Which NBA players cost themselves the most money in free agency?

Eighteen NBA players took a long, hard look at a nice, guaranteed paycheck for the 2017-18 season this spring and turned it down. Declining your player option at the right moment can mean a sudden bump in your net worth of $10 million or more, as premiere free agents like Kyle Lowry, Paul Millsap or Gordon Hayward can tell you.

But, out of that group of 18 players, half of them ended up losing money — their new contracts pay out less for 2017-18 than their torn-up player options once promised. Surprisingly, gaining or losing money here has little to do with star power, either. Quiet role players like Willie Reed, Dewayne Dedmon and Langston Galloway all managed to leverage their player options for more cash.

For some players, at a special twilight moment in their careers, there is a certain let’s say side benefit that can be worth losing money: winning more games. Sometimes this strategy is savagely critiqued as soul-barren ring-chasing (i.e., David West), and sometimes this strategy is praised for its saintly benevolence (i.e., Dirk Nowitzki, most of the Spurs).

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However, as we’ll see with these nine players — ranked by how much money they’ve lost — not all of them even managed to scoot up in the standings:

9. Marreese Speights
Loss: $0
More Wins?: No

Down to the dollar, Speights is going to make the exact same salary in 2017-18 as he did in 2016-17. However, after all those shipping fees to move from Los Angeles to Orlando — and then moving, like, 20 games down in the standings — I think it’s fair to count this as a loss.

8. Luc Mbah a Moute:
Loss: $190,000
More Wins?: Yes

I predicted earlier this summer that the Cameroonian prince would earn far less than he deserved in free agency. Unfortunately that prediction came even truer than I expected, with Mbah a Moute losing out on some money as he followed Chris Paul from the Clippers to the Rockets. Hopefully Mbah a Moute finds the better basketball worth it: he’ll be a perfect off-ball compliment to Houston’s show-running guards.

7. Pau Gasol
Loss: $200,000
More Wins?: Yes

Gasol was a real team player here, sitting on the open market patiently for three weeks while the Spurs slotted new free agents into their cap sheet. Even though Gasol ended up waiting just to have a chunk lopped off the top of his salary, it’s going to be worth it for him: $16 million is a hefty price for a — dare I say it? — back-up center.

6. Nick Young
Loss: $480,000
More Wins?: Yes

Even the sassiest of blogger could not have predicted that the monolith Warriors actually wanted to sign the longest-tenured Laker. Somehow, Young has never earned more than $6 million in a single season — this isn’t just a rounding error left off of his salary here. The opportunity for Young to have his first full winning season since, um, his 2007-08 rookie year will probably feel quite nice.

5. Dante Cunningham
Loss: $800,000
More Wins?: No

What a weird offseason for Cunningham. Even though he was the subject of a four-team bidding war, he just ends up returning to his very same team a week before training camp. With nearly a third of his salary missing.

4. Aron Baynes
Loss: $2,180,000
More Wins?: Yes

It’s hard to tell if Baynes was trying to take a shot at more money this summer — or if the former Spur just simply wanted out of a middling roster in Detroit. Now a Celtic, Baynes is in contention to get his second NBA ring in just his sixth NBA season. The only thing is his one-year, $4.3 million salary could get quite a fetching return at the Trade Deadline if Danny Ainge starts wheeling and dealing.

3. David Lee
Loss: $2,320,000 plus an NBA roster spot
More Wins?: No

Uh, Lee just put together one of the most efficient seasons of his career, and for a serious championship contender. Unlike everyone else on this list, though, Lee is not in the NBA right now, and there hasn’t been any reported interest all summer. Honestly, what is happening here?

2. Kevin Durant
Loss: $2,730,000
More Wins?: Yes

Welp, Durant’s attempt at a good deed has gotten understandably lost underneath the rest of his high-maintenance summer.

1. Rudy Gay
Loss: $5,900,000
More Wins?: Yes

There’s an interesting compromise here. Gay did not do the full David West, a.k.a. taking the veterans’ minimum as you move to a contender. His $8.4 million salary is not nothing, though.

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Still, this veteran of exactly one (1) playoff series is by far the league leader in personal sacrifice. Gay may already have $118.5 million in player salary in the bank but, man, it’s got to be hard for anybody this side of Bill Gates to turn down $5.9 million.