’s deal, the five starters alone will make enough to nearly hit next year’s luxury tax line before anyone else receives a dime.
3
D’Angelo Russell
Timberwolves
3 years, $95M
-$48M
Russell had two teams clamoring to give him a max contract after his All-Star season in Brooklyn in 2018-19, but he didn’t deliver max-contract value for either of them. Due to make $95 million over the next three seasons, Russell would have to massively improve his output – particularly at the defensive end – to justify that type of play. I have him projected as a $15.8 million valuation for next season, which, if true, would make his contract the third-worst free-agent deal in the league.
It’s possible I’m underestimating Russell with my method here, as he certainly seemed less engaged in Golden State than he’d been the year before in Brooklyn. Statistically, however, he didn’t perk up when he got to Minnesota.
If you want to play devil’s advocate and suppose my ratings are shafting him, and that he’ll actually a top-10 point guard over the next three seasons, this contract still takes the L. That scenario would put his valuation closer to $20 million a year – still a far cry from the nearly $32 million a season he’ll earn.
Regardless, there is one more amazing fact about this contract: It still grades out as a better value than that of Andrew Wiggins.
4
Harrison Barnes
Kings
3 years, $61M
-$37M
While the eye test retches more easily at the deals given to Cory Joseph, Trevor Ariza and Dewayne Dedmon last summer, the three years left on Barnes’s are likely to deliver the most negative value from Sacramento’s bizarre summer spending binge in 2019.
Barnes has always been better at looking the part than actually filling it, and virtually all advanced stats agree that he’s a pretty average player, grading out as an $8 million per year value. Barnes is durable, shoots well, and defends multiple positions on the ball, and those are important skills. Nonetheless, his overall impact stats have never been strong across three teams and, entering his sixth season, he seems unlikely to change much going forward.
Like a lot of the players on this list, Barnes has negatives that are more subtle than immediate. He’s too stiff on the ball and too slow in his decisions at both ends to impact games at anywhere close to his pay level, and adds in a bizarrely low Rebound Rate for a 6-8 guy who can jump. To his credit, Barnes did manage a career-best assist rate this year. One area where he could boost his value further is by refining his shot mix – he’s a 37.5 percent career 3-point shooter but two-thirds of his shots were inside the arc in 2019-20. I’d love to see him fling 10 3s a game.
Barnes signed a near-max deal with Sacramento in 2019 that pays him $61 million over the next three seasons, with the one saving grace being that it’s a declining money contact. With Barnes projected to produce just $24 million in value over that time, this contract projects to end up $37 million in the red.
5
Terry Rozier
Hornets
2 years, $37M
-$33M
The Hornets made a bad problem worse when they responded to Kemba Walker’s free agency by sending their 2020 second-round pick to Boston and turning it into a sign-and-trade for Rozier. Rozier was unlikely to live up to his three-year, $57 million deal, and the Hornets almost immediately discovered that they already had a better point guard lying around in Devonte’ Graham. As a result, Rozier’s value likely cratered further as an undersized sort-of spot-up guy playing next to Graham.
I have Rozier projected as a minimum guy – his last season in Charlotte wasn’t good and the one before in Boston was legitimately bad. That’s probably too harsh considering he’s 26 and has some strong seasons in his track record. Also, Rozier still averaged 18.0 points per game and shot a career high 40.7 percent from 3 this season for the Hornets.
He rates so badly mainly because defensively he was a crushing disappointment, and that was supposed to be his strength coming out of Louisville. Advanced stats suggest he’s kind of a dumpster fire at this end; the eye test shows some good superficial on-ball efforts mixed in with confused off-ball decisions and taking too many plays off.
Rozier has enough ability to partly redeem this contract, especially if he dials back in on D. But between his role and his growing defensive inattention, one wonders if that place is Charlotte. I have $33 million in projected negative equity for this deal; Rozier may well lower that number if he plays better, but he’s going to have a hard time every justifying an eight-figure-per-year valuation. It remains amazing that Charlotte gave up a draft pick just for the privilege of signing this deal.
6
Al Horford
76ers
3 years, $81M, partial 3rd yr
-$29M
Well, that was a lot to pay an insurance center. In its second major mistake of the 2019 offseason, Philadelphia went all-in on Horford in free agency after watching a series of sub-replacement-level backup 5s sabotage all their non-Joel Embiid minutes in 2018-19.
