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Collectively bargained into existence during the 1998-99 lockout, the max contract has long been a source of controversy.

Oh, and also regret.

In addition to there being several types of max agreements—variances depend on years of service, annual raise rates, and who's offering the deal in the first place—there's rarely a consensus that the player receiving one of these designated deals deserves it.

Why? Because it just seems wrong when two-time MVP Stephen Curry and a player coming off his rookie deal with zero career postseason appearances are both eligible for the max. And that's before you even get to the super max extensions available to guys like James Harden.

Confusion aside, some maximum deals are objectively bad. They can cripple a team, particularly when injury arises or sudden ineffectiveness turns a cornerstone into an anchor.

For our purposes, we'll confine the term "max" to mean the most years possible (either four or five under today's rules but longer in the past) with the largest annual salary and raises permitted by the CBA. Most importantly, we're only considering contracts agreed to after the max label showed up following the '99 lockout.

We won't employ some catch-all metric to order these bad max deals. The league's economy has changed several times over since 1999, so a dollar-per-win-added stat would skew things. Instead, we'll simply judge the level of financial commitment against the franchise's return on investment.