Worst NBA Contract of 2016 Poll -

going with evan turner as its the biggest one on here where the player's 90th percentile outcome still wouldn't be worth the contract

man

i think it has to be parsons... did he give them even a single positive minute on that contract?

evan turner was the most offensive to me at the time but batum, noah, biyombo all stand out to me as being worse now. i guess crabbe too but at least there was some notion of potential w/ him. the mozgov contract was completely insane esp considering when they signed it... $40 million for dellavedova is just beyond

easy to get why memphis wanted a player like parsons but that was such a preventable mistake. his bff owner let him walk to turn around and give the same money to harrison barnes, perhaps should have been a warning

it's almost as interesting to ask which of these was the best. is there even a single acceptable answer to that question? ryan anderson? bazemore? tyler johnson?

this is tough!

voting turner just cause that one is closest to my heart

everyone who got more than him had at least been a good player at some point where evan was a clear bench player his whole career

*or had potential re crabbe

batum probably the most justified of these at the time? he was a core piece of a playoff team the previous year and they wanted to try again

batum was a really good player before he was injured all the time

same for parsons

tho chandler was more obviously damaged goods at the time iirc

the batum contract was only justified insofar as everyone knows charlotte was dumb and desperate and the money they spend doesn't actually matter that much anyway. but it was an insane amount of money for a middling franchise to spend on a middling player

parsons was a wish and a prayer on completely fucked up knees staying healthy, pretty bad way to run a basketball team

ryan anderson was prob the most justified bcuz he was filling an obvious role and prob returned approximate value in year one of the deal and was at least payable in year two

completely impossible to get excited about the harrison barnes contract but his floor was at least much higher than pretty much everyone else on this list, so that was prob falls closer to the justified end of the spectrum than most of these

recall barnes having a really good game vs the celtics in the first year of that contract that was a window into the player he couldve been if he had the correct mindtype

the lakers winning the title w/ lebron and AD on their team w/in the same timeframe of having given luol deng and timofey mozgov $136 million explains the lakers as a franchise very succinctly

it's almost as interesting to ask which of these was the best. is there even a single acceptable answer to that question? ryan anderson? bazemore? tyler johnson?

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 20, 2020 10:24 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yah think you gotta go with the ones where the guys at least played and had a regular rotation slot. anderson was ok for about 1 season of that contract and then everyone realized you can play him off the court really easily. Baze is an all around useful player. TJ just not consistent enough to be a starter. harrison barnes is probably the best one to me. starter level play and a good locker room guy plus he was in his prime playing and available.

batum one was funny cos they gave him that 5th year. so pointless. he wasnt a star they had to keep happy.

i love how most of these were just teams competing against themselves. like no other team was in the hunt for these guys at these prices. the mozgov one might take the cake for that alone.

recall barnes having a really good game vs the celtics in the first year of that contract that was a window into the player he couldve been if he had the correct mindtype

― lag∞n, Tuesday, October 20, 2020 10:53 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

dude is just too nice and passive. he had a couple aggressive dunks in GS where you were like OK DAMN but then it was like he felt bad after lol.

completely impossible to get excited about the harrison barnes contract but his floor was at least much higher than pretty much everyone else on this list, so that was prob falls closer to the justified end of the spectrum than most of these

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 20, 2020 10:50 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this

the lakers winning the title w/ lebron and AD on their team w/in the same timeframe of having given luol deng and timofey mozgov $136 million explains the lakers as a franchise very succinctly

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 20, 2020 10:57 AM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol so true. some (one?) franchises can get away with anything. other teams do this and dig themselves a hole they cant get out of for 4-5 seasons.

delle got 40m and a shoe deal based on 1.25 good games of defense on curry. that dude should kiss currys feet every chance he gets.

fuckin hate delly out there really trying to injure guys

he and jelly k the two dirtiest players our league has seen since lambeer days.

ok add bowen in there

wade was extremely dirty

sometimes i forget how much i disliked wade cos he kinda washed it all away in his late career.

he was such a fun player but then hed like try to pull someones arm out of the socket

chris paul has to be in the discussion just based on his preferred target location

true

also grayson allen tho he kinda stopped blatantly tripping and kicking people in the NBA, with good reason. but we know it's still in him somewhere

really only aware of his college career, but i find it amazing that someone would choose to pay miles plumlee $13m per year to play basketball

miles had a year with the suns when he was pretty good! looked like he might be the better plumlee but he never was good after that season.

this really is hard. the noah deal has to be up there.

