Expect NBA Max Contracts To Become Rarer In 2016
By Ti Windisch
Don’t expect to see many NBA max deals given out in 2016, despite the abundance of massive contracts given out this past summer.
The term “max player” is currently outdated in the NBA. A max player used to be one of the very best and brightest, one that a team would eagerly spend as much as they possibly could to lock up.
This past offseason, LeBron James and Jimmy Butler were obvious max players. Their respective teams paid whatever it took to sign them, without a second thought. After all, they were worth it.
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The thing about 2015, is that a lot of players were considered “worth it.” Wesley Matthews, Brook Lopez, Greg Monroe, Enes Kanter, Reggie Jackson and Tristan Thompson all got max deals of varying lengths and salaries this past offseason.
It’d be downright shocking if more than two of those six guys got max money if they were available this offseason. The difference between a 2015 max and a 2016 max is massive — thanks to a rising salary cap, the NBA may finally see real negotiating again this summer, as opposed to the boring “max out everybody!” strategy we all saw last time around.
Kanter is a good example of this. He’s an exceptional offensive threat and rebounder, but can’t defend anybody. Despite his flaws, Kanter got a four-year, $70 million contract from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kanter will make $16.5 million in his first season, and then get 4.5 percent more per year going forward, as per NBA collective bargaining agreement.
Should he have been a free agent this season, his first-year max would instead be worth $22.25 million. Accounting for the 4.5 percent annual raises, that means Kanter’s four-year deal would jump up from $70 million to $95.17 million.
Yikes. That massive jump is the reason LeBron James continues to take one-year deals, by the way. When the salary cap reaches its zenith in 2017, LeBron will likely take a max deal. With the cap estimated at around $108 million that year, LeBron could potentially pull in a five-year, $206 million deal — and that’s not the most he could make.
If he can convince the Cavaliers to give him the most they can by using his Bird Rights (which allows for 7.5 percent increases per season instead of 4.5 percent), LeBron could make $219 million over five seasons, with the last year being worth some $50 million.
But LeBron, as always, is the exception instead of the rule. Contracts being able to go well over the $200 million mark are the reason max contracts will soon only be awarded to true max players once more.
DeMar DeRozan, Mike Conley, Al Horford, Kevin Durant, Hassan Whiteside, Bradley Beal and Andre Drummond will all be free agents this offseason. Last summer, those eight players would’ve probably all received max deals.
That is no longer the case. DeRozan, Horford, Conley and Durant will all be qualified to make 30 percent of the salary cap, since they have between seven and nine years of experience. That means their first year will be worth roughly $26.7 million, with five-year deals for those players being valued at some $146 million.
Durant surely gets that much from virtually any team, but are Conley, Horford or DeRozan really worth some $30 million a year? Maybe two or three of them end up getting max money, but it’d be surprising to see all three get those mega-deals.
Drummond, Beal and Whiteside are all eligible for the same contract that Kanter’s would’ve been, thanks to their less than seven years of NBA service. Is it really smart to give Hassan Whiteside nearly $100 million over four years, given his streaky past?
Beal and Drummond will probably get that much without much trouble thanks to their age — the two 22-year-olds should be in their primes by the end of those contracts, making them likely worthwhile.
So after the obvious choices in Durant and LeBron, we’re left with Beal, Horford, Drummond, Conley, DeRozan and Whiteside who could receive max deals. That’s eight potential maxes going to the absolute best players in the free agency pool. Outside of those eight players, it’d be surprising to see anybody else get max money.
Guys like Harrison Barnes, Evan Fournier, Dwight Howard, Nic Batum and Chandler Parsons could have probably found max deals without the cap jump, but who’s going to give fourth-option Harrison Barnes $100 million? Or old and oft-injured Dwight Howard a max of any length, considering his first-year salary would be over $30 million?
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There are desperate teams out there, but nobody is that desperate for these second- and third-tier free agents. Even with the cap rising to a projected $108 million, owing a fourth of that to Harrison Barnes or nearly a third of it to Dwight Howard will be huge in 2017.
This is the offseason where the difference between good and bad front offices will be apparent. Because even if outside of the top six to eight free agents conventional wisdom doesn’t see anyone else as worthy of a max, a player is worth whatever they can get a team to pay them.
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And if Tristan Thompson was able to get Cleveland to max him out, who knows what will happen this offseason. The only certain thing is that max contracts carry real weight again, and any GMs that continue to hand them out like candy on Halloween will certainly pay the price, both figuratively and quite literally.