Who are the most overpaid stars in the NBA?

Kobe earns a whopping $25m a season but is still only a number nine on the list. Who’s an even bigger waste of money?

Reproduced with permission from BusinessInsider.

TWENTY-TWO OF 30 NBA teams lost money this year. This fact alone makes it easy to understand why owners want drastic revisions to the contract system.

Here are a few more reasons. Rashard Lewis, a player ranked 235 on ESPN’s Player Efficiency Rating, earned $21 million this year. Gilbert Arenas, another B-list star, earned $18 million. Nick Collison, definitely not a household name, earned $13 million.

In each case a middle-market team overpaid a decent player to keep him from falling into the clutches of, say, the Lakers. Meanwhile the Lakers didn’t bat an eye before paying $25 million this season to 32-year-old Kobe Bryant — the cost of Lebron James, Derrick Rose and Shaquille O’Neal combined.

We identified the 17 most overpaid players in the league based on current-year salary divided by PER. (Player Efficiency Rating measure each player’s overall productivity. Anyone with a PER lower than 15 would be considered below the league-average.)