I’m kinda surprised by how badly the batum contract has gone, feel like it was the wrong setting for him

remember the draymond "involuntary" nut kicks. he got off real free from that

in terms of his rep i mean, obviously he got punished for it at the time

voted parsons bc dude did that guy's career crater or what, but this list is an abomination and choosing is somewhat arbitrary, what a summer that was

Some parallels to what happened in the world that year...

the worst contracts as far as win shares produced for the team that signed the contract (just cutting it off at <2 win shares):

miles plumlee 0.1 (!) - traded in feb 2017 for roy hibbert, who never played for the bucks, and spencer hawes, who produced an additional .6 win shares
mozgov 1.1
parsons 1.3
dellavedova 1.8

so it has to be parsons given the extra $30M. admittedly, the plumlee era in milwaukee was hazy but in reading back it seems that he just never fit and never played since they had to find time for the squad of jon henson, greg monroe, and thon maker. but they traded him for expirings and other than opportunity cost no real harm was done.

what's interesting looking back is that a lot of these guys had decent 1st and 2nd seasons on these contracts before meeting the cliff. good reminder that role players/bench guys are can have very fleeting/random performance peaks.

I'm voting mozgov, but I admit it's a target rich environment and almost every vote is a prospective winner!

the year before miles plumlee signed this deal he averaged 14 minutes, 5 points and 4 boards. this past season, after being waived, his $12.5m salary was more than several legit starting quarterbacks and all but nine players in the entire NHL

i mean i know it's a different game and there are far fewer players etc. but that is still amazing to me

NBA players have it good it’s true

when you break it down that's why i chose to become an nba player

Mozgov had a ton of talent but he was just always injured. Another in the long list of super heavyweight nba players who couldn’t stay healthy.

i'm thinking i should've voted for delly... $40 million for -- at best -- a back up point guard is completely crazy. at least the rest of these guys are either tall, or could shoot... tho now we return to the question of evan turner. hmmmmmm

delly getting that deal led to other australian backup pgs getting basically the same deal, a v dark time

Patty was playable at least!

v much so, we love patty

In a Mills vs. Dellavedova debate, Patty wins 100% of the time.

in my win shares research delly and turner were the next two guys on the list, somewhere between 2 and 3 iirc

Good work cad. I remember iggy had a funny reaction to turner getting that deal.

Another notable contract not listed was the Conley contract for 5 years 152M for the Grizz. Was the highest contract in league history for a bit there. Pretty insane for a guy that never made an all Star or all nba team.

this is a v. tough poll

i cant remember who i voted for now lol

Just now seeing this thread. Had to vote Parsons because, in addition to the spot-on statistical analysis upthread, unlike most of these guys they were really relying on him to be a key piece.

In understanding teams’ interest in Evan Turner despite his complete inability to shoot, I think his lovable self-deprecating sense of humor about his complete inability to shoot is an underrated factor.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

seems about right

Breaking: Luol Deng is officially off the books pic.twitter.com/IcxFrbHMdX

— The Pettiest Laker Fan 🤫 (@ThePettiestLA) April 11, 2022

lmaoooo we picked the correct winner

Chandler Parsons speaks on what really happened when he signed with the Grizzlies. We knew this but I can’t believe bro said the quiet part out loud 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/wgeWz9avwP

