The 2026 offseason
Estimated fair salaries are the midpoint of BasketballValues' FairSalary risk-adjusted range — two seasons of production, impact, usage, efficiency, availability and role, with the most recent season weighted 65%. Not a prediction; an estimate of the cap space a team saved relative to recent on-court value.
Tap a row for the story · flagged rows have commentary
The all-time steals
Completed veteran contracts in the salary-cap era, at least two realized seasons. Production is regular-season plus playoff Win Shares, converted to a fair share of each season's cap (WS ÷ 41), minus the salary's actual share of that cap — then averaged over the life of the deal. A curated shortlist of 29 landmark deals, not a census.
Tap a row for the story · ★ = titles won during the contract
Caveats
This ranking is intentionally simple. Read these before quoting it.
- It measures recent production against salary — not fit, playoff matchup value, injury probability or future improvement.
- Every contract's average annual value is treated as flat, even when real salaries change by year.
- Rookie-scale contracts are excluded; their salaries are constrained by rule.
- Only newly signed contracts count — exercised player and team options do not, and a contract window ends at an opt-out or renegotiation.
- Players acquired only by trade are excluded; a trade's true cost includes the players and picks sent out.
- FairSalary ranges are estimates. Using the midpoint makes the ranking reproducible, not certain.
- Win Shares can miss defensive value and says nothing about fit or championship leverage; titles are context, not score.
- Per-season averaging understates the roster-building value of a bargain that lasts eight years — that's what the total-surplus toggle is for.
- Historical salaries and caps come from Basketball-Reference pages and its salary-cap history; older data can be incomplete.