Sixers Earn Dubious Honor in NBA's Worst-Value Contract Rankings

In the NBA's second-apron era, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find horrific contracts. The days of teams shelling out max deals to non-All-Stars like Chandler Parsons and Hassan Whiteside are a thing of the past. Teams have grown far more cautious about handing out nine-figure deals, as one mistake could be franchise-crippling.

The Sixers might have made two of those during the 2024 offseason.

On Thursday, Spotrac's Keith Smith published his latest ranking of the worst-value contracts in the NBA. Joel Embiid and Paul George were ranked first and second, respectively.

Availability was the big knock against Embiid, unsurprisingly. Smith noted how Embiid played in only 58 of a possible 164 games between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, and he's already missed 19 games this season, too. That's a tough pill to swallow for someone whose three-year max extension doesn't even kick in until next season.

However, Smith also highlighted Embiid's declining production as a concern.

"Even if we write off last season due to the extensive knee issues (we shouldn’t), Embiid’s play has slipped. He’s shooting just 26.3% from behind the arc this season. He’s grabbing the fewest rebounds per game of his career, and doesn’t move well enough to provide plus rim protection any longer. Philadelphia can manage Embiid enough to get solid production out of him, but they aren’t paying him for solid production."

Granted, over the past month, Embiid has been rounding back into something closer to his previous form. In his past 13 appearances, he's averaging 28.0 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. However, he's shooting only 31.0 percent from deep over that span, and those 7.8 rebounds per game are a far cry from the nightly double-double threat that he was before his meniscus tear in January 2024.

Embiid is fresh off his first triple-double in nearly a full calendar year—thank you, Furkan Korkmaz!—but he's still not cleared to play in back-to-backs. That doesn't figure to change anytime soon, either.

If this version of Embiid is here to stay and he dodges the injury bug moving forward, his contract might not be completely underwater at some point. But between his extensive injury history and his declining production, no one should be surprised about Embiid sitting atop Smith's rankings.

Is Embiid's contract really worse than George's?

While Embiid is inching back toward his previous form, Father Time seems to be getting the best of George. He's averaging only 15.6 points—his lowest mark in a full decade—to go with 5.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists in 30.1 minutes per game. In other words, he's basically become Tobias Harris With Better Defense.

Smith pointed to George's limitations when explaining why he had the league's second-worst-value contract.

"Unlike Embiid, who still the 76ers can pull solid production out of, George has been, well, fine. He no longer gets to the rim, or even really into the paint very often, because George can’t beat his man off the dribble to get in close any longer. That’s left him shooting a lot of midrange and long-twos, as well as nearly half of his shots from distance. George is still a good ball-mover and OK rebounder, but like with Embiid, the Sixers aren’t paying George to be good or OK or fine."

That's a fair critique. There are 16 players this season who are averaging at least 16 points, six rebounds and four assists per game, most of whom are on max or near-max contracts. George is not one of those 16.

In George's defense, he's a far more impactful defender than Harris. He's also drawn four charges thus far this season, which is four more charges than Harris ever drew during his five-plus years with the Sixers.

However, Harris averaged 18.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 seasons—which is more than what George is putting up this year—yet he was persona non grata for most of his tenure in Philadelphia.

With Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe all soaking up touches, George is never going to be the Sixers' primary option like he was during his prime with the Indiana Pacers. However, it's tough to pay 35 percent of the salary cap to someone who's putting up high-end role player numbers, particularly in the second-apron era.

If Embiid keeps playing as well as he has over the past month, George keeps filling in the cracks and the Sixers keep racking up wins, perhaps their contracts won't be viewed quite as negatively moving forward. But given the size and length of their respective deals, they're going to be featured prominently in any worst-contract rankings for the time being.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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