NBA Free Agents 2012: Careless Teams That Overspent on Superstars

There were lots of good options on the free agent market this summer.

There were superstars, there were blooming stars, there were players that no team should have taken a second look at. 

And as is the case every year, we're in the midst of the final day of the moratorium. We look at some of the huge signings made over the last 10 days and wonder what some of the league's front office executives could have possibly been thinking.

As expected, there was lots of overpaying for mediocre talent and lots of exorbitant contracts thrown at players who have proven very little. 

If some of these moves don't pan out, good luck to the execs who concocted them. 

Here's a look at some of the most overindulgent free agent signings this summer. 

Indiana Pacers (Part I): Roy Hibbert

The Pacers had two missions this summer: Ink Roy Hibbert to a long-term contract and hold on to George Hill, and hope to do it in the midst of Larry Bird's retirement and Donnie Walsh's first couple of weeks with the team. 

In terms of Hibbert, the Pacers certainly accomplished their goal, inking the young center to a four-year, $58 million contract.

Now this isn't to say that Hibbert isn't good. There's also the fact that Hibbert was a restricted free agent who was certainly going to be swept away by another team (read: Portland) if Indiana wouldn't pay him, so the Pacers' hands were tied, to a degree.

But that is a lot of money to commit to a player who's still developing, even if he is a center who can score. 

It takes a long time to develop a center. The Pacers, in signing Hibbert to this enormous contract, are taking a risk.

They're tying up a vast portion of their payroll in the hope that this young, unproven player pays off. Hopefully, he does, or else the Pacers are never going to get over the hump in the Eastern Conference. 

Indiana Pacers (Part II): George Hill

At the beginning of the offseason, the Pacers made no secret of their intention to keep George Hill over the long term, and they proved it, reportedly offering the restricted free agent a five-year deal.

The terms of the deal haven't been disclosed, but there are rumors aplenty that it's worth $40 million. 

Indiana is high on Hill because when he transitioned from a bench player into a starter, it gave the team a huge spark, and he proved he can win.

But like Hibbert, Hill is only 25 years old, and he's started a total of 14 regular-season games over the last two seasons. 

Granted, Hill could become a superstar. But $50 million is a lot of money to commit to "could." 

Separately, the signings of Hibbert and Hill aren't terrible. Together, they're a concern, especially given that the Pacers aren't exactly a huge-budget team.

If the numbers are correct, Indiana has now committed almost $100 million to two young, relatively unproven players.

God help this front office if these guys end up being busts next season. 

New York Knicks: Marcus Camby

It's a given that the Knicks didn't have a lot of options as they tried to find someone to bring in to back up Tyson Chandler.

Considering what they had to give up in order to obtain Marcus Camby from Houston, you have to believe that maybe they would've been better off just waiting. 

The Knicks sacrificed three players—Toney Douglas, Josh Harrellson and Jerome Jordan—plus second-round draft picks and about $16 million in a sign-and-trade deal with the Rockets that would bring Camby to New York.

While his contract is only worth $13.2 million over three years, the Knicks had to pay quite a hefty price to bring him in. 

Camby is a 16-year vet who averaged 4.9 points and 9.0 rebounds per game for the Trail Blazers and the Rockets last season, and those numbers have been on a slow decline since the 2007-08 campaign.

What's worse is the fact that the Knicks, who also just signed aging vet Jason Kidd, have gotten even older, and they had to sacrifice a ton of youth in order to do so. 

Is this move going to make or break the Knicks? Probably not. But they sure did give up a lot for a 38-year-old backup center. 

L.A. Clippers: Blake Griffin

Griffin would've been a free agent at the end of next season if he hadn't inked an extension with the Clippers this week, so this kind of qualifies as a free agent signing. 

It also qualifies as a situation in which a team has seriously, seriously overpaid to keep its star. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Griffin signed a five-year extension on Tuesday that could amount to $95 million, which is more than the Thunder paid Kevin Durant (five years, $86 million)—and we all know how much more significant Durant's impact on the Thunder has been than Griffin's impact on the Clippers. 

Furthermore, Griffin hasn't exactly been the most reliable guy over his first two years in the league. He has a history of problems with both his knees dating back to his college days with the Sooners.

He had surgery on his right knee in 2008, broke his left kneecap during a preseason game in 2009, missed the entire ensuing season and then sprained that knee right before this postseason. 

There's no doubt that if and when he's been healthy, Griffin has been critical to the Clippers' success. But that's a big, expensive if. 

If you're going to commit nearly $100 million to one player, you want to make sure that player is going to stay healthy. Griffin, given his history of knee problems, is a huge risk. 

Phoenix Suns: Goran Dragic

Once Steve Nash was off the market, there weren't a ton of free-agent point guards available, which is how guys like Goran Dragic ended up with hefty paychecks and promises that they'd be able to secure a starting job. 

Last week, Dragic and the Suns—who lost Nash to the Lakers early in the free agency period—came to terms on a four-year deal worth $34 million with a player option for the fourth year, sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein. 

Not only was Dragic able to get the money and the starting-job promise he wanted, but if the Suns hadn't given it to him, he probably would've gotten it from one of the three other teams pursuing him. That's what kind of year it was for free-agent point guards, even if they were relatively unproven career back-ups. 

The bottom line is that the Suns need a point guard to play in front of Kendall Marshall while he develops, and they didn't have a lot of options.

Dragic—despite functioning as a career backup point guard, for the most part—managed to get a pretty nice deal without proving conclusively that he can be reliable as a starter. 

He was a suitable fill-in as a starter at the end of last seasons when Kyle Lowry went down with an injury, averaging 11.7 points and 5.3 assists in 28 minutes per game last season for the Rockets.

But can he sustain that pace over the course of an entire season, despite the fact that he's never come close to it before last year?

It's hard to believe that a player who's averaged 8.0 points and 3.3 assists in 19.0 minutes per game over the course of a four-year career is getting paid like Dragic is. The Suns are just going to have to cross their fingers with this one.

It could work out, or they could be stuck paying a backup point guard almost $10 million per year until 2016.