But the solution was far too expensive for the problem — $27 million a year at a position where quality can be had with the $5 million room exception. Horford has stayed on the floor and been a reasonably good player as a starting 4 who backs up the 5, but still provides nowhere near the value proposition relative to his pay – especially as he gets deeper into his 30s. Meanwhile the Sixers offense has choked up without playmaking and shooting on the perimeter, needs that could have been solved with the money paid to Horford.
Again, Horford isn’t bad – I project Horford to be worth $52 million over the next three seasons. The issue is that they’re paying him so much more than that.
Incidentally, Horford has a partially guaranteed season in 2022-23 for $14.5 million, which could confuse the math here a bit. However, my calculation is that it would be narrowly more helpful to pick up the full $26.5 million on that deal rather than eat the $14.5 million in dead money.
7
Bojan Bogdanovic
Jazz
3 years, $56M
-$24M
This will be a controversial one, because Bogdanovic superficially looks like a guy who is absolutely worth the money. I mean, c’mon, he averaged 20.2 points a game while shooting 41.4 percent from 3 and 90.9 percent from the line. Usually anybody who generates that many points with a True Shooting percentage in the 60s – something he’s done three straight seasons – rates as hugely valuable.
The problem in his case is everything else, which limits his overall value. For starters, his offensive value takes a blow from his lack of ability create for others, especially once he puts it on the floor, and his turnover prone-ness. More importantly, he’s been a minus defender his entire career, with good size and some decent hops but slow reactions and the Rebound Rate of a point guard. Most advanced metrics show him giving back nearly all of his offensive value at the defensive end.
Bogie is a skilled scorer and that has value, but it’s not at the level where they’re paying him. I project Bogdanovic to be worth $10.5 million this coming season, or slightly more than the mid-level exception. The Jazz will pay him $18.5 million, nearly double that amount. With three years left on a deal that pays Bogdanovic until age 34, the tail end of this could get ugly.
8
Khris Middleton
Bucks
4 years, $147M, w/option
-$22M
This shows how hard it is to hit a max contact out of the park with a veteran player. Middleton was fantastic this year, and the Bucks had almost no choice but to re-sign him. If Giannis Antetokounmpo signs an extension, Middleton may help deliver them multiple championships. And yet …. the back end of this deal is not going to be kind, and in a strict valuation sense the Bucks will almost certainly be in the red on these next four seasons.
It’s not because of Middleton’s play. Even with modest decline from his 2019-20 career year, Middleton should be one of the best small forwards in the league in the coming seasons – I project him to be the league’s 5th-best small forward next year and worth over $31 million a year.
However, this contract is so obscenely large that Middleton needs to be an All-NBA player to justify it. With a contract that pays him several million a year beyond his production, it produces long odds at coming out ahead. If Middleton picks up his $40 million player option in 2022-23, when he’ll be 32, the Bucks will come out of this more than $20 million in the red.
9
Nic Batum
Hornets
1 year, $27M
-$21M
The final insult from the free-agent class of 2016, Batum’s deal was even more painful than many of the others because, as a Bird Rights player, his deal went for five seasons rather than four and had higher annual raises. As a result, he’ll make $27 million for his courtside Hornets seats this coming season, the final campaign of a five-year $120 million deal.
My methodology probably overrated Batum, rating him as a $5.7 million value for next year when most observers would likely place him with the minimums. Batum was unplayable this year but shot 38.9 percent on 3s two years ago. One wonders if he could rekindle some small bit of value as a backup stretch 4 given his 6-9 size and still-passable mobility at 32. I doubt that happens with Charlotte, but it could someplace else if he’s bought out.
10. The dead money guys, starring Dion Waiters
$85 million over next four years; $85 million in negative equity
With the players above, one can at least argue that I might be wrong about their value –maybe Thompson will be better or healthier, or maybe I’m not accounting for Bogdanovic’s shooting enough, etc. etc.
But with this last group, there can be no doubt, because they are guaranteed to produce $0 in return to their teams while soaking up seven figures in cap space in the coming seasons. You’ll see the ghosts of bad contracts past in here, including many stretched reminders of the glorious summer of 2016.
