The opening of 2024 NBA free agency didn’t spark a spending frenzy like some previous iterations, but money still came pouring in across the association.
A bit too much money in some cases, if we’re honest.
To be clear, none of the initial spending appears to be abjectly outrageous. Nobody has given Timofey Mozgov $64 million or anything like that.
In relative terms, however, there have been overpayments. That doesn’t mean they are bad players or bad investments. Rather, they could simply be a case of projected production falling short of those high salary levels.
Let’s rank the five worst offenders of the offseason so far.
There certainly was scenarios in which Klay Thompson emerged from this offseason with an even more sizable contract in hand.
And it’s easy to let your imagination run wild with possibilities of what could happen with him receiving passes from Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving.
However, this still feels like a A little steep for someone who could spend his later years functioning primarily as a perimeter shooting specialist.
Thompson, for the record, continues to dominate from distance. His 268 3-pointers last season were fourth-most in the league, and while his 38.7 percent shooting percentage was the second worst of his career, it’s still well above average.
The problem is that he’s become pretty monotonous with his contributions since missing back-to-back seasons with leg injuries (first a torn ACL, then a torn Achilles tendon). 61.1 percent of his shots last season came from beyond the arc, and while you like to see him rely on his usual strength, it also reflects that there isn’t much left in his arsenal beyond that.
Those injuries and age have done irreparable damage to their defense, but they have also nearly silenced the volume of their offense inside the goal.
It’s fair to wonder, then, whether shooting alone will earn him this kind of money during his age-34, 35 and 36 campaigns.
Maybe that’s all the Mavs expect from him, but if he struggles with consistency on his shot or can’t hold his own defensively, then this could be the kind of acquisition that stands out more for name recognition than actual return on investment on the court.
Toronto effectively hinted that a contract like this was coming for Immanuel Quickley by making it the basis of his return from the December deal that sent OG Anunoby to New York.
The Raptors clearly valued the 25-year-old’s current skill set and his expansion potential over time, and this is a mostly understandable investment in both.
That’s still a mountain of money for someone who spent most of his first four NBA seasons as a high-level reserve rather than the primary point guard. True, he looked good as a starting point guard in Toronto after the trade (he averaged 18.6 points, 6.8 assists and just 1.8 turnovers while shooting 39.5 percent from 3-point range), but there’s not much to extrapolate from 38 games for a player who is destined for the lottery.
Fast could He’s not worth paying that kind of money, but that’s projecting some nice growth on his part. He just turned 25 in June, so time could be on his side. And even if he turns out to be more of a secondary distributor than a top-tier decision-maker, that could be OK, since Scottie Barnes initiates much of Toronto’s offensive action.
All told, Quickley’s first four seasons have taken him from pretty good to good. This contract requires him to move up the ranks from very good to excellent.
Maybe that jump will happen, maybe it won’t. Toronto will have to pay that money either way. And it’s fair to wonder if the Raptors could have negotiated a bit to get the price down knowing that Quickley’s restricted status meant they had the right to match any offer — something that, it’s worth noting, players have had trouble finding recently as teams have seemingly wanted to avoid tying up their cap space during the moratorium period.
When the Pacers and Pascal Siakam reached this agreement during the exclusive negotiating window prior to free agency, there was no surprise.
If this wasn’t preordained once Indiana gave up three first-round picks to lure him away from the Toronto Raptors, fate was sealed once the franchise’s first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in a decade quickly ensued.
And, to be frank, this isn’t the most Indiana could have offered. While the Pacers gave Siakam a four-year max contract, they could have taken things further with a mammoth five-year deal worth $245.3 million if they wanted to.
In other words, it’s hard to hate this deal, especially since cap space isn’t as critical in a non-destination market like Indianapolis. It’s also fair to not be entirely convinced that Siakam is worth as much as he received.
This is superstar money, and he’s not one of them.
The 30-year-old is a two-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection. He has also never been named to the All-NBA first team and has not appeared on any All-NBA lists in either of the past two seasons.
