Barnes is an average/maybe slightly below average starter at his position. Nothing more and nothing less. Hes not useless. In the long run he wont lose you games but he also wont win you games. Hes legit wing sized, an average shooter, an average defender, below average passer and he can give you some low efficency iso shots. He is overpaid a lot, not a little, a lot. A team really shouldnt pay average starters that type of money before they are truly ready to compete, especially since there is zero upside in Barnes, he is what he is and most likely wont develope anymore.
We are paying 24mil/year to an average starter in Barnes and 26mil on average starter in Hield next year. We are also paying 37mil/year on about average bench players (Dedmond, Joseph, Ariza) Thats too much and signings like that make it hard to put together a competent team. These signings take up most of the cap space, they are good enough to keep you out of top of the lottery but not nearly good enough for your team to be a serious contender if you dont have true all stars in your team.