Unpacking the Hidden Details Behind the NBA’s Newest 2017 Contracts

Not every deal signed is as it seems. What’s hiding behind the numbers?

Brandon Anderson
Jul 24, 2017 · 11 min read

For the second consecutive summer, well over $1 billion was shelled out to NBA free agents around the league. Steph Curry, James Harden, John Wall, Blake Griffin, Gordon Hayward, and Jrue Holiday on their own nearly reached the $1 billion mark in new contract money.

But not every deal is as it appears on the surface.

Some deals are not fully guaranteed, others contain player or team options, and many are not worth anywhere near the amount of money being reported when the news breaks.

So let’s put our NBA-onomics hats on and dig into the contract numbers for ten newly signed free agents. There’s more than meets the eye.

SAC George Hill — 3 years, $57 million
MIN Jeff Teague — 3 years, $57 million

This is a perfect example: two point guards that got identical deals on the ESPN ticker but whose deals are actually quite different from what’s being reported and from each other.

Teague’s deal has a player option on the third year. He’ll be 30 that summer, a better age to re-enter the market for one final big contract than age 31. That’ll also be a summer when both Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns are free agents. Teague controls his destiny in case of injury or drop off, but it’s likely he’d use his ability to opt out and hit the market again in 2019. That makes this more like a 2-year $38-million deal.

Hill’s deal is similar except the Kings hold all the power. Instead of a player option, Sacramento has only guaranteed $1 million of the final $18-million year. Two years from now, the Kings will surely be ready to turn the reins fully over to De’Aaron Fox, so they can treat this like a 2-year $39-million deal and only owe a final $1 million if they choose to cut Hill after that. He’ll be 33 and is unlikely to get a big contract in 2019, but it won’t be up to him whether he is able to stick around. This also makes Hill’s contract more palatable in trades a year from now since it essentially makes him an expiring contract then. It’s entirely possible Hill will only be a King for a season.

The contracts look the same, and are being treated as the same, but are really quite different.

GSW Steph Curry $201m extension
HOU James Harden $228m extension

If Steph Curry or James Harden asks to sign with your team for an extended period of time, you say yes, whatever the contract details. Fans of the Warriors and Rockets are no doubt thinking only happy thoughts about these massive extensions. But that’s a lot of money to guarantee to two players who are MVP candidates now but might not be by the time these extensions end.

Curry will make $34.7 million this season and almost $46 million in 2021–22, the final year of this deal. If he stays healthy and plays anything like the last three years, the deal will be worth it. But $46 million is almost half the current cap, and Curry has a slight build and a history of ankle issues. Harden is cheaper for now since his reported $228 extension includes the first two years of his current deal at $28 and $30 million. After that, he’ll jump to $38 million the next year and almost $47 million in 2022–23. Harden was rumored to have a concussion during this year’s playoffs and takes a beating game after game. Six years ago, Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, and Dwight Howard were First Team All-NBA players. A lot can change in six years.

If these are the deals Curry and Harden want, they’re the deals they’ll get. But they are a lot more favorable to the players than they are to the teams. It’s hard to see it now, but one or both of these deals could end up crippling their teams a few years down the line.

LAC Blake Griffin — 5 years, $173 million

There’s nothing particularly hidden about Griffin’s contract, but this is an awful lot of money to guarantee to a player that has played fewer than two-thirds of his team’s games over past three seasons. Griffin will make almost $30 million this season, and he’ll make over $39 million at age 33 in 2021–22.

Griffin has a history of leg injuries and a game predicated on athleticism. The NBA has not been kind to big men and their measure of athleticism as they hit their 30s, and we’ve already seen Griffin’s declining for years now. This may not be a terrible contract for a year or two, but it’s likely to be extremely painful by its conclusion.

DEN Paul Millsap — 3 years, $90 million

Paul Millsap’s deal has a team option on the third year, a season in which he turns 35. Is Millsap worth $30 million a year right now? Absolutely. Will he be worth it in 2019? He might, but by then, Denver will owe a lot of money to Jokic, Harris, and other players and may need to move on.

Millsap’s team option gives Denver control and makes this essentially a 2-year $61-million contract, one of the better signings of the summer. Denver is almost certain to get value during the course of these two years, has a big “expiring” deal to move next year if they choose, and isn’t on the hook for a 4th or even 3rd Millsap year if they choose to move on.

Millsap got less guaranteed money this summer than Timofey Mozgov and Bismack Biyombo did in 2016. What a difference a year makes.

MIA James Johnson 4/$60m, Dion Waiters 4/$52m, Kelly Olynyk 4/$50m

The Heat splashed a ton of cash on three guys that haven’t even been regular NBA starters for much of their careers. That’s $162 million on rotational players and almost 40 percent of the team’s annual salary cap.

Johnson’s contract is as bad as it looks. He does have a player option on the fourth year but at $15 million and age 33, you can count on that being exercised. Waiters’ deal included some “unlikely bonuses” as a way to finagle the tight cap situation. His deal actually comes out closer to 4/$48m.

Olynyk’s deal also includes unlikely bonus clauses as well as a player option on the final year, one he could very well opt out of at age 29. His deal is probably more like 3-years $34-million and unquestionably the best contract of the three. He’s a sharpshooting big man that will almost certainly be worth $10-$12 million a year for some team at any point over the next few years.

