Why are there so many bad contracts in the NBA?

[Wurider05]

My god why do teams overpay guys when everyone knows that they are overpaying  and then try to trade they less than a year later.  The nba needs non guaranteed contracts for when they guys don't live up to the contracts. We all knew that Baze wasn't worth what he was getting but the folks making millions of dollars a year to know that didn't. Same with Plumlee, Melo, Deandre Jordan etc. What the hell is going on??

[Admin]

3 minutes ago, Wurider05 said:

My god why do teams overpay guys when everyone knows that they are overpaying  and then try to trade they less than a year later.  The nba needs non guaranteed contracts for when they guys don't live up to the contracts. We all knew that Baze wasn't worth what he was getting but the folks making millions of dollars a year to know that didn't. Same with Plumlee, Melo, Deandre Jordan etc. What the hell is going on??

Because there's really no other choice. If you don't give those guys the "max" that they can get then they'll look elsewhere. I really hate the NBA salaries and cap situation. I much prefer the way that the NFL does it as it allows team to fix mistakes while getting punished a little bit for them via the cap. Players get a ton of guaranteed money up front and know that they have to perform to get their full contracts... and they can also be team players and get signing bonuses to lower cap hits when renegotiating a contract. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Because there are a lot of bad GMs in the league.

[Watchman]

13 minutes ago, Wurider05 said:

My god why do teams overpay guys when everyone knows that they are overpaying  and then try to trade they less than a year later.  The nba needs non guaranteed contracts for when they guys don't live up to the contracts. We all knew that Baze wasn't worth what he was getting but the folks making millions of dollars a year to know that didn't. Same with Plumlee, Melo, Deandre Jordan etc. What the hell is going on??

Agree about many of your references, but I would love to have DeAndre Jordan on our team.  Unlike Howard, he doesn't whine if he doesn't get the ball (as far as I know, anyway.)

[Guest]

The answer is that there are so few good execs.  Look at CLE.  They're about to hire Billups off the street simply off his rep as a player.  Well, where has he shown the ability to run a franchise?  Where has he shown an advanced knowledge of the C.B.A., scouting, etc.?  And he's about the run the largest payroll in the league?  Why?  Well, what happens if Lebron leaves and it all falls apart?

The over-emphasis of analytics is another factor.  Front office'ing is devolving to video game team-building where you make big moves (sign big contracts) and see what happens.  If it doesn't work, just tear it down and try again .. if you still have a job.

There's no way players concede to non-guaranteed contracts so it's not even a point that should be discussed.

[marco102]

There's so many bad contracts because the salary cap jumped like 30 million in two years and last year was a fiasco where a lot of players were overpaid to get most teams to the 90% (could be 95%) floor the nba requires a team to have.  

Edited June 22, 2017 by marco102

[JTB]

52 minutes ago, Watchman said:

Agree about many of your references, but I would love to have DeAndre Jordan on our team.  Unlike Howard, he doesn't whine if he doesn't get the ball (as far as I know, anyway.)

He did at one point when he was a free agent a few years back and wouldn't be shocked if he still does now. 

Unfortunately for him and other traditional centers they're just not valuable anymore no matter who it is. The max a team is probably willing to pay a traditional center in this small ball shooting era is probably 15m and that's probably only for the traditional top of the line centers like Deandre and Drummond and I may be being to generous to say a team would even give them that 

[macdaddy]

I think that's what Ferry and hopefully Schlenk know though.   Some guys you just let walk.   

[AHF]

1 hour ago, kg01 said:

 

The over-emphasis of analytics is another factor.  Front office'ing is devolving to video game team-building where you make big moves (sign big contracts) and see what happens.  If it doesn't work, just tear it down and try again .. if you still have a job.

 

If more teams had paid attention to the analytics last offseason, they would not have committed this kind of money to these guys.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, AHF said:

If more teams had paid attention to the analytics last offseason, they would not have committed this kind of money to these guys.

So you agree with me then that there's a dearth of good GM's in the league? 

[HawkItus]

 Its the stupid cap for players salary.  Look if guys were allowed to make what they could bargain for you wouldn't have so much money to give to undeserving guys.  The NFL is a great example.  If you pay your QB $100 million and it forces you to slot other positions at an appropriate salary.  The market sets the rate for spending.  Top guys get the top money and everyone else slots in after them.  Their is no max per se, but if Tom Brady is making $100 mill then Brady Quinn is not going to be paid nearly that much because he is not elite.  By having max salaries guys get plugged into over compensation. 

[AHF]

8 minutes ago, kg01 said:

So you agree with me then that there's a dearth of good GM's in the league? 

Well, I did like the person who actually said it first on this thread:

1 hour ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Because there are a lot of bad GMs in the league.

 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Dolfan23 said:

Because there's really no other choice. If you don't give those guys the "max" that they can get then they'll look elsewhere. 

I think a lot of GMs feel that way but it just isn't true for people who aren't going to be worth their contract amount.  Maybe Budcox said to themselves that they had to just open the wallet and start shaking when Baze became a FA last year but they didn't.  They could have let him walk and used that money elsewhere.

Now someone like Melo is going to get the max he did when he was last a FA because there are a lot of GMs that think he'll deliver more value than the max deal and will sell tickets, merch, etc.  A guy like that you have to pay to keep but the Evan Turners of the world you can just let walk.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, HawkItus said:

 Its the stupid cap for players salary.  Look if guys were allowed to make what they could bargain for you wouldn't have so much money to give to undeserving guys.  The NFL is a great example.  If you pay your QB $100 million and it forces you to slot other positions at an appropriate salary.  The market sets the rate for spending.  Top guys get the top money and everyone else slots in after them.  Their is no max per se, but if Tom Brady is making $100 mill then Brady Quinn is not going to be paid nearly that much because he is not elite.  By having max salaries guys get plugged into over compensation. 

That's still defeated by bad GM's.  How many years was Johnson paid more than Lebron?

[HawkItus]

6 minutes ago, kg01 said:

That's still defeated by bad GM's.  How many years was Johnson paid more than Lebron?

That's because there was a max.  Joe Johnson would not have been able to ask for what Lebron was making.  He would of been slotted closer to what an Iggy etc. was making at the time.  

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, HawkItus said:

That's because there was a max.  Joe Johnson would not have been able to ask for what Lebron was making.  He would of been slotted closer to what an Iggy etc. was making at the time.  

He would've been paid whatever the Hawks wanted to pay him regardless of what some other player was paid.

[AHF]

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

He would've been paid whatever the Hawks wanted to pay him regardless of what some other player was paid.

Agree totally but LeBron would have been making crazy money well in excess of Joe Johnson if he hadn't been limited by a max salary.  He would probably be making $50M+ today.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

Agree totally but LeBron would have been making crazy money well in excess of Joe Johnson if he hadn't been limited by a max salary.  He would probably be making $50M+ today.

Does that make JoeJohn's contract any less egregious?

I feel like I'm just being argumentative .. am I turning into AHFsturt?

[Flight]

I think it's a result of teams that aren't good trying to keep players from leaving to better situations. Also over-rewarding players for what they've achieved in the past. 

[bleachkit]

The reason is because of the artificial ceiling created by max contracts. LeBron and KD are not worth 25 million a year, they are worth much more than that. Get rid of max contracts. If LeBron is worth 100,000,000 a year on the open market then pony up the cash Mr. Billionaire owner.