Ranking the 8 Worst Contracts In the NBA After 2026 Free Agency
After a hectic start to the NBA offseason, a couple of freshly signed deals and extensions are now vying for a place among the league's worst.
Contract values have always carried outsized importance when building a team. They are even more critical during the Era of Aprons, and when the league's salary cap is increasing at a lower rate than expected.
Even when talking about high-impact players, it is now easier for deals to be underwater. For a league in which teams are trying to balance out their books ahead of time, the out years on longer pacts can undermine the appeal of big, typically desirable names.
On-court production, availability, age, contract length and prospective trade value are all under consideration as we once again rank the Association's worst deals from the perspective of a front office.
8. Christian Braun, Denver Nuggets
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 5 years, $125.5 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 13.68
Additional notes:ย No options
Few gave Christian Braun's five-year, $125.5 million extension last summer more than a half-glance. Sure, there was the usual amount of nine-figure sticker shock for a non-star. But sub-15 percent of the salary cap for the Denver Nuggets' most important perimeter defender was understandable, particularly given his off-ball movement on offense.
Skip ahead to this offseason, and Braun's deal has entered "It goes on forever" territory.
Shelling out $25-plus million per year for someone who often devolves into an offensive non-factor is no bueno. While Braun shot over 64 percent inside the arc last season, his three-point clip cratered to 30.1 percent without a major uptick in volume.
No rotation player on the Nuggets is more reliant on Nikola Jokiฤ to optimize his offense. Braun went from shooting 67.7 percent on twos alongside the three-time MVP to knocking down just 34.8 percent of his looks inside the rainbow without him. That 32.9-point drop-off was the largest on the rosterโand explains why over 87 percent of his minutes came next to Jokiฤ.
Maybe another team is willing to bet on Braun's defensive workload and relative youth and take this deal on without requiring sweeteners. Yet, if that were the case, it feels like the cap-crunched Nuggets would've shipped him out by now.
7. Patrick Williams, Chicago Bulls
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 3 years, $54.0 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 10.40
Additional notes:ย 2028-29 player option (age-27 season)
A lower average-annual cap share keeps Patrick Williams from slingshotting too far up this list. Talk about damning with faint praise.
The "He's still young enough to put it together" argument no longer carries weight. Players in their mid-20s are capable of improving, but the Chicago Bulls have diminished his role in each of the past three years. Their commitment to him in 2026-27 stands to waver further under the new, Bryson Graham-led front office.
Flipping the script isn't in the cards, even if the Bulls feature Williams more prominently. Just look at where he's ranked since entering the league in luck-adjusted regularized plus-minus, which measures a player's impact on their team's scoring margin per 100 possessions without using traditional box-score stats and while attempting to account for the strength of opponents and teammates:
- 2020-21: 516
- 2021-22: 373
- 2022-23: 486
- 2023-24: 308
- 2024-25: 246
- 2025-26: 466
Basically, Williams is at best a minimum-contract player who is being paid more than the non-taxpayer's mid-level exception.
6. Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 5 years, $323 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 35.14
Additional Notes:ย 2030-31 player option (age-34 season); 15 percent trade bonus
The ink isn't even dry on Donovan Mitchell's extension, but it's already one of the NBA's most thorny long-term contracts.
Mitchell would net the Cleveland Cavaliers value if put on the trade block right now. (He can't be, legally, but go with it.) For how much longer that will be true is debatable. The same goes for whether he'd get the Cavs more or less than Jaylen Brown brought the Celtics.
Going on 30 years old, Mitchell's best days could be in the rear view. Even if they're not, there's a cap on how far the Cavs can go with a guard who's neither their best perimeter defender nor passer as their highest-paid player.
This past postseason was an eye-opener. Cleveland's offense cratered anytime Mitchell played without James Harden, in no small part because of the former's below-board passing out of his drives. The Cavs have churned out better results during Mitchell's solo stints in the past, but it's worth noting this is the second straight playoff run in which their offensive rating was higher without him on the court.
5. Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 4 years, $250.6 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 35.20
Additional Notes:ย 2029-30 player option (age-33 season)
Devin Booker vs. Donovan Mitchell is a legitimate debate. Many will place Spida's new deal higher up on the ladder, if only because he's owed an extra year and $72.4 million. That's fair.
At the same time, Booker is the only one of the two guaranteed to have a top-10 salary in each of the next two seasons. Paying someone like a Second Team All-NBA staple when they've made just one All-NBA squad, period, over the past four years is dangerous territory.
Booker is probably better suited to lifting up an inferior supporting cast. He has more levels to his playmaking. But his reliance on mid-range jumpers is at an all-time high, coinciding with a drop in rim frequency compared to just a few years ago.
