Building the NBA's All-Overpaid Team

Building the NBA's All-Overpaid Team is not an exercise that will elicit warm and fuzzy feelings. It is uncomfortable, divisive, highly subjective, even a little bit painful. It's also essential.

Assembling this squad gives us a great idea of which organizations risk getting the least bang for their buck. Unlike our recent look at the league's most taxing contracts, this is strictly taking into account the 2025-26 season. The length of each deal does not matter.

Players are selected taking into consideration availability, prospective role and expected impact on winning. Though this is inherently predictive, it will lean on past play (and injuries) to hash out its contents.

Anyone recovering from an injury that's already sidelining them for a huge chunk of next season will be excluded. The same goes for those earning first-contract money. Since incentives can impact salary, we'll be using each player's cap hit on Spotrac as our compensation baseline. Finally, we'll use All-Star-roster structure to assemble the #squad, choosing two backcourt players and three frontcourt names.

Backcourt: Terry Rozier, Miami Heat

2025-26 Season Cap Hit: $26,643,031

Percentage of Salary Cap: 17.23

Terry Rozier was doing plenty of flame-throwing when the Miami Heat acquired him for Kyle Lowry and a first-round pick in 2024. He has done very little flame-throwing since.

Last year represented his absolute nadir. His minutes (25.9) and points (10.6) per game were their lowest since 2018-19, and his 29.5 percent clip from downtown was the second-worst of his career.

A bounce-back campaign isn't out of the question for someone who can rain threes off the catch, movement and dribble. This assumes Rozier is an active part of the rotation. Tyler Herro, Norman Powell and Davion Mitchell are all ahead of him in the pecking order. He must now also contend for minutes with Pelle Larsson, Dru Smith and rookie Kasparas Jakucionis.

Expiring contracts are never immovable, but the Heat have found no nibbles to date—and most likely won't unless they're attaching first-round picks to the deal.

Backcourt: Jalen Green, Phoenix Suns

Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images

2025-26 Season Cap Hit: $33,584,499

Percentage of Salary Cap: 21.72 

Jalen Green edges out other backcourt candidates like Jrue Holiday and Zach LaVine because his best skills are neither above-average nor guaranteed to scale into different situations. You know Holiday will defend his butt off even when shots aren't falling. For all LaVine's flaws, his offense is extremely plug-and-play.

Green's scoring ability is not in that wheelhouse. Both his on- and off-ball offense come with lackluster efficiency. He has posted a better-than-league-average clip on unassisted shot attempts just once, according to BBall Index. His shooting percentage on spot-ups has peaked in the 60th percentile—and placed in the 0th percentile this past year.

The 23-year-old has yet to pop as a passer or floor-raiser to boot. His assist-to-usage ratio has never ascended past the 27th percentile, and the Houston Rockets posted a better net rating during his on-court time only once.

Youth warrants benefit of the doubt. Green will have plenty of opportunities to rewrite the narrative on the Phoenix Suns. At the same time, transitioning to a team without as much talent around him could make things worse.

Frontcourt: Jerami Grant, Portland Trail Blazers

David Berding/Getty Images

2025-26 Season Cap Hit: $32,000,001

Percentage of Salary Cap: 20.69 

Committing over $30 million per year to Jerami Grant entering his 30s was always a puzzling gambit by the Portland Trail Blazers. It looks worse after last season.

Portland's import of other players has complicated Grant's standing. Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara are more critical to both the immediate and long-term blueprints. Meanwhile, Jrue Holiday's arrival only complicates matters. The Blazers will need to run on the smaller side if they plan to play him, Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson significant minutes.

Grant's performance is doing him no favors. A seismic drop in rim frequency (18th percentile) and two-point efficiency (38.1 percent) are solid indicators of an overall decline.

Pair all of this with suboptimal rebounding for his position(s) and what could be a much smaller role, and it's hard to see Grant delivering anywhere near his pay grade's value next season.

Frontcourt: Patrick Williams, Chicago Bulls

Elsa/Getty Images

2025-26 Season Cap Hit: $18,000,000

Percentage of Salary Cap: 11.64 

Pointing toward Patrick Williams' 39.2 percent career clip from three disproves nothing. He doesn't take enough of them to be considered a floor-spacer. His defense is serviceable. It's not out-of-this-world.

He isn't winning admirers with anything else he does, either. The 24-year-old is not a standout rebounder or foul-drawer, can't shoulder higher usage, won't set up looks for others and has ranked in the 23rd and 13th percentiles, respectively, in points per shot attempt over the past two years.

"Unspectacular" is the most charitable way to describe his influence. And even that is being too generous. Among the 141 players who have logged at least as many minutes since he entered the league, he ranks 138th in Basketball-Reference's Value Over Replacement Player Metric.

Williams' salary is juuuust low enough for you to think about including someone like Paul George ($51.7 million) over him. Leaning that way is the right call if this were a multi-year view. Over the course of a single season, you're better off rolling with a veteran not far removed from making an All-Star Game who's proven he can leave an actual imprint on the court.

Frontcourt: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

2025-26 Season Cap Hit: $55,224,526

Percentage of Salary Cap: 35.71

Joel Embiid more than anyone else has the potential to make this look silly. His long-term value is all sorts of checkered when he's on the books for another four years and $242.9 million. You can easily envision him living up to his salary in a single season.

Then again, can you?

Back-to-backs are apparently off the table for, well, eternity. The Philadelphia 76ers have 16 of those this season. That basically precludes Embiid from meeting the 65-games threshold for awards.

Remove back-to-backs from the equation, and having him on the court enough to warrant his salary remains an uphill climb. The Sixers do not seem convinced that he'll be ready for the start of training camp after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.

Superstars cost money. The Sixers are shelling it out for theirs. But the league's second-largest salary is supposed to buy you a level of certainty. Despite being an MVP talent, Embiid promises none until proven otherwise.

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Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass unless otherwise cited. Salary info via Spotrac.

Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.