NBA Free Agents 2011: Kwame Brown and Worst Contracts of the Offseason

After enduring a five-month lockout, NBA teams were supposed to stop crippling themselves by giving out stupid contracts.

Then, somebody gave Kwame Brown $7 million and we realized that the league-wide hiatus was pointless.

Just like every NBA offseason, bad contracts were dished out left and right. Here are the five worst ones of the post-lockout era.

Tayshaun Prince

Joe Dumars continues to baffle me. It looked like the Pistons were going young after getting rid of Richard Hamilton and Tracy McGrady. 

Then, they signed the 31-year-old Prince to a four-year, $27 million deal. The money isn't outrageous, but it doesn't make much sense to commit to Prince long term with Austin Daye on the roster and Kyle Singler stashed in Spain.

The Pistons won't be competitive any time soon, so they should have let Prince go, played their young guys this season and picked up a high draft pick.

Instead, Prince will help them steal a few extra wins and it will hurt them in the long term.

Jason Richardson

I love J-Rich, but I'm not sure why Orlando would want to lock him up with a four-year, $25 million contract.

They're probably losing Dwight Howard by next season, which means they will be in full-fledged rebuilding mode. There's no reason for a 32- or 33-year-old Richardson to be playing on a lottery team, which is what the Magic will be in a year or two.

And if they brought back Richardson in hopes that Howard would stay, they swung and missed. Orlando needed to shake things up, not bring people back.

Glen Davis

In another stupid move by Orlando, they acquired Davis in a sign-and-trade that will cost them $26 million over four years.

To get him, they had to give up Brandon Bass, a player who's better and cheaper than Davis.

Also, the Magic already have a capable starting power forward in Ryan Anderson, which means they are paying Davis $6.5 million a year instead of addressing an actual need, like small forward or backup center.

Marcus Thornton

Thornton is going to be a very good scorer in this league, but the Kings just gave him $40 million to back up Tyreke Evans and Jimmer Fredette.

Sacramento also has John Salmons, Travis Outlaw and Francisco Garcia on the perimeter. Unless they're going to trade a couple people, I'm not sure what the Kings are trying to do here.

They would have been better off using some of that money to add depth on the interior.

Kwame Brown

I never thought a one-year contract could be this disgusting but, then again, I never thought somebody would give Kwame Brown $7 million to play basketball.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Brown for this. If somebody offers you that much, you take it.

But the Warriors were so desperate for a center, they threw a bunch of cash at a man who has averaged just 6.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game during his career.

They probably could have signed him for half the price, and they definitely could have told him to go screw himself when he asked for that much money.

Instead, they padded his bank account with the worst contract of the abbreviated offseason.