Although Mitchell will face similar challenges and fall into the smaller-guard box, he can lean on a mix of three-point volume and efficiency that Booker has never delivered. That should make for a more graceful aging curve.
4. De'Aaron Fox, San Antonio Spurs
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Remaining Contract Value: 4 years, $221.7 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap: 31.14
Additional Notes: No notes
De'Aaron Fox's deal is less problematic for the San Antonio Spurs than it would be for pretty much every other team.
Three of their four most important players remain on rookie-scale deals next year: Victor Wembanyama, Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle. Two of them will still be cost-controlled in 2027-28 (Harper and Castle), after which Fox's pact will already be halfway done.
Still, this is the salary structure of an All-NBA candidate. Fox produces more like a fringe All-Star.
To his credit, his playmaking remains underrated. He has ranked in the 90th percentile or better of passes that lead to assists at the rim, three-pointers or free throws in every season of his career. And he shoulders a primary ball-handler's burden without being turnover-prone.
The aging curve of his skill set is the problem. Fox is already showing signs of athletic decline. His free-throw attempts per 100 possessions have dipped year-over-year since 2022-23, and he's taken at least 25 percent of his looks at the rim only once over the past half-decade.
It remains to be seen how Fox's table-setting will translate if he struggles to generate separation. And without a lights-out three-point stroke to rely on, his contract could feasibly spend its entire life underwater.
3. Paul George, Boston Celtics
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 2 years, $110.7 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 32.66
Additional Notes:ย 2027-28 player option (age-37 season)
Congratulations to Paul George on what might be his final appearance in this annual summertime tradition. Emphasis on might be.
Overpriced expiring deals (a la Zach LaVine) are easier to overlook. George will be on one this time next year. And yet, his annual number is so massive he will remain difficult to trade even then. As is the case now, the Boston Celtics will have to take back a longer, if not shakier, deal or attach a bunch of draft compensation to make it happen.
That invariably vaults him ahead of names like Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker and Jaylen Brown, the player for whom he was just flipped. All of those contracts can be traded for value in a vacuum. Even Brown, whose exit from Beantown has sparked debates galore, net a pair of juicy draft picks and a shorter contract (i.e. George's) at the nadir of his value.
The same can't be said here.
Players entering their late-30s generally don't get better or more available. George has missed a combined 86 games over the past two seasons and has made 70 appearances (or the shortened-schedule equivalent) just once since 2018-19.
A strong close to last year doesn't change anything. George's end-of-season kick came after a forced 25-game sabbatical, and he wasn't exactly spectacular during the Philadelphia 76ers' second-round exit at the hands of the New York Knicks.
2. Trae Young, Washington Wizards
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 4 years, $212.9 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 29.83
Additional Notes:ย 2028-29 player option (age-31 season); 7.5 percent trade bonus
The Washington Wizards effectively gave Trae Young a four-year max that he could have signed with another team in free agency. Months removed from the Atlanta Hawks acquiring him in a flat-out salary dump, that is certainly a choice.
Young can still be the driver of an entire offense, but the ceiling with him as the engine is increasingly shaky. He has cleared 34 percent shooting from distance just once over the past four years, and his efficiency around the basket has been in steady decline since 2022-23โwith the exception of last season, when he played a combined 15 games in Atlanta and Washington.
There is also little evidence Young can thrive as part of an ecosystem that doesn't run everything through him. Prior to last season, he never ranked lower than fourth in the percentage of his offensive time spent on the ball, according to BBall Index.
Bake in the inherent defensive challenges of being a small guard, slight in fame, who doesn't play with a ton of physicality, and this contract has the chance to vie for top-three positioning until it's an expiring deal.
1. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
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Remaining Contract Value:ย 3 years, $187.9 million
Average Percentage of Salary Cap:ย 36.09
Additional Notes:ย 2028-29 player option (age-34 season)
Joel Embiid's contract continues to age like milk on the surface of the sun.
Availability remains the driving force behind this placement. Embiid has appeared in 76 of a possible 246 regular-season games over the past three years. You can't invest more than one-third of the salary cap in someone who's not even available one-third of the time.
It isn't getting any easier for Embiid to escape the pole position, either. Other problematic contracts are as long, if not longer. But he's not playing like an unsolvable force as often anymore.
Though plenty of catch-alls still portray him as a star, Embiid's defensive mobility has dropped off a cliff, and the Philadelphia 76ers have reoriented their offensive approach around Tyrese Maxey. The 2023 MVP just averaged a career-low in touches per 75 possessions, per BBall Indexโa deemphasis that will only continue with the addition of Jaylen Brown and growth of VJ Edgecombe.
Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to theย Hardwood Knocksย podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report'sย Grant Hughes.
