I liked it then, and I think the deal did some good things for the team in the long run. But there are people who took a wait & see on that trade who now consider it terrible given that Webber’s contract expired this past season, and Thomas is still on the books for 2 more seasons.

All well taken. My bad on the 2008 pick – I told myself I should look that up to make sure, but then forgot all about it. Pesky facts!

There’s no doubt that KMart is the worst contract, followed by Nene’s. The irony of that of course is that Camby was actually incredibly productive for his salary – especially when you consider the performance bonuses which protect them (and now the Clippers) if he gets hurt. But no one would touch KMart or Nene, so Camby is the one they had to move in order to get under the tax. No single contract can put a team over the luxury tax threshold, which is after all $72M or whatever. It’s invariably a series of decisions. BUT, I stand by the assertion that the acquisition of Iverson (who is after all making $12M more than Miller this season) sealed their fate, and forced them to move Camby.

I’d also submit that Stan Kroenke must be bitterly disappointed that the many millions of dollars he spent to add Iverson to that team and then lose 8 straight first round playoff games. His timing was awful – he built a 50 win team in the Western Conference when 50 wins got you the 8th seed. But still.

Should anyone feel sorry for them? Don’t know how to answer that. But the very idea of building around a Carmelo max salary, with Melo, KMart and Nene scheduled to make a combined $45M in 2010-2011, is a horrible situation. Look at it this way – Carmelo can be a free agent the same time Martin’s deal comes off the books, and before Nene’s. If they’re planning on giving JR Smith a decent contract, there’s no cap space to add someone next to Carmelo even after Iverson’s contract is gone. It’s not a good situation.

I should look through my email for what I said at the time. He signed that deal before I had a blog, but I have friend’s in Denver and I wrote a LOT about it. The amazing thing, as the story goes, is that he was all set to sign a 6 year deal with the Nugs (it was the prior CBA, and the max for switching teams was 6, 7 for staying with the current club). At the last minute, they changed it to a S&T, 7 years, and the Nuggets gave up three first round picks. As far as I know, the Nuggets only motivation for doing this as a S&T was to get that 7th year, which of course is a disaster now. There must have been something else, but certainly NJ had no intention of signing the guy for a 6 year max deal. It is one of the worst contracts of all time.

Nene’s deal was ill-advised primarily because of the injuries. You could say, ‘tough break, who knew?’ except for the fact that he had been frequently injured during his rookie deal. So maybe they didn’t know, but they had an inkling. Add in the fact that they were pretty much bidding against themselves when they gave him $60M, and well, it wasn’t smart. Especially since they already had Martin signed at the max, and well, they play the same position.

It does make you appreciate MDsr’s “We don’t have any bad contracts” mantra. Nobody loves the Mobley and Thomas contracts at this point, but they are garden-variety NBA contracts compared to these Titanics.