Granted, but even within the world of the NBA and its mega salaries, there can be good values, guys who genuinely earn what they’re paid. And there’s the flip side — overpaid players, be they stars or scrubs.
Now, judging who’s overpaid and by how much is generally a subjective endeavor, and in compiling our annual list in the past, there has been a lot more art than science. But this time around, we thought we’d try to make the list a little more objective.
To that end, we first compared player salaries to the player-efficiency ratings those players produce. That gave us a list that made some sense, but the problem seemed to be that players who made high salaries, even if they were very productive and performed like stars, were overly punished.
We’ve seen lists that simply compare player salaries to win-shares produced — win shares being an estimated number of wins to which the player contributes. That also seems a little too simplistic.
What we wound up doing is combining PER with win shares, and comparing that to salaries — the idea being that using the individual production stat gleaned from PER with the more general contribution to winning we get from win shares gives us a better idea of how productive a player is, and thus, a better number to use in relation to salary.
Now, a couple of caveats. First, we don’t put injured players on the list. By definition, a player who only contributes a few games is overpaid, but not necessarily because the team involved misjudged talent—we can only presume the lack of production is because of injury. So you won’t see the likes of Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant or Derrick Rose here. If you missed at least half of last season, you’re not on the list.
Second, the cutoff line for overpaid is $8 million. There are 77 players who will make $8 million next season, and that’s almost 20 percent of the league — it is players in that group that sit like albatrosses on the books of NBA teams, not those making close to the league average.
Last year’s No. 1 pick, Anthony Bennett, for example, had a PER of 6.9 and -0.4 win shares. He would be comfortably among the most overpaid players in the league, but at $5.6 million, his contract is hardly going to weigh down the Timberwolves going forward. In order to be overpaid, you’ve got to be a burden for your team’s accountants.
With that, we give you this year’s list: Most Overpaid Players in the NBA.
15. O.J. Mayo, Bucks
Salary: $8 million
Win shares: 0.1
PER: 11.2
The Bucks were obviously hoping that, by getting Mayo to Milwaukee on a three-year, $24 million deal last summer, he would finally get ample opportunity and cash in on his potential. It didn’t happen. Mayo missed 30 games and started only 23 times, registering the worst year of his career.
14. Andrea Bargnani, Knicks
Salary: $11.5 million
Win shares: 1.5
PER: 14.5
Bargnani is cementing his legacy as one of the worst No. 1 overall picks in league history. He had trouble staying healthy, but played 42 games and was pretty consistently awful in doing so—he does not rebound for a 7-footer and the strength of his game, his 3-point shooting, continues to go off the tracks. He shot just 27.8 percent from the arc last season. He is, mercifully, in the final year of his contract.
13. Dwight Howard, Rockets
Salary: $21.4 million
Win shares: 8.0
PER: 21.3
Howard is the first surprise among the Top 15, and he is here not because he had a terrible year, but only because his production did not keep pace with his paycheck. Howard is still an excellent defender, but not the best in the league as he once was, and his post-up offensive game has not been the same since he had back surgery.
12. Gordon Hayward, Jazz
Salary: $14.7 million
Win shares: 3.6
PER: 16.2
Hayward put up good numbers last year, with 16.2 points, 5.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists, but his efficiency suffered as he became the offensive focal point—he shot only 41.3 percent from the field and 30.4 percent from the 3-point line, and his turnover rate (2.8 per game) soared. Still, the Jazz opted to pay him like a No. 1 option, matching Charlotte’s max offer sheet (four years, $63 million) this summer.
11. Chris Bosh, Heat
Salary: $20.6 million
Win shares: 8.0
PER: 19.0
With LeBron James gone and the Rockets angling to lure Bosh to Houston, Miami had a decision to make this summer: Give Bosh an insanely inflated contract to get him to stay, or let him walk and force Dwyane Wade to close out his career in a rebuilding situation. They went with the former, and the hope is that Bosh can pick up his output dramatically with James gone. Even if he does, though, it’s doubtful he will put up the kind of numbers that make him worth the deal he got from Miami (five years, $119 million).
10. Roy Hibbert, Pacers
Salary:$14.9 million
Win shares: 5.4
PER: 13.4
If you factor in postseason no-shows, Hibbert would rank higher on this list. After an All-Star start to the season, Hibbert fell off dramatically down the stretch and wound up the year as a below-average center. Perhaps the injury to Paul George will force Hibbert to get his act together, but the Pacers are desperately hoping something inspires him to return to form.
