Worst Return on Investment in NBA?

[Fortune Teller]

These are the four highest-paid players on the roster:

Isaac -- $17.4 million per year
Fultz -- $17.0 million per year
Carter, Jr. -- $13.1 million per year
Gary Harris -- $13.0 million per year

That's a total of $60.5 million.

The percentage of games each has missed since arriving in Orlando:

Isaac -- 66.7% (7 seasons)
Fultz -- 55.6% (6 seasons)
Carter, Jr. -- 32.0% (4 seasons)
Gary Harris -- 31.1% (4 seasons)

Worse, all four have been re-signed/extended since getting here.

How different would this year's roster be if the Magic were getting any return on investment for their $60.5 million?

It's actually somewhat hard to believe how much of our salary cap is wasted on injury-prone players who produce next to nothing.

[MartinsIzAfraud]

Crazy part is people want 2 of the worst injury prone players to stay here.

[zaymon]

We need to move at least 2 of them but until now they were just money placeholders. 3 of them are expiring and 1 is on a team friendly deal. It would be a problem if they were on longer deals but they are not.

[Skybox]

Worst thread?

[eyriq]

These are the four highest-paid players on the roster:

Isaac -- $17.4 million per year
Fultz -- $17.0 million per year
Carter, Jr. -- $13.1 million per year
Gary Harris -- $13.0 million per year

That's a total of $60.5 million.

The percentage of games each has missed since arriving in Orlando:

Isaac -- 66.7% (7 seasons)
Fultz -- 55.6% (6 seasons)
Carter, Jr. -- 32.0% (4 seasons)
Gary Harris -- 31.1% (4 seasons)

Worse, all four have been re-signed/extended since getting here.

How different would this year's roster be if the Magic were getting any return on investment for their $60.5 million?

It's actually somewhat hard to believe how much of our salary cap is wasted on injury-prone players who produce next to nothing.

This is exhibit A supporting a strategy to improve availability. Our build is extremely suboptimal. Low-hanging fruit for improving the build.

[HighPack]

Hezonja.

[thelead]

The crazy thing is that people don’t understand that it was part of the tank plan that landed us Paolo

[meatwad4343]

Issac needs to go, great player when healthy but you can't justify extending him for what he's going to want for a guy who's never on the court

[thelead]

Issac needs to go, great player when healthy but you can't justify extending him for what he's going to want for a guy who's never on the court

You think he’s going to get a big contract?

[VFX]

Issac needs to go, great player when healthy but you can't justify extending him for what he's going to want for a guy who's never on the court

You think he’s going to get a big contract?

You keep saying this but it’s only really part of the problem.

He could make an OK salary and I don’t want him here. He doesn’t play basketball. You can’t plan lineups with him. He’s unreliable. He’s also not going to be making vet minimum, so you’d have to jump through hoops to justify why he’s worth really anything north of role player money.

At this point I’d rather Orlando had a roster spot open instead of the slim chance Isaac might be available to play 14 mins at the absolute most. Like.. what?

I went from liking Isaac, to feeling bad for him, to indifferent, and now I actually dislike him entirely based on how he’s been handled this season and how fragile he really is while making an absolutely absurd contract he’d never earn anywhere else other than Orlando.

The crazy thing is that people don’t understand that it was part of the tank plan that landed us Paolo

Also, if this is true then they should be moved right?

Why keep around $60m in contracts to tank and land your cornerstone pieces only to then make their job more difficult while they develop?

[The-Stallion70]

There are alot of bad contracts in the NBA, I would need to see a full analysis of all the worst contracts and games missed plus production before saying for sure this is the worst roi for these contracts.

This really sucks though.

[SloNick Russia]

Dude, sorry, but this thread is just silly.
Our old friend Evan Fournier is making 18M per and has been healthy for 3 years, just can't crack the rotation, how this kind of investment look for NY? How does Chicago feel about always ingured Lonzo Ball making 20M per, solid investment?
Try having some respect to players who got hurt playing for the Magic and now try to get back to form.

Sent from my SM-G9750 using RealGM mobile app

[bigdogdylan5]

Lol these are all pretty much expiring contracts which is a big part we get to have 50-60 mil in cap space after a year where our ascend really starts to gain traction. Dumb thread. I mean you could argue they were bad contracts from the jump but we were rebuilding. We weren’t going to sign anyone so just retain the asset but unfortunately it didn’t work out but I don’t believe we lost anything with them. WCJ contract is so damn good we could move him tomorrow… If I am OKC he would be target numero uno. My gosh he would really help that team. I get he is injury prone but this year he broke his hand. Big difference from the soft tissue injuries he is susceptible to. Definitely more flukey. Trade deadline will be interesting. They should trade Isaac unless they are pretty confident they can sign him to a reduced extension this off-season. Fultz going to be gone. I think they know that and are using his spot to get Black important minutes and then they might bring him back for rest of the year so Black doesn’t have to play the crazy minutes that Paolo Franz and Suggs had to endure.