Leading the way is Dion Waiters, who will get $12.65 million from the Grizzlies next season without lifting a finger, after singing a bloated four-year, $52 million deal in Miami’s 2017 offseason misadventure.
But wait, there’s more! Joakim Noah, for instance, is still owed $12.7 million by the Knicks, even as he played for the Grizzlies and Clippers.
Then there’s Andrew Nicholson. He is still owed $11.2 million by Portland after the original absurd contract he signed with Washington was shuffled along to two other teams prior to the Blazers stretching him with three years still remaining on it. Nicholson’s dead money, may it rest in peace, still has four years left to run!
Other luminaries still collecting in the wake of free-agent disasters include Ryan Anderson (still owed $10.4 million over the next two years by Miami, after signing in Houston), Luol Deng ($10 million from the Lakers) Jon Leuer (receiving $9.8 million over the next three years from Milwaukee, after signing in Detroit), DeMarre Carroll ($7.3 million from San Antonio), Monta Ellis ($4.5 million from the Pacers), Kyle Singler ($3 million from Oklahoma City) and J.R. Smith ($2.9 million from Cleveland).
Winning in free agency is hard. Really hard.
This is the thing fans miss in the excitement of free agency. The possibilities of cap space are exciting, but in the absence of a sure-thing superstar, signing a contract that generates value comparable to the pay is actually really difficult.
Part of this is the economics theorem called “winner’s curse” that I’ve mentioned in previous columns – in a multi-bidder scenario, the team that wins the bidding on a player is the one that most badly overestimates his value. But in addition, the NBA offers a second level of difficulty – free agent deals are already the hardest contacts to “win” on because most of the surplus contract value is in rookie deals and extensions signed off of them.
Some teams were able to overcome that issue, as my piece on the best values in free agency showed, but today it’s time to look at the flip side: The worst free-agent contracts currently in circulation.
Before we start, let’s go over the ground rules one more time.
First of all, we’re talking about free agency and not any other type of contract. For that reason we won’t be listing extensions here, which takes several stinkers off the list – you won’t be seeing names like John Wall, Andrew Wiggins, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon or CJ McCollum in the list below.
Also, since we’re focusing on bad free-agent decisions, I left out situations where a player’s remaining season or two on a contract might not project to deliver value, but previous seasons had. That would exclude the likes of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and Mike Conley, who are entering the back end of long-term free-agent deals that have already delivered hugely positive returns to the teams that signed them.
Finally, I want to set aside a few injury cases. In particular, your feelings on the contracts of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving depend in large part on how much you think they can stay on the court. Each would need to play over 2,000 minutes at an All-Star-ish level over the coming three seasons to justify what they’re making, and we’ll just have to see if they’re capable of doing it.
However, that still leaves several contracts with significant likely negative equity going forward. Once again, I’ve used my player valuation method outlined in the best free agents piece to help guide us; you can find a description there.
With that said, here are the 10 free-agent contracts that look the worst going forward:
1
Klay Thompson
Warriors
4 years, $157M
-$108M
Signing Thompson to a five-year max in the summer of 2019 would have been a risky-to-bad proposition even if Thompson hadn’t hurt his ACL. Combined with the knee injury, it has the potential to be the worst contract in the league. I say this as somebody who knows a thing or two about possessing the worst contract in the league.
It seems impossible that a good player could be this bad a value, but it’s true. The problem is that he’s making such a huge sum – near the top of the salary scale as a veteran of six to nine years when he signed, for the maximum five years of duration, with the maximum eight percent raises.
Thompson is making so much that he’d have to be a top 15 player in the league each of the next four seasons to justify the deal. The 25-year-old version of Thompson at least had a case to be worth something close to this; the 30-year-old, post-ACL version who will be 34 at the end of the deal does not. The Warriors have already taken a $33 million dead loss on the first season, so they have no chance of coming out ahead on the overall bargain, but Years 2 through 5 aren’t looking so rosy either.
Thompson is 30 and had a torn ACL when the contract was signed. Even if one optimistically presumes a full recovery, the other issue here is that advanced stats have never been as over the moon about Thompson as his fans have been, with the exception of his amazeballs 2014-15 season.
