Look, every NBA fan knows at this point that the cap room situation for this upcoming offseason is going to be wild. Every team has money to spend, which means players who probably don’t deserve max contracts are going to get them. Simply put, that money has to go somewhere.
Still, someone needs to check and make sure that Wizards GM Ernie Grunfield is feeling okay after seeing this report from Sporting News.
According to sources, the Wiz are locked in on making a major offer to Joakim Noah. The Wizards are said to be willing to offer Noah, coming off shoulder surgery that KO’d him in January, a full maximum contract. His deal would start at $28 million and reach around $120 million over four seasons.
$120 million! For Joakim Noah!!
If Noah was getting this deal in say, 2014, that wouldn’t have been so crazy. Noah was Defensive Player of the Year and fourth in MVP voting in the 2013-14 season, leading the Bulls to a surprisingly solid season despite the absence of Derrick Rose. Still, this is two full years later, and those years have not been kind to the former Florida Gator.
Noah is coming off a season where he played in just 29 games. His true shooting percentage was just 40.6 percent (and he’s a center!). He registered career-worst in statistical categories like free-throw rate and win shares, not to mention scoring only 4.3 points per game. Noah is also coming off of multiple major surgeries and is already 31 years old.
Now, that’s not saying that he can’t still be an effective player. His passing, rebounding, and defense are still valuable even if he is essentially useless offensively, and in the right fit he could be an excellent back up or even starting center.
But $120 million is way, way, too much to be offering him at this point, and the Wizards have lost their minds if that is really the direction they are going to go. Sporting News also lists the Knicks, Bucks, and Timberwolves as potential suitors for Noah, but you can bet if he’s getting that much money to play in Washington, he will end up a Wizard.
(Via Sporting News)
