T&T board top 10 worst contracts - Final list

[Texas Chuck]

Wiggins absolutely moves down this list and maybe even off? It's close. But that extra year gone is huge as is him proving that he can play a useful rotational role on a reasonably good team. No chance he's in the mix with Kevin Love or an unseen Klay Thompson who isn't starting the season or Russell or Wall. He's much more in that KP, Kemba, Horford, CJ you wish he was making less money but you absolutely don't mind playing him starter's minutes. And can you argue you'd pay an extra $8-10M and have him instead of Hield or the like? Absolutely you can.

[youOK]

Wiggins absolutely moves down this list and maybe even off? It's close. But that extra year gone is huge as is him proving that he can play a useful rotational role on a reasonably good team. No chance he's in the mix with Kevin Love or an unseen Klay Thompson who isn't starting the season or Russell or Wall. He's much more in that KP, Kemba, Horford, CJ you wish he was making less money but you absolutely don't mind playing him starter's minutes. And can you argue you'd pay an extra $8-10M and have him instead of Hield or the like? Absolutely you can.

He also doesn't come with the same limitations that many of those players have. (old, short, injury-prone etc.) I would say at this point Wiggins is firmly in the positive to have on the court from a basketball perspective but overpaid category. You don't love the contract but he can contribute to a winning basketball team.

[Dr Positivity]

I think Wall is now once again the worst. I still don't think many teams would be rushing to get Westbrook, I'd say still top 4 or 5. Kemba probably moves up although we did a good job already having him in bottom 10. I still think someone might trade for Porzingis, a floor stretching big is still unique. I might still leave him off top 10 in favor of guys like Bertans. Draymond turned his season around and now isn't close to bottom 10. Klay not that he doesn't come with a year off probably is more tradable as well.

[weekend_warrior]

Some good points here.

I tend to value availability a bit higher than potential/upside. Have seen this now quite a few times with the Warriors that the season plan falls apart with injuries to key players. For exceptional guys like Curry you just have to live with it. On the tiers below you need reliability imo, not the potential to win you the odd game.

Guys like Porzingis, Kemba etc (also CP3 for that matter), can be great for some games but also entirely disappear for weeks or not even play at all. Klay Thompson is of course even worse at the moment, this is why I have him on 1 over Wall. Thompson has the chance to move off that list though, for Wall I don't see it.

Paying 30+ million to those players just makes it so tough to be competitive over a long season and POs. Chances are high that they don't play when you need them and then you have all that money not available to be spend on other options.

[Buzzard]

Well I was always pretty alone on the Chris Paul value train. I get a lot wrong, but I definitely got that one right.

And I don't think the Paul/Westbrook trade proves we had valued Paul correctly. In hindsight the lesson is Westbrook was badly overvalued and Houston was in a difficult spot in that they had to move Paul but still wanted to compete and Harden wanted to play with his old teammate.

Could you elaborate? I don't think I have ever seen an opinion here that was not shared by others. The most lopsided poll I can ever recall was 80/20 out of about 50 responders...

The math for that is 1 out of 5 were the minority.

Edit: When talking about a 200 million dollar contract I think that is very team specific. If all that buys you is 1st round exits, I can see that being a severe overpay.

[shrink]

I don’t like to admit it, but D’Angelo Russell has looked better in the second half for MIN

We in Minnesota are trying to remove all memory of our pre-All Star break performance for all our players, but for Russell:

.Pre-All Star. .544 TS, 104 ORtg, 115 DRtg, -16.2 +/-
Post-All Star. .565 TS, 112 ORtg, 118 DRtg, +0.2 +/-

Russell remains a bad defender, but he became a much better teammate in the second half, even coming off the bench for a lot of that time after being hurt. He’s a good scorer and a very good passer. The most notable thing to me in the second half is that Russell was an asset to the team (on the offensive side), adding to the Wolves offense when he returned, rather than taking away from others. With the surge that Anthony Edwards made when DLo was out, I was very concerned that this would be a problem.

I will admit that I often under-estimate the real life trade returns for the type of player that is overpaid, poor defender, but who’s a good scorer. Looking at the list behind, there is a player or two I would want less than Russell, and Rosas’ list is probably bigger than mine.