Mavs Legend Tyson Chandler Among ‘Most Overpaid’ Players All-Time: Fair or Foul?
Whether it’s fair or not, NBA players get slapped with the “overpaid” label from time to time. Sometimes, such a label is warranted if the player simply isn’t performing well. Other times, players might be overpaid due to circumstances out of their control, like injuries.
In HoopsHype's "Most Overpaid NBA Players of All-Time" rankings, former Dallas Mavericks big man Tyson Chandler came in fourth place, surprisingly ahead of more notoriously overpaid players such as Tobias Harris and Chandler Parsons. However, given Chandler’s overall resume, is the “overrated” label fair for him, or did he in fact earn those big paydays?
When anyone thinks of Chandler, they remember his days as the starting center on both the 2011 NBA title-winning Mavs team and the 2012 USA Olympic gold medal squad, but few consider the entire career resume the big man made for himself, which ended up paying dividends for him at the negotiating table.
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The seven-footer made $189.6 million over his 19-year NBA career, which places him at No. 44 for all-time earnings by a player. According to HoopsHype, Chandler was never "obscenely overpaid" at any one point in his career, but the fact that he made the total amount he did over his expansive career is what places him in the four slot on the overpaid list.
Making his money as a defensive stalwart, Chandler never averaged over 12 points his entire career, but he found his niche as a solid supporting piece alongside a plethora of NBA greats. Chandler shared the floor with players such as Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Lebron James, James Harden and Russell Westbrook.
He gained his lone All-Star appearance in 2012-13 in New York, where he was the starting center for the two-seeded Knicks that would go on to lose in the conference semifinals. Chandler averaged 10.4 points per game and 10.7 rebounds per game in what was a typical season for the big man.
These days, Chandler is back in Dallas in a player development role, as he’s investing his time and energy into Mavs rookie center Dereck Lively II. Lively needs to soak in every bit of knowledge he can, and if he does, perhaps he too can win a championship in Dallas and get paid like Chandler did one day.
