The 20 Worst Contracts in the NBA in Summer 2019

Some players get injured. Some underperform. Others just get old. These are the worst 20 contracts in the NBA right now…

EVERY NBA TEAM SPENDS OVER $100 MILLION TO BUILD A ROSTER, so the NBA’s 30 teams collectively pay $3 billion each year to deserving players. Of course, most NBA players are not signed for just one season. Many are signed for three or four, occasionally even five, and that means at any given time, the NBA can owe something like $10 billion to the players. And with all that cash on the table, there are bound to be some really bad deals.

Not every deal is bad. Most rookie deals are pretty good, and it’s tough to go wrong on a veteran minimum. Some max players are worth far more than their salary, so big contracts can favor the team, too. But many deals are just downright bad.

For this article, I considered about 50 different contracts. That’s almost two bad contracts per team and, considering how many players aren’t even signed right now, it means something like 25% of the league is on a bad contract. The ratio gets even worse if you filter out rookie deals and minimum guys. The sad truth of the matter is that most free agency deals are immediate overpays. The best deals in the NBA are rookie deals and max deals, and almost everyone in between is getting paid too much. The NBA is not linear. The very best players control the league and are worth just about any amount. Everyone else…