Month: February 2006 (Page 3 of 14)

The Denver Nuggets, Seattle SuperSonics and the Portland Trailblazers have completed a trade before the NBA’s trade deadline today (3pm ET). See the trade here.

I’m not sure what this does for the Nuggets. They have been trying to upgrade their off guard position and decided to trade a borderline starter at the point (Earl Watson) for a small forward (Ruben Patterson) and a rebounder (Reggie Evans).

Is Watson going to play behind Luke Ridnour in Seattle? It’s probably not a bad trade for the Sonics asset-wise as they jettison Evans, who wanted a trade, for Watson.

All of this NBA trade talk made me wonder – who are the most overpaid players in the league?

Here’s a list:

2. Allan Houston – $19.1 M (1)
Chris Webber – $19.1 (2)
4. Michael Finley – $18.6 (2)
6. Stephon Marbury – $16.5 (3)
10. Brian Grant – $16.1 (1)
13. Anfernee Hardaway – $15.8 (0)
14. Grant Hill – $15.7 (1)
Keith Van Horn – $15.7 (0)
Jalen Rose – $15.7 (1)
18. Eddie Jones – $14.6 (1)
19. Tim Thomas – $14.0 (0)
20. Antonio Davis – $13.9 (0)

The number in parenthesis are the number of years that each player has left on his contract. Finley is in a special situation – he is still getting paid by the Mavericks, but is also under contract with the Spurs. You can see the entire list at Hoops Hype.

But Allan Houston obviously takes the cake, as he’s not even playing anymore. His salary is expected to come off the books after this season due to his injury-forced retirement. But some of these contracts are valuable, as teams can dump salary if their contracts are up this season. This is the case with the Steve Francis / Penny Hardaway swap that was finalized yesterday.

The trade has been finalized.

New York Knickerbockers President of Basketball Operations Isiah Thomas announced today that three-time NBA All-Star guard Steve Francis has been acquired from the Orlando Magic in exchange for guard/forward Anfernee Hardaway and forward Trevor Ariza.

I don’t know much about Ariza, but it looks like this is a salary dump from Orlando’s perspective. The original rumor had Jamal Crawford and Mo Taylor heading to the Magic.

Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis in the same backcourt. Now this should be interesting.