Why is that? Offensively, his shooting is deadly and the terrifying threat of it opens the floor for everyone else, but he’s never been as efficient as most elite shooters because of his amazingly low free-throw rate. Thompson took nine field goal attempts for every free throw he earned in 2018-19 – the lowest rate in the league among high-usage guards by a wide margin. This is what you might expect from a stand-in-the-corner fifth option like Tony Snell or Terrance Ferguson, not a five-time All-Star. (Irony alert: Thompson tore his ACL while drawing a foul.)
As a result, Thompson somehow had a TS% of 57.1 in 2018-19 despite making 40.4 percent of his 3s that season – still good, but not the torrid mark of a Reggie Miller-type threat (or even a Bojan Bogdanovic-type threat). Given that he’s not an on-ball creator or a gifted distributor, this makes his overall offense more good than great.
Defensively, Thompson earns plaudits for his solid positioning and on-ball work, but his impact has never shown up in either the individual or team data. He doesn’t rebound at all, which is another demerit. Again, it’s not that he’s bad or anything, it’s just … not $35 million worth of good.
That’s what the numbers said about the 28-year-old Thompson. He’s now 30. As a result, I have him projected as the 20th-best non-rookie shooting guard in 2020-21. That’s just based off his stats, mind you, with no accommodation for the ACL. Maybe that rating seems harsh given his rep, but it doesn’t strike me as wildly unrealistic either.
Combining that with a mildly conservative post-injury estimate of his minutes this season, I came up with a projected value of $12.3 million for Thompson this season – a far cry from the $35 million he’ll be paid.
One can argue my methodology is too harsh here, but even if we soften it up, this contract still would rank at the top of the “worst” list by a large margin. For instance, let’s assume for a minute that I’m horribly wrong about both Thompson’s future minutes and the quality of his play. If we instead say that Thompson will play 2,000 minutes at the level of the 10th-best shooting guard over the next four seasons – a wildly optimistic scenario, but humor me – Thompson would grade out as worth $77 million over the remaining life of the contract.
Pretty good, right? But that still is half what he’s making, and the negative equity of that proposition ($80 million under water) would still make it the worst-performing contract in the league by a significant margin. Overall, even if Thompson is reasonably healthy and plays decently, it’s very possible the last four years of this deal will have more than $100 million in negative equity.
2
Tobias Harris
76ers
4 years, $140M
-$55M
The word for today is “sunk cost.” The Sixers had a sunk cost in Harris when they gave up two first-round picks, two second-round picks and Landry Shamet to the Clippers to add him in early 2019, even though he was about to enter free agency.
Not wanting to lose all those assets for nothing, Philly did something that may have been worse by locking up Harris for $175 million over five years.
Make no mistake, Tobias Harris is a pretty good player – my valuation estimate ranked him as a top-15 player per-minute at either forward slot in 2019-20, and he’s been extremely durable (zero games missed in three seasons). That latter part gets underestimated at times, but it matters. Between those two things, he nets out at a projected $21.5 million in value for next season.
That’s good! Alas, the Sixers are paying him nearly double that. Philly owes him $140 million over the next four seasons, and Harris projects to deliver only $85 million in value over that time frame. The $65 million in negative equity may force Philly into some tough decisions in the coming years – including Harris’s deal, the five starters alone will make enough to nearly hit next year’s luxury tax line before anyone else receives a dime.
3
D’Angelo Russell
Timberwolves
3 years, $95M
-$48M
Russell had two teams clamoring to give him a max contract after his All-Star season in Brooklyn in 2018-19, but he didn’t deliver max-contract value for either of them. Due to make $95 million over the next three seasons, Russell would have to massively improve his output – particularly at the defensive end – to justify that type of play. I have him projected as a $15.8 million valuation for next season, which, if true, would make his contract the third-worst free-agent deal in the league.
It’s possible I’m underestimating Russell with my method here, as he certainly seemed less engaged in Golden State than he’d been the year before in Brooklyn. Statistically, however, he didn’t perk up when he got to Minnesota.
If you want to play devil’s advocate and suppose my ratings are shafting him, and that he’ll actually a top-10 point guard over the next three seasons, this contract still takes the L. That scenario would put his valuation closer to $20 million a year – still a far cry from the nearly $32 million a season he’ll earn.
Regardless, there is one more amazing fact about this contract: It still grades out as a better value than that of Andrew Wiggins.
