Trenton Hassell

Trenton Hassell - Hassell's $27 million contract expired this summer, and his NBA career seems to have expired with it. He is only 31 years old, yet throughout the life of his contract, Hassell became such a poor offensive player that his defense no longer made up for it. Hassell is unsigned, and offers good if unathletic defensive play, but all he will contribute offensively is one post-up a night and reasonable entry passing. Others in this list will offer more than that.

[Dwight] Lewis just graduated from USC, where last year he was both their leading scorer and best defender. (Marcus Johnson gambled a bit too much for my liking.) He's 6'5, athletic, fundamentally sound and strong, with all the physical tools to be such a defender at the next level. However, while he was the team's leading scorer, he wasn't a particularly good one. Lewis scored 13.8 points per game, but used 36mpg to do so, and shot less than 40% from the field. He is not a good outside shooter or ball-handler, and is a finisher not a creator. This is evidenced in those senior year numbers; as the supporting cast around him got worse, his offensive production went down, not up. His decent defense won't be enough on it's own. Even Trenton Hassell was a scorer once, both at Austin Peay and in his rookie year. (He really was. His knuckleball jumpshots used to go in. They quickly stopped doing so.)

Sasha Pavlovic - I'm in the midst of writing a half-arsed defense of David Kahn, which, far from announcing that the man has any kind of plan, instead focuses on good moves of his that have gone underrated. But even I cannot defend the Sasha Pavlovic move. A team with absolutely no short term ambition (nor any reason to have any) decided to bring in a 26 year old on a one year contract, who had put up PER's of below 9.0 in 5 of his previous six seasons. Sasha responded with yet more sterling basketball, playing 877 minutes in 71 games and shooting 37% from the floor, scoring only 10.8 points per 36 minutes and not playing any defense. Signing veterans with fringe talent and no upside, to one year contracts, whilst in the midst of a full rebuild, is not indicative of a plan.

Trenton Hassell - Hassell's six year contract - given to him by Lord of the Contract, Kevin McHale - has finally expired. And throughout its life span, Hassell was pretty terrible. The always-terrible offense only got worse, and now aged 31, Hassell's defense is starting to slip too. Nevertheless, if it's at the minimum salary, he still has something to contribute. And he might be able to help out with some post-up offense. (I only half-meant that.)