NBA Free Agency 2012: Biggest Sucker Bets of the Offseason

With NBA teams constantly striving to add crucial pieces to the roster, sometimes they place a few sucker bets during the free-agency period. 

The 2012 offseason has been no different as quite a few teams have invested a lot of money in the wrong places. 

Some have spent their cash on potential that has little chance of blossoming into elite production, others made gambles and have already lost. Some still signed players that have no hope of living up to the footprints of their predecessors. 

Regardless of the reason for the sucker bets, these are the five biggest ones of the 2012 offseason. 

Omer Asik

Sam Smith of the NBA's official Chicago Bulls' site wrote the following about the decision to retain the services of Omer Asik: 

"

The Bulls will not match the restricted free agent offer to Omer Asik, allowing Asik to join the Houston Rockets.

“We have decided not to match Houston’s offer sheet for restricted free agent Omer Asik,” Bulls general manager Gar Forman said Tuesday morning. “It was a difficult decision because Omer did a nice job for us. Matching the offer for Omer could have put us in a difficult position going forward in trying to acquire high level talent. We wish Omer good luck and continued success.”

"

Now that Asik is officially joining the Houston Rockets for three years and $25.1 million, he is all but guaranteed to be immediately thrust into the starting lineup for his new team. 

An average of just over $8 million per year is a lot to invest in a player with two career starts, especially one who is still considered extremely raw on offense. 

Asik averaged 3.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 1.0 blocks and 0.5 steals per game during the 2011-2012 season with the Chicago Bulls, and all five of those averages were career-highs for the big man.

The Rockets are paying a lot for size and potential, but there are plenty of players in that mold who have failed in the past.  

Nicolas Batum

Speaking of paying for potential, the Portland Trail Blazers are spending an insane amount of money to keep this French forward on the roster for the next few years, despite the fact that he's never completed his expected breakout. 

Nicolas Batum is always on lists of potential breakout players, but he has yet to become more than a role player during his four seasons with the Blazers. Now, the team is paying $45 million to keep him for the next four years and hope the breakout is still coming. 

The small forward has a chance to make some noise under a new head coach now that Nate McMillan is gone and will no longer be able to use his system to hinder the Frenchman's development. 

Batum can excel on both ends of the court, particularly the defensive one. However, over $10 million per year is too much money to be paying for "can." 

Raymond Felton

New York Knicks fans are not going to happy about switching from Jeremy Lin to Raymond Felton. 

Even if Felton is a productive player in his return to Madison Square Garden, he can't possibly live up to the massive hype created by the undrafted point guard whose shoes he's now trying to fill. Feltsanity just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

A fan favorite during his first stint with the Knicks, Felton isn't the same player that he was before he was part of the massive Carmelo Anthony trade. 

The point guard now has a reputation as an out-of-shape floor general with a penchant for being lazy. That's the first thing that needs to change if he's going to make the Knicks happy that the management decided he was worth bringing back. 

Landry Fields

Landry Fields was signed to a three-year offer sheet worth $20 million by the Toronto Raptors in an attempt to lure one of New York Knicks' potential trading pieces away. 

N.Y. was after Steve Nash—as was Toronto—and Fields was expected to be used as a crucial chip in a sign-and-trade by the Knicks. By upping the ante for the young shooting guard, Toronto was hoping to increase the odds that Nash landed in a Raptors uniform. 

While Toronto prevented the Knicks from acquiring the Canadian point guard, the plan backfired. Nash went to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Raptors were left eating the $20 million contract for Fields. 

After a sophomore slump took the luster of his surprisingly effective rookie campaign, Fields is no longer viewed in the same light. 

He's now not just a shooting guard with good—but not great—rebounding skills, solid athleticism and defensive abilities and an inconsistent offensive game, but an overpaid one with all the same attributes. 

Brook Lopez

Brook Lopez may look like a max contract player when you watch him during warmups, and then again when he's playing offense. 

The seven-footer's size and scoring abilities can blow you away, but then you dive below the surface level of the player evaluation process. 

Lopez isn't a solid defender—not by a longshot—and he could take rebounding lessons from Nate Robinson and still improve his contributions on the glass. Plus, injury questions are going to linger for a while after multiple foot injuries derailed his 2011-2012 campaign. 

There are too many flaws and glaring weaknesses for him to justify earning max contract money, even if the Brooklyn Nets do need a big man.