4
Harrison Barnes
Kings
3 years, $61M
-$37M
While the eye test retches more easily at the deals given to Cory Joseph, Trevor Ariza and Dewayne Dedmon last summer, the three years left on Barnes’s are likely to deliver the most negative value from Sacramento’s bizarre summer spending binge in 2019.
Barnes has always been better at looking the part than actually filling it, and virtually all advanced stats agree that he’s a pretty average player, grading out as an $8 million per year value. Barnes is durable, shoots well, and defends multiple positions on the ball, and those are important skills. Nonetheless, his overall impact stats have never been strong across three teams and, entering his sixth season, he seems unlikely to change much going forward.
Like a lot of the players on this list, Barnes has negatives that are more subtle than immediate. He’s too stiff on the ball and too slow in his decisions at both ends to impact games at anywhere close to his pay level, and adds in a bizarrely low Rebound Rate for a 6-8 guy who can jump. To his credit, Barnes did manage a career-best assist rate this year. One area where he could boost his value further is by refining his shot mix – he’s a 37.5 percent career 3-point shooter but two-thirds of his shots were inside the arc in 2019-20. I’d love to see him fling 10 3s a game.
Barnes signed a near-max deal with Sacramento in 2019 that pays him $61 million over the next three seasons, with the one saving grace being that it’s a declining money contact. With Barnes projected to produce just $24 million in value over that time, this contract projects to end up $37 million in the red.
5
Terry Rozier
Hornets
2 years, $37M
-$33M
The Hornets made a bad problem worse when they responded to Kemba Walker’s free agency by sending their 2020 second-round pick to Boston and turning it into a sign-and-trade for Rozier. Rozier was unlikely to live up to his three-year, $57 million deal, and the Hornets almost immediately discovered that they already had a better point guard lying around in Devonte’ Graham. As a result, Rozier’s value likely cratered further as an undersized sort-of spot-up guy playing next to Graham.
I have Rozier projected as a minimum guy – his last season in Charlotte wasn’t good and the one before in Boston was legitimately bad. That’s probably too harsh considering he’s 26 and has some strong seasons in his track record. Also, Rozier still averaged 18.0 points per game and shot a career high 40.7 percent from 3 this season for the Hornets.
He rates so badly mainly because defensively he was a crushing disappointment, and that was supposed to be his strength coming out of Louisville. Advanced stats suggest he’s kind of a dumpster fire at this end; the eye test shows some good superficial on-ball efforts mixed in with confused off-ball decisions and taking too many plays off.
Rozier has enough ability to partly redeem this contract, especially if he dials back in on D. But between his role and his growing defensive inattention, one wonders if that place is Charlotte. I have $33 million in projected negative equity for this deal; Rozier may well lower that number if he plays better, but he’s going to have a hard time every justifying an eight-figure-per-year valuation. It remains amazing that Charlotte gave up a draft pick just for the privilege of signing this deal.
6
Al Horford
76ers
3 years, $81M, partial 3rd yr
-$29M
Well, that was a lot to pay an insurance center. In its second major mistake of the 2019 offseason, Philadelphia went all-in on Horford in free agency after watching a series of sub-replacement-level backup 5s sabotage all their non-Joel Embiid minutes in 2018-19.
But the solution was far too expensive for the problem — $27 million a year at a position where quality can be had with the $5 million room exception. Horford has stayed on the floor and been a reasonably good player as a starting 4 who backs up the 5, but still provides nowhere near the value proposition relative to his pay – especially as he gets deeper into his 30s. Meanwhile the Sixers offense has choked up without playmaking and shooting on the perimeter, needs that could have been solved with the money paid to Horford.
Again, Horford isn’t bad – I project Horford to be worth $52 million over the next three seasons. The issue is that they’re paying him so much more than that.
Incidentally, Horford has a partially guaranteed season in 2022-23 for $14.5 million, which could confuse the math here a bit. However, my calculation is that it would be narrowly more helpful to pick up the full $26.5 million on that deal rather than eat the $14.5 million in dead money.