— John Martin (@JohnMartin929) January 11, 2023

lmfao bravo

forget which podcast but I heard he buys drinks for the house “to john hollinger”

haha

omg

much appreciated guy 🤙🏻🤙🏻 https://t.co/q5LyOBNJZh

— Chandler Parsons (@ChandlerParsons) December 16, 2021

forget which podcast but I heard he buys drinks for the house “to john hollinger”

― k3vin k., Wednesday, January 11, 2023 2:27 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha this was great, it's tim mcmahon's story iirc

man... jon leuer hitting the pistons for $42 million

Miles Plumlee, Milwaukee Bucks -- 4 years, $52M 0
Ian Mahinmi, Washington Wizards -- 4 years, $64M
Bismack Biyombo, Orlando Magic -- 4 years, $70M 0
Dwight Howard, Atlanta Hawks -- 3 years, $70M

these are laugh out loud funny

it's almost as interesting to ask which of these was the best. is there even a single acceptable answer to that question?

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 20, 2020 10:24 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

coming back to this and i'm as stumped as ever. has to be ryan anderson?

still gotta go with harrison barnes pretty easily

its wild that a bunch of teams for few days one summer convinced themselves thats their actions had no consequences

Greg Oden:

“The year I retired was the year Timofey [Mozgov] got that $50M. And I wanted to kill everybody in the f****** world.”

(via @theOGsShow) pic.twitter.com/BJ7xylhs0a

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) October 2, 2024

maybe a guy with a history of violent crime should watch what he's saying

the worst contracts of 2016 look like a walk in the park now

one weird thing i dont understand about the nba and its money is that tv viewership is down but they make more money from it

that’s inflation baby

the worst contracts of 2016 look like a walk in the park now

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, October 2, 2024 9:53 AM (one hour ago)

idk a lot of these are still some of the worst contracts ever handed out. 4/70 for kent bazemore is completely insane

one weird thing i dont understand about the nba and its money is that tv viewership is down but they make more money from it

― lag∞n, Wednesday, October 2, 2024 10:00 AM (one hour ago)

i think the way to explain this is that even as the ratings for the NBA go down, the value of live sports as one of the only things that can reliably get millions of people to pay attention to the same TV program at the same time has only increased. you also have the tech companies coming in and wanting to speculate in live sports, so even as i.e. turner attempted to play hardball w/ the NBA over the new contract, their leverage was undercut by new competitors w/ tons of money that were perhaps willing to overpay in order to enter the space.

one assumes there's a post-television future where the value of live sports craters -- part of what is keeping the value high now is TV companies seeing sports as one of the only things that allows them to cling to that traditional revenue model. but you have to think that is merely a long, drawn out war that they will one day be forced to concede. and from there will there still be companies willing to fork over billions of upfront dollars yearly to sports leagues? idk

the NBA is probably headed to a longterm future where regular season games are seen as having little to no broadcast value and are aired directly & monetized almost fully by the teams themselves. the suns are kinda already doing this i think? and then playoff games/the finals as events that capture some level of audience at the same time will be what other companies largely pay the NBA for, with some amount of regular season games included as national broadcasts almost as loss leader/promotional vehicle type situations

nuggets just unveiled a direct to consumer streaming thing too. though they had been in contentious negotiations with comcast for 3 years so idk if that’s not really the same thing you’re talking about

good analysis jordan thx i know espn has been squeezing the cable companies for a bigger fees for a while now which makes sense in that context

ESPN is basically the irrational actor that drives the phenomenon insofar as their whole business is based around live sports, thus they have an extreme incentive to prop up the value of live sports, even at a time when the value of live sports -- or really live sports that aren't the NFL -- is at an existential crossroads. if they were acting rationally they would be attempting to curb the costs of broadcast rights, but that would directly devalue their company. so they're fueling the bubble in the hopes that it never actually pops (and instead are cutting costs by doing stuff like laying off zach lowe)

its like i always say zach lowe, got to go