Orlando Magic: 3 worst free agent signings in team history

1. Bismack Biyombo

It hurts to even type. It made no sense then, and it has only gotten worse as time has gone by. The signing of center Bismack Biyombo to a four-year, $72 million deal at such a critical juncture in the organization’s rebuild in 2016 set them back a couple of years. Where do you even start with this?

You know the way people tell you that they could do a better job running their favorite team when the reality is they couldn’t because it is a tough job that only a select few can do? Anybody could see that former Magic general manager Rob Hennigan signing Biyombo after a couple of good playoff series for the Toronto Raptors was a horrendous idea.

It would ultimately cost him his job, as it was very quickly made clear that somebody who averaged 5.5 points and 5.8 rebounds per game wasn’t worth the money. Even more puzzling was plunging this much money into the center position, even if 2016 was when the salary cap spiked when so many other areas on the roster needed help.

Oh yeah, and Nikola Vucevic was not only already in place but improving with each passing year. He was a liability defensively at that point, but splitting his minutes with Biyombo (which happened for a minute) was only ever going to disrupt both guys. The addition of Biyombo at that price forced the Magic into a second rebuild halfway through the first one.

Given the timing, the money spent, how much cap space the Magic had and the fact that Vucevic was already in place, this is easily the worst free-agent signing in franchise history. Credit to Biyombo though, who cashed in big off the back of some huge rebounding playoff games, and you could never fault his effort on the court.

He is just as one-dimensional a player as you’re going to see in the league today. The only reason we’re still not living this nightmare is that the smarter front office which came after Hennigan was able to give him back to the Charlotte Hornets — who drafted him in 2011 — in exchange for Timofey Mozgov. He too was on a terrible deal, but some nifty use of the rules meant he was stretched and never played for them.