July 17 – An all-time bag getter in the NBA, Allen Crabbe made over 75 million dollars over his 7 year career. Drafted by Cleveland and traded to Portland as the 1st pick in the 2nd round in 2013, Crabbe spent four years as an important bench option for the Trail Blazers.

Crabbe broke out in 2015-16 for Portland when he played 26 minutes a game for the team and chipped in a cool 10 points off the bench. His 39% from three and his solid defense led projections to have him as a great bench option or even a solid starter going into his age 24 season. Oh, and he also happened to be out of contract when the salary cap jumped up.

Crabbe signed a MASSIVE 4 year deal with Portland for a total of roughly $75 million that summer, good for an average salary of over $18 million. This was an absurd overpay at the time, but for a team that was competing signing a young and improving player ready to take the next step wasn’t the worst thing
in the world. Unfortunately, Crabbe never took that next step. He remained a solid role player in 2016-17, although now he was getting paid to be much more. Crabbe would be traded to Brooklyn the next offseason for Andrew Nicholson in an exchange of bad contracts. Neither guy would do much for their new teams.

Crabbe had his best scoring season of his career at 13 points per game, but he was never anything more
than a solid player. After two years in Brooklyn, he was traded to Atlanta for the final year of his contract. He split the 2019-20 season between Atlanta and Minnesota before being out of the league at age 27.

How did Allen Crabbe finesse $75 million dollars from NBA teams? Simply put, he was in the right place at the right time, and sometimes that’s all that matters.

Also, the AI image created for this post is hilarious.