[eyriq]

I don't get the "bad thread" takes. The thread clearly illustrates that we are heavily invested in injury prone players. You can argue that this investment made sense during the tank. It no longer makes sense. I'd expect Weltman is going to address this by moving on from some of these players.

[RichCollab]

Would be great to use the Gary and Fultz money on a dynamic guard for the starting lineup.

JI I keep for the right price.

I’m ok keeping WCJ for the length of his contract. I’m actually ok with what we pay him.

[Furinkazan]

Crazy part is people want 2 of the worst injury prone players to stay here.

really crazy part is people thinking WCJ somehow doesnt belong on this list

[VFX]

How is this a “dumb thread” or “bad take”? lmao.

I swear some of you are the most delusional homers, which I completely get considering this is a Magic board.

How many other franchises have their top 3-4 highest paid players missing the majority of seasons games or not contributing heavily? Fans of other teams would probably be more pressed, but this is Orlando so some of you guys have zero expectations from anyone.

Now Orlando actually has something at stake and posters are like “oh don’t worry it’s fine”. You forget this organization takes 2-3 seasons longer to make decisions than just about any other in comparison. You don’t even need to include WCJr into this discussion to have a point.

[yoyojw17]

Dude, sorry, but this thread is just silly.
Our old friend Evan Fournier is making 18M per and has been healthy for 3 years, just can't crack the rotation, how this kind of investment look for NY? How does Chicago feel about always ingured Lonzo Ball making 20M per, solid investment?
Try having some respect to players who got hurt playing for the Magic and now try to get back to form.

Sent from my SM-G9750 using RealGM mobile app

This!!!

The negativity on this board gets ridiculous some times. It's a sport.... and these individuals may love their job... love their game.... go months/years to recover... maybe to be disappointed by reinjury or a new injury. It's not like they push papers behind a desk all day.

[Audi]

I don't get the "bad thread" takes. The thread clearly illustrates that we are heavily invested in injury prone players. You can argue that this investment made sense during the tank. It no longer makes sense. I'd expect Weltman is going to address this by moving on from some of these players.

“Heavily invested” here would look more like 2-3 yrs left on these contracts. This is literally just the tail end of the investment that you just said made sense during the tank. If anything, Weltman maybe got caught surprised with the process speeding up the by a season.

How is this a “dumb thread” or “bad take” lmao.

I swear some of you are the most delusional homers, which I completely get considering this is a Magic board.

How many other franchises have their top 3-4 highest paid players missing the majority of seasons games or not contributing heavily?

Wtf cares? Other franchises are in completely different situations. How many other franchises have their two core pieces being third and second yr players on rookie contracts?

Seeing this as the tapering off of the last bit of our tanking process doesn’t make anyone a “delusional homer”, it’s the fairly predictable progression of a tanking team striking rebuild gold in two consecutive drafts.

[VFX]

I don't get the "bad thread" takes. The thread clearly illustrates that we are heavily invested in injury prone players. You can argue that this investment made sense during the tank. It no longer makes sense. I'd expect Weltman is going to address this by moving on from some of these players.

“Heavily invested” here would look more like 2-3 yrs left on these contracts. This is literally just the tail end of the investment that you just said made sense during the tank. If anything, Weltman maybe got caught surprised with the process speeding up the by a season.

How is this a “dumb thread” or “bad take” lmao.

I swear some of you are the most delusional homers, which I completely get considering this is a Magic board.

How many other franchises have their top 3-4 highest paid players missing the majority of seasons games or not contributing heavily?

Wtf cares? Other franchises are in completely different situations. How many other franchises have their two core pieces being third and second yr players on rookie contracts?

Seeing this as the tapering off of the last bit of our tanking process doesn’t make anyone a “delusional homer”, it’s the fairly predictable progression of a tanking team striking rebuild gold in two consecutive drafts.

It’s more about what the vets are actually doing for the money.

Ingles has been worth every penny because of how much better he makes the second unit, especially Cole and Moe.

Gary Harris? Guy has been missing in action for the last 10 games and can’t even do what he is paid to do well (shoot the basketball).

Isaac? If he’s shown anything with his veteran presence it’s that you can earn a huge deal, never play basketball, and still be treated like a king by everyone from you reputation 4 years ago.

Fultz? This guy makes nobody better at all AND he’s unavailable. You’d disagree, but Black provides more value as a rookie and that says a lot.

It’s not a ridiculous thing to point out. The team is run by guys on rookie deals and overpaid dudes that contribute almost nothing make up the majority of the cap space. Yeah, that'll change soon, but there is more dead weight than not and Joe Ingles is the only vet actually leading by example and even he has missed significant time because he sprained his ankle.

You don’t give af about other franchises and that’s fine, but a team like OKC is better balanced AND has a stash of picks to move forward. SGA and Dort actually earned their contracts.