With the 2022-23 season coming ever so closer to an end, we figured it would be fun to take a look at some of the horrid mistakes of front office past to make fans feel a little happier about the current direction of the Knicks.
As moderately successful as the Knicks have been in recent seasons, the franchise’s history is muddled in horrific mistakes and mismanagement whether it be in the form of trades, or in this case, free agent signings.
While in some years the Knicks have struck gold in the free agent market, especially as of late with Jalen Brunson and how fantastic he’s been, there are no doubts that New York is responsible for some of the worst, and outright funniest free agent mistakes of all time.
Here are seven of the worst free agent signings in Knicks history:
7. Chris Childs, 6 years, $24 million
While this deal is certainly not as devastating as some of the other signings we will talk about, it certainly isn’t a good one. Chris Childs was certainly a solid backup point guard for his time, but looking at his production compared to his paycheck just doesn’t add up.
In today’s era, an average salary of $4 million a season is borderline nothing. In fact, this is the kind of price Donte DiVincenzo, a much better player than Childs really ever was, is currently charging for the Golden State Warriors. However, back when Childs first signed this deal, $4 million meant a lot more against the cap.
During his tenure in New York, Childs averaged just 6.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game while shooting 41.7% from the field and 35.8% from three on 1.7 attempts. These numbers are not horrific, but certainly not worth the money he was making at the time.
Honestly, Childs is remembered more for his legendary right hook on the late Kobe Bryant than his actual play for the Knicks, which speaks levels considering that he played for some pretty competitive teams.
Again, not the most devastating deal in team history, but certainly nowhere near a good one. Think of this more as an honorable mention to smoothly transition into some of the worse deals in team history.
6. Amar’e Stoudemire, 5 year, $99.7 million
This one really hurt, as Amar’e Stoudemire should have been one of the greatest Knicks to ever live. Unfortunately, however, injuries derailed what would have been one hell of a time in the Garden, thus making him in the most technical way, a free agency bust.
During his one genuinely healthy season in New York, Stoudemire was an All-Star who averaged 25.3 points per game. This was his first year on the Knicks after being the first star player in a long time to choose New York in free agency.
However, not long after this season, it would only go downhill for Stoudemire, who only played 50+ games in a season one more time and by then, the writing on the wall was clear that his career was coming to an end, and the Knicks sent him to Dallas the following year.
In four and a half seasons with the Knicks, Stoudemire averaged 17.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting 51.8% from the field. During this tenure, Stoudemire only appeared in 244 out of 364 potential games with the Knicks.
It always sucks to see such a great talent suffer this many injuries. You could tell Stoudemire loved New York and the fans and that he really wanted to be a part of a successful Knicks team. Maybe in another universe, Stoudemire never suffered so many injuries and became the Knick legend he should have been, maybe even helping Carmelo Anthony lead the Knicks past the second round in 2012-13.
5. Jared Jeffries, 5 years, $24 million
Similar to the Childs contract, this deal was not devastating to the Knicks’ hopes of success. However, what makes this deal bad is that it was just another example of former Knicks GM Isiah Thomas severely overpaying for a role player.
Jeffries was a solid defensive big man for his time, however, a nearly $5 million price tag every season for his skill set is quite atrocious. During his three-and-a-half seasons in the Big Apple, Jeffries averaged just 4.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game while shooting an atrocious 43.4% from the field.
Honestly, seeing a 6’11 big man who took over 90% of his shots at the rim shoot below 50% on said attempts is hilarious. Obviously, offense wasn’t the reason Jeffries had a 10-year career, but it still isn’t good.
We’ll give Jeffries some props for being loyal to the soil for the Knicks considering that when they traded him to the Rockets, he was subsequently released, and would sign back with New York not even a week after the deal went through. However, the original contract Jeffries signed was just incredibly poor value for the player the Knicks got in return.
4. Allan Houston, 6 years, $100 million
Just like Stoudemire, it really hurt to put Houston on this list as he is responsible for some of the most legendary moments in Knicks’ history. However, this does not excuse just how horrid the contract he signed in 2001 was.
