Cato makes top-10 list

Of cap-killers, that is. Following is a neat article from the Sporting News. http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/sean_deveney/20010710a.html This is also a list of probably the only players for which the Rockets could trade Cato:

Teams hurting from overpaying for underwhelming free agents

July 10, 2001

Sean Deveney
The Sporting News

You know it's going to happen, because it happens every year. There's a pretty good young player, with pretty good measurables, who is coming off his first pretty good year, and is now a free agent. He'll sign a contract that is well beyond pretty good, based on the notion that he will develop into a great player, even though nothing in the player's professional life has been better than pretty good.

Guys like Nazr Mohammed, Todd MacCulloch, Marc Jackson -- all pretty good players with potential, but all heading for a payday well beyond pretty good.

Unfortunately for NBA teams, these contracts happen way too often, and they are among the most common offenders when it comes to chewing up cap space. Only three teams -- the Bulls, the Pistons and Rockets -- have significant cap room this offseason, though a fourth, the Spurs, could have room if they renounce David Robinson and/or Derek Anderson.

If you are wondering why your team doesn't have room this summer, it's because of these cap-chewing contracts. You can't go after Chris Webber if you are paying Kerry Kittles $7.5 million or giving Matt Geiger $8 million.

Every team (except the Lakers and Bulls, for two very different reasons) has a contract that is costing the team -- not so much in terms of the money paid to the player, but in the limitations on the team's ability to chase players like Webber.

Kittles, for instance, is killing the Nets, and will continue to do so until his contract runs out in 2005, or until he starts playing like the player the Nets thought he would be when they gave him such a windfall. That's probably the cruelest part about these big contracts. You can't get rid of the player, so all you can do is hope he somehow plays the way you thought he would.

There are, primarily, two types of cap-chewer contracts: the ones that overpay pretty good players who never get better than pretty good, and the ones that overpay star players who no longer play like stars. Both are deadly to your team's free agent hopes. Here's how I see the five worst in each category:

The fallen stars:

1. Shawn Kemp. Considering the way things went for Kemp last season, he has the NBA's worst cap-chewing contract. He averaged 6.5 points and 3.8 rebounds and finished the season in drug rehab. He will get $12.5 million this year, then a raise to $21.5 million in 2002-03, then up to $25 million in 2003-04.

2. Vin Baker. Unless they swap him for Kemp, it's going to be difficult for the Sonics to unload Baker's contract. He is booked solid through 2006, and will cost his team $11-16 million in each of those seasons. Imagine having one-fourth of your cap money tied up in a guy an unpredictable and disinterested as Baker.

3. Bryant Reeves. One thing Reeves is good at is taking up space, something he excels at when it comes to Grizzlies payroll. Reeves did not look so bad after averaging 16.2 points and 8.1 rebounds in 1996-97, and got his large extension shortly thereafter. Now, the Grizzlies are beholden to him for the next three seasons -- at $11.5 million, $13 million and $14.4 million -- even though he has become a 9-point, 6-rebound, bench player.

4. Larry Johnson. This was the height of Knicks generosity, taking Johnson's absurd contract off the hands of the Hornets. Johnson has been a bad fit with the Knicks and has been well paid for it. He'll get $11.3 million this year, $9.5 million the following year, and $7.8 million in 2003-04.

5. Juwan Howard. It's not that Howard was terrible in Washington -- it's just that he could not possibly play up to the amount of money he was making. He can't do it now in Dallas, either, not when he is getting almost $40 million for the next two seasons.

The following players don't have the big names that the guys on the previous list sport. But that's just the thing -- they were given star-in-waiting contracts. Only, they never quite became stars.

1. Greg Ostertag. He is going to chew up $7 million in Jazz cap room this year, $7.8 million next year and $8.6 million the year after. And if the Jazz had that money to spend, you can bet they'd be looking to spend it on a center.

2. Kelvin Cato. Maybe it's too early to call him a complete waste of money just yet. But the Rockets owe him an average of $7.2 million over the next five years. His averages in his four-year career: 5.4 points, 4.3 rebounds.

3. Alan Henderson. He got the NBA's Most Improved Player award in 1998, and signed a 7-year deal after. But he has been enigmatic and inconsistent since then, leaving the Hawks with a bench player who is likely to cost them $7.5 million per season for four more years.

4. Tariq Abdul-Wahad. A "breakthrough" of 11.4 points per game in 1999-2000 with the Magic and Nuggets led Denver to give him more than $43 million over seven years, hoping they'd finally found that third scoring option behind Raef LaFrentz and Nick Van Exel. Now, the Nuggets have a shooting guard who can't shoot locked up through 2007, and are still looking for a third scorer.

5. Michael Stewart. Stewart was a 6-10 undrafted free agent who signed with the Kings and had a decent rookie season -- he played in 81 games and averaged 4.6 points and 6.6 rebounds. Being a center with perceived upside, Stewart was given a six-year, $24 million deal. He has responded by scoring exactly 152 points and grabbing 222 rebounds in three seasons. And he still has three seasons to go on his contract.

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Maybe we could get LaFrentz out of Denver and dump Cato to them at the same time if we agreed to take their cap-killer, Wahad. I don't know what else we would have to give them, though, because they obviously would not do this deal straight up.

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