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Rashard Lewis and Gilbert Arenas signing $100+ million contracts. How can players who have done very little in their career of worth except generate inflated statistics get this sort of money?

Teams are crazy to give that money to anyone who is not in the top few players in the league (James, Duncan, Paul etc). Mind-boggling.

Mediocrity sells in this country.

Arenas deserves his contract, when healthy he's one of the best scorers in the NBA and extremely clutch. Lewis...well the Magic F'ed up there.

Edit: fixed my post about his scoring ability

Best scorer in the NBA? That's a stretch. No way he deserves 111 million dollars.

i would never give either player that much money

and the funny part is thes are the guys who, when they can't win anything because they hamstrung thier franchise, will complain about the front offices inabilty to put players around them and ultimatley demand a trade

I'm not sure it's fair to compare Arenas to Lewis. When healthy, Arenas is a legit superstar who can play two positions.

As for the "inflated statistics, can't win anything" arguments, ehh, that's not what I've seen when watching him play. Then again I don't watch all that many Wizards games, so who knows. But it should be pointed out that less than a year ago now there were a whole lot of people saying the exact same things about the Big Three.

Totally nuts!

It's sickening to think that these guys make this much, and my old teachers only made like $40k a year. Such a tragedy.

mr_sunshine wrote:It's sickening to think that these guys make this much, and my old teachers only made like $40k a year. Such a tragedy.

Imagine how smart American kids would be if teachers were payed like athletes were...

^^Tell me about it. I have a PhD in Organic Chemistry and am currently struggling while interviewing for my first real job outside of academia...crazy!

And Arenas and Lewis...those guys aren't worth half of those contracts for what they've accomplished. Yes, Arenas is a great scorer...so what? He does nothing else, isn't a good teammate, and is a career loser.

I hate to crash the party here but we have three players who once upon a time hadn't won a thing and still got max contracts.

I'm not saying I agree with the contracts, Rashard's is terrible and I don't understand how Arenas is worth $40 million more than Baron Davis. Still, in Arenas' case, our big three did the exact same thing so it's kind of hard for Celtics fans to criticize the guy,

MyInsatiableOne wrote:^^Tell me about it. I have a PhD in Organic Chemistry and am currently struggling while interviewing for my first real job outside of academia...crazy!

And Arenas and Lewis...those guys aren't worth half of those contracts for what they've accomplished. Yes, Arenas is a great scorer...so what? He does nothing else, isn't a good teammate, and is a career loser.

What are you even talking about? This is a guy who adopted a child that lost it's family to Hurricane Katrina. This guy could've taken more money from the Wiz and on his own accord decided to take less so as to give his team a bit more financial flexibility. This is a guy who donates money to charities everytime he hits a three in a game. Hell, he even invited a random kid who messaged him on MySpace to rebound for him at practice.
Seems like a pretty down to Earth and selfless guy to me. I don't know where you get the idea that he is a loser and not a good teammate.

The Main Event wrote:

MyInsatiableOne wrote:^^Tell me about it. I have a PhD in Organic Chemistry and am currently struggling while interviewing for my first real job outside of academia...crazy!

And Arenas and Lewis...those guys aren't worth half of those contracts for what they've accomplished. Yes, Arenas is a great scorer...so what? He does nothing else, isn't a good teammate, and is a career loser.

What are you even talking about? This is a guy who adopted a child that lost it's family to Hurricane Katrina. This guy could've taken more money from the Wiz and on his own accord decided to take less so as to give his team a bit more financial flexibility. This is a guy who donates money to charities everytime he hits a three in a game. Hell, he even invited a random kid who messaged him on MySpace to rebound for him at practice.
Seems like a pretty down to Earth and selfless guy to me. I don't know where you get the idea that he is a loser and not a good teammate.

I know early on in his Wizards career he read about a child whos house bunrt down and lost his family in the fire and he decided to adopt the child, I never knew about the Katrina one. Anyway its hard to like Arenas on the basketball court after what he said about the C's last season, but the truth is Arenas is probably one of the nicest guys off the court. Not only with the adopting but he also donates a lot, about a year ago he had an offer on his website where he offered an autographed shoe, and an autographed authentic jersey for like $40 off of his website and ALL proceeds went to charity. EVERY NBA PLAYER SHOULD BE LIKE GILBERT ARENAS

I think when healthy Gilbert is worth his contract, I think Rash simply got his contract because he was by far the best FA last season.

My mistake, the adopted child was not from Katrina but from a family that died in a fire.
I agree, all pro athletes should be more like Gilbert.

you are worth what someone is willing to pay you!