Joel Embiid was one of the best basketball players on the planet at his peak.
The Philadelphia 76ers‘ center is far from that point in his career, though. Injuries have sapped much of his athleticism and changed his present and his future.
Now, in fact, Embiid might be one of the most onerous contracts in the entire NBA.
The Sporting News’ NBA writer Stephen Noh analyzed the league’s contracts with his own formula and called Embiid the No. 1 worst contract in the league.
Noh’s formula shows that Embiid will be worth $95.3 million over the rest of his contract. In that time, though, the 76ers are due to pay Embiid $243.5 million.
That’s a negative expected difference of $149.2 million.
“Embiid is one of the toughest players to project because of his health,” Noh writes. “He’s on pace to play 46 games and average 30 minutes per game at the halfway point of this year. Even that modest total seems optimistic for his future given his chronic knee issue, but that’s what I put him down for over the course of his contract.”
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That’s a key point, too. If Embiid’s health were to catch up with him in a bigger way, that difference in value would be even wider.
“The issue for Embiid though is that he’s the second-highest paid player in the league behind Stephen Curry,” Noh writes. “He needs to play like an MVP candidate in order to justify his enormous salary. And at age 31, he will be declining every year while his contract rises. At $100 million over four years, Embiid would be properly paid given how much time he misses. At $244 million, he’s one of the worst contracts in the league.”
At least slightly encouraging for the 76ers is that Embiid has actually progressed in a very positive way since this season began. He’s been sitting out less and scoring more.
At the very start of this season, Embiid looked like he might be totally washed up. But the current version of Embiid looks like he should be able to contribute for a while still.
That doesn’t entirely fix the contract problem, but it really could be worse.