9. Kevin Garnett, Nets
Salary: $12 million
Win shares: 1.2
PER: 13.3
Lionel Hollins has already said that Garnett will start at power forward for the Nets this year, but for Brooklyn’s sake, that will be on a limited-minutes basis. The Nets have options behind Garnett, either going big with Mason Plumlee or going small with Mirza Teletovic, which should allow Hollins to stick within the 20-25 minute range with Garnett.
8. Rudy Gay, Kings
Salary: $19.3 million
Win shares: 4.8
PER: 18.3
Gay is not a bad player, of course, he simply signed an unwieldy contract in the star-crossed summer for 2010 (five years, $83 million) he could not live up to. Thankfully, he is in the final year of that deal, and it is likely he will be as much of a bargain at this time next year as he is an albatross this year.
7. Eric Gordon, Pelicans
Salary: $14.9 million
Win shares: 2.5
PER: 14.9
Back when he signed an offer sheet with the Suns in 2012, Gordon said he did not want to play for New Orleans and that the team should let him go to Phoenix. The Pelicans should have listened. Gordon has been injured for most of the three years he has been in New Orleans, and though he was reasonably healthy last year (he played 64 games), he was little more than an average shooting guard making well-above-average salary.
6. Deron Williams, Nets
Salary: $19.8 million
Win shares: 5.4
PER: 17.6
There was, within the last three years, a reasonable discussion about whether Williams was the best point guard in the NBA. Hard to believe, but it’s true. He has dropped a long, long way since then, in part because of injuries and in part because … well, no one is sure. Conditioning? Coaching? Wear and tear? Whatever the reason, Williams has had a swift decline, and given that he is in just the third year of a five-year, $100 million deal, the Nets are hoping he is poised for a bounce-back season.
5. Josh Smith, Pistons
Salary: $13.5 million
Win shares: 1.1
PER: 14.1
The signing of Smith last year smacked of desperation on the part of Pistons GM Joe Dumars — Smith is ideally a power forward but likes to hoist perimeter shots as though he is a 2-guard, and on a team already set with good young pieces at power forward and center, it sure looked like Smith was destined to shoot Detroit out of many games. Sure enough, in losses his true shooting percentage was 43.5 and in wins, his TS was 51.1. New Pistons honcho Stan Van Gundy now has three years left on Smith’s contract, and he will surely attempt to get him back to playing like a power forward in that time.
4. Gerald Wallace, Celtics
Salary: $10.1 million
Win shares: 1.3
PER: 10.0
Wallace’s contract was the burden the Celtics had to take on in order to push Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn and pilfer the Nets’ future drafts. He still has two years left on the four-year, $40 million contract he signed two years ago, so the Celtics might have to put up with him longer than they’d like. He was injured for most of last year’s second half, but he is only 31 and if he got to a contender, he might still have something left in the tank.
3. Amare Stoudemire, Knicks
Salary: $23.4 million
Win shares: 3.8
PER: 18.8
Offensively, Stoudemire still shows flashes of the guy who inspired the Knicks to give him $100 million in the summer of 2010. Unfortunately, that only comes in flashes — he played just 18.8 minutes per game last year, limited by his bum knee, and does not play much defense when he is on the floor. Those are not good characteristics for the second-highest paid player in the league. Stoudemire is in the final year of that monster contract, at least.
2. Joe Johnson, Nets
Salary: $23.2 million
Win shares: 4.9
PER: 15.5
The third Net on this list is another victim of his former team’s generosity — Johnson was granted an absurdly bloated six-year, $124 million contract by the Hawks in 2010, and has spent the bulk of his career trying to live up to his paycheck. While he has established himself as a solid, all-around player who can handle either guard position and even chip in at small forward, he has not quite been able to carry the weight of his salary.
1. Kendrick Perkins, Thunder
Salary: $9.6 million
Win shares: 0.8
PER: 6.3
Perkins’ salary is not especially troublesome for Oklahoma City, but in relation to his lack of production, he is incredibly overpaid. Playing just 19.5 minutes, Perkins averaged only 3.4 points and 4.9 rebounds last year, and made just 12 shots (out of 238 attempted in the regular season and playoffs) from beyond 10 feet. Defensively, Perkins still offers value as an excellent post defender, but offensively, he is easily the worst starter in the league. Of players who had at least 300 offensive possessions to their credit last year, Perkins had the second-worst efficiency rating in the NBA, averaging 0. 670 points per possession (only Boston rookie Phil Pressey was worse at 0.590). The Thunder will transition from Perkins to Steven Adams, probably over the course of this year, and that works out well for OKC — Perkins’ deal is up after this season.
