i'm not sure that hayes' contract qualifies as one of the "worst kings contracts ever handed out," though i've maintained that throwing unnecessary money at him without any real competition was foolish,
especially after voiding the contract for medical reasons just to tack on an extra million per when it turned out that hayes had a clean bill of health.
that was some next-level incompetency. then there was the aaron brooks contract, which made not the least bit of sense given the crowding in the kings backcourt. it made so little sense, in fact, that the kings eventually waived brooks mid-season, not eight months after signing him...
now, brooks was on a two-year deal worth very little, but those two moves, along with the robinson pick and subsequent trade, were the final signals that the previous regime was in full chicken-with-its-head-cut-off mode, without an idea of what they were doing, without any ambition to actually, y'know,
build a team, except to meet the nba's minimum salary requirements. during that stretch, and with keith smart joining in on the self-sabotage nightly, i was probably more embarrassed to be a kings fan than i'd ever been...