IND Darren Collison 2/$20m, Bojan Bogdanovic 2/$21m

Are the Pacers rebuilding or are they contending? It doesn’t seem like Indiana knows yet, and the East makes it difficult to decide. Myles Turner is getting very good, and Indiana should be capable of contending for the 8-seed. The truth is they were never going to be bad enough this season to get anywhere near the #1 pick. But why lock in two years and $41 million on two veterans to get them stuck in the middle?

As Brad Callas notes, the Pistons are a cautionary tale about what happens when you attempt to rise from mediocrity to greatness as opposed to blowing everything up and reconstructing via the draft.

This isn’t quite the same. Indiana needed to add rotation pieces at guard and on the wing anyway, and Collison and Bogdanovic do that. But the key part of both deals is that each is almost totally non-guaranteed for the second year. Bogdanovic is guaranteed only $1.5 million and Collison only $2 million. If Indiana chooses to move on next summer, they can clear both contracts out for just $3.5 million and go in another direction without any significant long-term consequences. These are essentially both 1-year $10-million contracts with a signing bonus at the end.

That makes these deals valuable to Indiana but it also makes both deals palatable at the trade deadline for an interested team. Washington just gave up a first round pick earlier this year for half a season of Bogdanovic, and Collison is a perfect short-term point guard for a team with an injury bug or in need of a backup. If Indiana can contend for the playoffs and get a draft pick or two out of these deals in a few months, that’s a huge win and well worth the drop from something like the #8 pick in the draft to #12.

DAL Dirk Nowitzki — 2 years, $10 million

Nowitzki has been signing contracts well below market value for years, so you probably didn’t notice this one. The Mavericks aren’t bad enough to contend for a top draft pick, but they’re probably not good enough to make a real playoff push either, so this feels somewhat irrelevant.

But the value in this deal is for next season, not this one. Rest assured that Mavs owner Mark Cuban will make sure Nowitzki gets paid eventually. There’s a trust built up there and Nowitzki knows the money will come later.

Dallas has three options here. They can pick up Nowitzki’s option next season for $5 million, or they can use his $9.5 million cap hold to remain over the cap before re-signing him, if that helps. Dirk could also opt out to retire or take a bigger contract. But either of the first two options may let Dallas in on a market next summer that will be very tight and could mean a big free agent and one last run at a trophy for Nowitzki.

PHI J.J. Redick 1/$23m, Amir Johnson 1/$11m

It’s hard to hide anything behind a one-year contract, and these deals are pretty much what’s being reported. Philadelphia is way overpaying for two players knowing that they’re not on the hook for any money next year when Embiid’s extension kicks in. These short deals assure the Sixers should head into next summer with as much cap room as any team.

But they also serve a hidden purpose — they act as immediate expiring contracts as well. Philadelphia has a whole slew of players on rookie deals, some (such as Jahlil Okafor) that they are looking to trade. But salaries have to match in trades, and rookies are cheap. The Sixers have the flexibility to pick up a good player from a team that needs to unload salary or move on from a player, but they wouldn’t want to throw in multiple cheap, talented guys just to even out a deal. That’s where Redick and Johnson come in. Both veterans may be useful makeweights in a trade, or they could even have value to a contender at the deadline only able to take on an expiring deal.

Houston Bench Renovation

When you think about Houston’s summer, you’re probably most interested in how Chris Paul and James Harden will play together and whether they’ll eventually land Carmelo Anthony.

Rockets GM Daryl Morey is doing work. But the real fun has happened behind the scenes filling out the Houston bench, since the Rockets traded a slew of guys away in the CP3 deal.

P.J. Tucker signed a deal reported as 4-years $32-million, but it’s really a 3-year $24-million deal with a partial guarantee on the fourth year that Houston will surely use to their advantage. Nene was unable to sign a 4-year deal due to his age, so he returned at 3-years $11-million. Tarik Black comes on for a year at $3.3 million, and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute took the $1.4 million minimum. The Rockets also signed Summer League standout Troy Williams to a three-year $4.5-million deal with each year non-guaranteed, essentially team options.

Those are five little deals many probably barely noticed, but they’re all very favorable toward Houston and gives the team a lot of wiggle room. All five players will likely play valuable bench minutes on a very good team, and all five combined will make only around $17 million this year — about the same as Tim Hardaway Jr.

NYK Tim Hardaway Jr. — 4 years, $71 million

Some contracts don’t need much explaining. Hardaway has a player option on the fourth year and, spoiler alert, he’ll be picking up that $19 million option. The Knicks presumably included the player option and a 15 percent trade kicker as a way to make sure Atlanta wouldn’t match this behemoth of a contract, which just proves how badly they misjudged the market.

One of the precious silver linings in this terrible deal was that if — if — Hardaway got really good in the next few years, at least the Knicks would have him locked in long term. Now, even on the outside chance he does outperform his contract, he’ll just opt out and take away that advantage anyway.

Knicks gonna Knick.

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Brandon Anderson

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Sports, TV, NBA, NFL, culture. Words at SI's Cauldron, Grandstand Central, others @wheatonbrando ✞