7
Bojan Bogdanovic
Jazz
3 years, $56M
-$24M
This will be a controversial one, because Bogdanovic superficially looks like a guy who is absolutely worth the money. I mean, c’mon, he averaged 20.2 points a game while shooting 41.4 percent from 3 and 90.9 percent from the line. Usually anybody who generates that many points with a True Shooting percentage in the 60s – something he’s done three straight seasons – rates as hugely valuable.
The problem in his case is everything else, which limits his overall value. For starters, his offensive value takes a blow from his lack of ability create for others, especially once he puts it on the floor, and his turnover prone-ness. More importantly, he’s been a minus defender his entire career, with good size and some decent hops but slow reactions and the Rebound Rate of a point guard. Most advanced metrics show him giving back nearly all of his offensive value at the defensive end.
Bogie is a skilled scorer and that has value, but it’s not at the level where they’re paying him. I project Bogdanovic to be worth $10.5 million this coming season, or slightly more than the mid-level exception. The Jazz will pay him $18.5 million, nearly double that amount. With three years left on a deal that pays Bogdanovic until age 34, the tail end of this could get ugly.
8
Khris Middleton
Bucks
4 years, $147M, w/option
-$22M
This shows how hard it is to hit a max contact out of the park with a veteran player. Middleton was fantastic this year, and the Bucks had almost no choice but to re-sign him. If Giannis Antetokounmpo signs an extension, Middleton may help deliver them multiple championships. And yet …. the back end of this deal is not going to be kind, and in a strict valuation sense the Bucks will almost certainly be in the red on these next four seasons.
It’s not because of Middleton’s play. Even with modest decline from his 2019-20 career year, Middleton should be one of the best small forwards in the league in the coming seasons – I project him to be the league’s 5th-best small forward next year and worth over $31 million a year.
However, this contract is so obscenely large that Middleton needs to be an All-NBA player to justify it. With a contract that pays him several million a year beyond his production, it produces long odds at coming out ahead. If Middleton picks up his $40 million player option in 2022-23, when he’ll be 32, the Bucks will come out of this more than $20 million in the red.
9
Nic Batum
Hornets
1 year, $27M
-$21M
The final insult from the free-agent class of 2016, Batum’s deal was even more painful than many of the others because, as a Bird Rights player, his deal went for five seasons rather than four and had higher annual raises. As a result, he’ll make $27 million for his courtside Hornets seats this coming season, the final campaign of a five-year $120 million deal.
My methodology probably overrated Batum, rating him as a $5.7 million value for next year when most observers would likely place him with the minimums. Batum was unplayable this year but shot 38.9 percent on 3s two years ago. One wonders if he could rekindle some small bit of value as a backup stretch 4 given his 6-9 size and still-passable mobility at 32. I doubt that happens with Charlotte, but it could someplace else if he’s bought out.
10. The dead money guys, starring Dion Waiters
$85 million over next four years; $85 million in negative equity
With the players above, one can at least argue that I might be wrong about their value –maybe Thompson will be better or healthier, or maybe I’m not accounting for Bogdanovic’s shooting enough, etc. etc.
But with this last group, there can be no doubt, because they are guaranteed to produce $0 in return to their teams while soaking up seven figures in cap space in the coming seasons. You’ll see the ghosts of bad contracts past in here, including many stretched reminders of the glorious summer of 2016.
Leading the way is Dion Waiters, who will get $12.65 million from the Grizzlies next season without lifting a finger, after singing a bloated four-year, $52 million deal in Miami’s 2017 offseason misadventure.
But wait, there’s more! Joakim Noah, for instance, is still owed $12.7 million by the Knicks, even as he played for the Grizzlies and Clippers.
Then there’s Andrew Nicholson. He is still owed $11.2 million by Portland after the original absurd contract he signed with Washington was shuffled along to two other teams prior to the Blazers stretching him with three years still remaining on it. Nicholson’s dead money, may it rest in peace, still has four years left to run!
Other luminaries still collecting in the wake of free-agent disasters include Ryan Anderson (still owed $10.4 million over the next two years by Miami, after signing in Houston), Luol Deng ($10 million from the Lakers) Jon Leuer (receiving $9.8 million over the next three years from Milwaukee, after signing in Detroit), DeMarre Carroll ($7.3 million from San Antonio), Monta Ellis ($4.5 million from the Pacers), Kyle Singler ($3 million from Oklahoma City) and J.R. Smith ($2.9 million from Cleveland).
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