Siakam is a good scorer and a skilled secondary playmaker, but he doesn’t excel in either category. He shoots slightly below average from 3-point range (34.6 percent last season) and doesn’t take enough long-range attempts to really space the floor (3.1 per game). He’s a solid, versatile defender, but not spectacular.
The Raptors seemingly recognized that they couldn’t build a great team with Siakam as their best player. The question facing the Pacers is whether they can compete with him as their second option. At this price, they’d better hope that’s possible.
OG Anunoby’s impact on the Knicks was instantaneous and huge. It was also relatively short-lived, as multiple bouts of injury caused him to sit out several times, including most of the Knicks’ second-round series loss to the Pacers.
Because injuries are such a common enemy of the two-way forward (he’s topped 50 games in just one of the past four seasons), he was thought to be a tough player to price out in free agency. New York’s decision-makers disagreed with that assessment, handing out this mammoth deal (which includes both a player option and a trade clause) during the exclusive window.
It’s a big bet for a number of reasons, not the least of which is improving Anunoby’s availability issues. As much as he’s helped this team (the Knicks went 20-3 while posting an impressive 10-1 win), Anunoby’s availability issues are a big one. net rating of over 22.6 With him during the regular season, he obviously can’t do anything if he can’t play on the court. At this salary, New York can’t expect him to miss 27.5 games a year, but that’s his average over the past four seasons.
It’s also a huge investment in chemistry and fit. Clearly, this core worked once the 26-year-old’s versatile defense and low-maintenance, high-efficiency offense were added. And the hope is that things will be even better now that Mikal Bridges, almost a carbon copy of Anunoby in terms of what they bring inside the lines, has rejoined the Villanova team.
The Knicks don’t have the star power of a typical contending team, though. Jalen Brunson is a certified star and Julius Randle has played at an All-Star level before, but that’s about it.
Anunoby may make money as a star, but he’s really a star player. He’s never been an All-Star or an All-NBA selection. His only league recognition is a second-team All-Defensive selection in 2022-23. This isn’t the resume you’d associate with a $212.5 million player.
If New York wins a title with this core, it won’t have to worry about finances. If the championship never materializes, however, hindsight may make it difficult to understand how Anunoby earned an average annual salary of $42.5 million.
If Patrick Williams were a bit older or not a relatively recent top-five pick (No. 4 in 2020), he might have been a candidate to sign a prove-it contract this offseason. His game has shown little perceptible growth in four NBA campaigns, with half of those seasons being massively hampered by injuries.
The Bulls, however, don’t work like that. They’ve remained steadfast in their commitment to their core (though that grip appears to finally be loosening) and here they demonstrated their steadfast commitment to the idea that the 22-year-old can still deliver on those old Kawhi Leonard 2.0 promises.
This is a safe bet on someone who hasn’t even shown hints of tapping into that potential yet. He looks more or less the same player he was as a teenage rookie in the Windy City. He debuted in 2020-21 with a 10.5 player efficiency rating, a 56.2 true shooting percentage and a minus-2.4 box plus/minus. Last season, he had an 11.0 PER, a 55.3 true shooting percentage and a minus-2.3 BPM.
Williams shoots 3-pointers at a good rate (41 percent for his career), but he doesn’t do it enough to demand much defensive attention (2.8 attempts per game). His 2-point shooting percentage has regressed in each of the past two seasons, recently hitting an all-time low of just 47.4 percent. He offers versatility on defense, but he’s not a high-impact player on that end. He’s had a negative defensive plus/minus in two of the past three seasons.
Chicago can’t be thinking all of the above is worth an $18 million annual salary, right? This has to do with him growing into something bigger, right? But what is that belief based on beyond his age? What developmental milestones has he reached to convince the decision-makers that he’s on the right path? What aspects of the organization’s development program make people believe this team will get the best out of him?
The Bulls probably thought Williams was too valuable an asset to let go, but that was never a risk because of his restricted status. They could have let the market set his price, or at least allowed him to shop around for an offer and quite possibly find that the dollars he imagined would be there weren’t actually on the table.
They should have negotiated something better than a contract of this size for someone with these stats and few, if any, signs of improvement.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics courtesy of Basketball reference and NBA.com.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on X, @ZachBuckleyNBA.