NBA's Signing season - The $11m bargan | Thebigtip

On Monday the San Antonio Spurs announced the signing of Tiago Splitter on a three year contract worth about $11 million. To the casual fans of the league, the name is most likely going to elicit a ‘Who?’ followed by ‘cool name though.’

Make no mistake about it though; the signing of Splitter is without a doubt the value signing of this off-season. He’s the reigning ACB (Spanish League) MVP, widely considered by scouts to be the best big man outside of the NBA, and is the perfect fit alongside Tim Duncan in the Spurs system.

The Spurs have been actively attempting to convince Splitter to make the jump over to the NBA since drafting him with the 28th pick of the 2007 draft. However, a multitude of reasons prevented the switch taking place until now. He’s been hailed as a saviour by Spurs fans (possible nickname: Santiago) just because he is that good of a fit – and somehow he’s been signed to less than $4 million per year. Words can’t accurately express how much of a steal that is when you consider he could have been offered up to $5.7 million for 5 years.

It becomes an even better signing when you compare the contract to other big men signings of the off-season so far. Here’s the spread of bad contracts – if you get to the end of the list without cringing once you’re a tough person.

- Darko Milicic – 4 years, $20 million

- Tyrus Thomas – 5 years, $40 million

- Drew Gooden – 5 years, $32 million

- Channing Frye – 5 years, $30 million

- Amir Johnson – 5 years, $34 million

Let’s just quickly go through a summary of those contracts.

Darko: Horrible. Thomas: Confusing. Gooden: Hilariously bad. Frye: $6 mil per year for someone who throws up 3’s...and nothing else? Amir: Arguably the worst contract of the off season for what he’s done so far.

That was fun. Anyone else got any bad contracts?

The question is; how and why can there be so many bad contracts, and yet one excellent one in the middle of it all? How can so many teams get it so wrong, and all at once? More importantly as a Spurs fan, how can they get the signing of Splitter so right and get the signing of Jefferson last off-season so wrong?! Just let me take the pins out of my RJ voodoo doll before I continue...

Let’s start off by looking at the contracts relative to each person’s role on the team. For all five players mentioned above, it’s not like any of them are going to be the number 1 guy on the team. Gooden might be the best offensive big man for the Bucks, but at the rate Bogut improved last year (before he decided to put his elbow/arm into 485 different places), I doubt that would last too long. All Frye does is shoot 3-balls, and while his style of play might make him a cult figure in certain parts, there’s no way it deserves over $6 million a year – for 5 years. Thomas is a wildly inconsistent player who’s gotten nowhere near realising his talent, which leaves Darko & Amir as defensive big men on mediocre to poor teams that are getting a mile more than what they deserve.