There is no shortage of cautionary fiduciary tales in basketball history. You’ve got the Gilbert Arenas deal in Washington, a six-year, $111 million nightmare after which he sat out almost a whole season and then had an Old West-style armed standoff in the locker room. There are bad contracts due to injuries — Bill Walton on the Clippers and Grant Hill in Orlando — overrated reserves — backup center Jon “Contract” Koncak getting $13 million from the Hawks — and ill-advised contract provisions — the Warriors giving rookie Chris Webber a 15-year deal with an opt-out after only one season. Anytime the salary cap suddenly goes way up, look out. The cap spike in 2016 let the Warriors sign Kevin Durant, but it opened the door for the Lakers to sign Mozgov and Luol Deng. The cap giveth, and the cap taketh away. Let’s look at some of the worst-ever NBA contracts.
The advent of restricted free agency in 1988 led to some strange signings, but none more than the six years and $13 million the Hawks gave to fifth-year player Jon Koncak in 1989, after he’d averaged 4.7 points and 6.1 rebounds the previous season. He’d never match those meager numbers over the life of the contract, which was more than Michael Jordan’s or Larry Bird’s salaries at the time. After he signed this deal, he was forever known as “Jon Contract.” Reportedly high school star Shaquille O’Neal saw how much the thoroughly mediocre Koncak was making and decided to quit football then and there to preserve his basketball future.
Ben Wallace was a great player who should be in the Hall of Fame, but at age 31 in 2006 he was starting to decline. That didn’t stop the Bulls from giving him a four-year deal for $60 million, even though they already had a younger, cheaper, taller and better version of Big Ben in Tyson Chandler, who was only 23 and had five years left on his contract. The Bulls dumped him on New Orleans for P.J. Brown and J.R. Smith, whom they ALSO discarded. A year-and-a-half later, Big Ben was a Cavalier. The Pistons still went to the conference finals without him and only really blew it when they traded Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson. Proving they’d learned nothing, the Bulls gave Wallace’s teammate Richard Hamilton way too much money five years later.
After the 76ers went to the NBA Finals in 2001, the Nets gave Todd MacCulloch an offer sheet for six years and $34 million, which the luxury tax-averse Sixers declined to match. While MacCulloch was solid in his first season in New Jersey, starting 61 games for a team that went to the NBA Finals, things fell apart quickly. He was diagnosed with a neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which led to his retirement after playing just 96 games. That’s over $350,000 per game. MacCulloch used some of those earnings to buy more than 80 pinball machines for his Washington home — he’s a nationally ranked player — and a Slurpee machine.
