24 Million for Kris Humphries?

I’ve been criticizing the Brooklyn Nets moves all offseason when I criticized Billy King’s roster building and wrote an analysis on why they would not contend for a title this year, but it just keeps getting worse. Last week, Kris Humphries signed a 2 year 24 million dollar contract. This is a guy for some reason nobody wanted last year and who nobody really wanted this year and the Nets gave him 12 million dollars a year.

While he did have quite a good year last season there’s no way this signing wasn’t way above what he would've received in the open market. Outside of his rebounding, Humphries may make the Brooklyn Nets have the worst defensive starting five in the Eastern Conference. I’m pretty sure their plan is to have Gerald Wallace guard 5 players at once.

The real travesty of this Kris Humphries signing is that despite the Nets management saying that they “love” Kris Humphries, the real motive behind this is to still land Dwight Howard. Humphries 12 million would allow Brooklyn to absorb the stupid contracts that Otis Smith and the Orlando Magic have handed out over the last few years. This would facilitate a potential deal when they can trade the free agents they've signed come January.

Money is clearly not a problem for the Nets and this is certainly proof. They don’t care if they end up having to absorb this ridiculous deal if they can still be in for Dwight Howard. I just think this is an extremely expensive gamble that could have potentially terrible consequences for the team building that’s going on in Brooklyn.

ESPN Photo

24 million for this guy?

You’re trying to build a winning team that’s has to gel together and if Dwight Howard doesn’t get traded they’re going to have to deal with these trade rumors all year. The signing of Humphries basically tells Brook Lopez, “Hey we gave you that money but we will be shipping you out of town the minute we possibly can.” Humphries also is the 4^th highest paid player on that roster and if he doesn’t produce like he did last year, there definitely could be some contention with his salary. I also hear that not a lot of people get along with or like Kris Humphries, but this is mostly what my girlfriend tells me based on Keeping up with the Kardashians, so I’m not sure how reliable that is.

I can’t blame Billy King for keeping the option for Dwight Howard open because if he has a brain he can’t honestly think his team in its current state is going to compete for a title. That said, it’s pretty hard to justify giving Kris Humphries this kind of money and if they struggle from the start and Howard is still in Orlando, the trade rumors will continue to swirl. If Howard does end up being traded then King just gave Kris Humphries, a guy nobody else wanted, 24 million dollars for two years.