In fact, this contract was so abysmal, that the NBA literally created a one-time exception for teams to get off of bad contracts in 2005 based on this deal. Houston certainly wasn’t an awful player while under this new, expensive contract, but nowhere near worth $16 million a season.
During his four seasons under this deal, Houston averaged 20.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.4 assists while shooting 43.8% from the field and 40.1% from beyond the arc on 4.7 attempts, so again, not the worst player, but not nearly worth the contract he was given.
Things got really bad for Houston when a number of knee injuries he sustained in the 2003-4 and 2003-5 seasons caused him to eventually retire in October of 2005 at the age of 34. While he likely didn’t have many productive years left in him anyways, it was still tough to see the Knick legend go out the way he did.
Houston will always be remembered for his heroics in the Knicks’ incredible 1999 finals run. However, something he will sadly also be remembered for is this horrific contract he signed to end his career in New York.
3. Jerome “Big Snacks” James, 5 years, $30 million
This honestly might be one of, if not the funniest contracts in league history. Not only did Isiah Thomas sign Jerome James to a massive 5 years $30 million deal that he was nowhere near deserving of, but he did so because of one playoff run in which he averaged 12.5 points and 6.8 rebounds a game.
So due to these eight games of solid play from “Big Snacks” the Knicks rewarded him with a monster contract despite the fact that he never averaged more than six points a game in the regular season.
The Knicks very quickly learned that this playoff run was a fluke, as during his four seasons in New York, James averaged an abysmal 2.5 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 0.4 blocks per game while shooting an even worse 44.5% from the field.
In these four seasons, James would appear in just 90 total games before suffering an Achilles tear and getting traded to the Bulls where he would eventually get cut, and never play in the NBA again.
This was a deal that everyone knew wasn’t going to work out at the time and is just another example of how horrific of a GM Thomas was for the Knicks. This wasn’t the first deal made by him to appear on this list, and it certainly isn’t the last.
2. Joakim Noah, 4 years, $72 million
It is pretty funny to see two legendary NBA figures in Thomas, and now Phil Jackson, who were great in their own ways, be completely awful at actually managing a team. We all know how bad Jackson was with the Knicks, but the Joakim Noah signing might have been the icing on the cake.
Now, Noah was a tremendous player and a former Defensive Player of the Year, one of the better centers of his time. However, it was very clear that his career was on the decline the season before he joined the Knicks which makes this contract even worse to look at.
Noah wasn’t just bad, he was straight-up awful, averaging just 4.6 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 49.1% from the field in 53 games over two seasons. He was so bad, in fact, that the Knicks opted to buy him out and stretch his contract out over the next four seasons while not actively employing him.
While Noah’s contract finally ran out in 2021, it’s completely embarrassing that the Knicks even had to do this in the first place. 2016 was notorious for the number of horrific contracts that were hounded out due to the spike in cap space and it’s rather unfortunate that the Knicks were one of the teams that handed out more than one bad deal that offseason.
1. Eddy Curry, 6 years, $60 million
While on paper, signing a 23-year-old big man who just had a season in which he averaged an efficient 16.1 points per game isn’t a bad idea, there are so many layers to this deal that makes it not only one of the worst deals in Knicks history but the league as a whole.
For starters, while Curry was solid on offense, his defensive abilities were worse than bad, being one of the worst defensive bigs in the entire NBA. Alongside this, Curry had a huge problem staying on the floor, playing in just 222 games in five seasons.
To make things even worse, not only did Curry sign with the Knicks on his massive contract, but the Knicks made this deal a sign and trade in which they sent, among other things, two first-round picks which eventually became the aforementioned Noah and seven-time All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge.
The contract itself is bad don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t nearly as crippling as the Noah contract. However, the sign and trade aspect easily makes this deal much worse, as the Knicks could have landed some borderline Hall of Fame-level talents if they had kept the picks they sent out in this deal.
From a money standpoint, this contract is not nearly as bad as a few of the others previously listed. However, the absolutely horrid trade that came along with a disastrous contract made a nasty recipe to form the worst free agent signing in Knicks history.