Rudy Gay, Amar'e Stoudemire and the Most Overpaid Players in the NBA

Determining the most overcompensated player in the NBA is tricky. While massive contracts are easy to spot, matching them to their perceived lack of value can be rather subjective.

Rashard Lewis’ gargantuan salary has been the fool’s gold standard for the past few years.

However, that easy answer is likely to be released by the New Orleans Hornets following a trade that sent Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to the Washington Wizards.

This debate did not consider role players who got paid too much and then sat the bench (think Travis Outlaw with the New Jersey Nets last year). Instead, we considered cap-crippling contracts that have limited a team from adding more help.

Unlike Rashard Lewis, most of the current options are actually still productive players. They all offer tangible value but are difficult to justify in comparison to such huge levels of compensation.

NBA Featured Columnist Joel C. Cordes and NBA Assistant Editor Ethan Norof selected half a dozen potential candidates, including Rudy Gay of the Memphis Grizzlies, the New York Knicks’ Amar’e Stoudemire, the Atlanta Hawks’ Joe Johnson, Elton Brand of the Philadelphia 76ers and a certain Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard who’s sure to spark a furious debate.

You can catch the guys and additional NBA Free Agency conversation on the Court Vision blog’s Basketball by Association podcast.

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