As a companion to 10 Most Tradable Contracts of 2017, here are the 10 Least Tradable Contracts. The ground rules aren’t the same as the 10 Most Tradable, but there are a few:

- No player/contract is truly untradeable. We’ve seen that over the years. But the following players are ones teams would struggle to find suitors for.

- Unlike the Most Tradable Contracts, Max deals can be on this list.

- No expiring contracts will appear here. Despite the fact that expiring contracts have dropped in value as assets with the new cap figures in place, they are still fairly movable.

- The cap spike caused some deals from last year to fall off, but they were replaced with a whole new set of questionable deals.

All years/salary figures are for money owed beyond the 2016-2017 season.

10. Mike Conley (4 years/$126 million, last year Player Option and partially guaranteed): This one is more about what is to come versus what is today. Today, Conley is a borderline All-Star who is playing terrific basketball. By the time this contract ends, he’ll be a 33-year-old guard with a lengthy injury history. The chances that Conley is both healthy and productive while making over $34 million in the final year of this deal are almost nil. Small guards like Conley rarely age well, and that is without his medical dossier. For the next three seasons, Conley, Marc Gasol and Chandler Parsons combine to take up well over $70 million on the Memphis cap per season. That makes building a team around them a tricky proposition at best.

9. Brandon Knight (3 years/$43.9 million): When the Suns acquired Knight, and then signed him to his huge deal as a restricted free agent, they envisioned him forming a backcourt partnership with Eric Bledsoe for years to come. Knight’s struggles, combined with Devin Booker’s emergence, have rendered Knight to being a backup swing guard off the bench for a team that isn’t gaining much traction in the Western Conference. Never a great shooter, Knight has a True Shooting Percentage of .513 in a career low 22 MPG compared to .543 in his walk year. His defense has slipped from average to awful as well. Phoenix has reportedly tried to trade him, finding few suitors for his combined lack of skill and money owed. 

8. Timofey Mozgov (3 years/$48 million): When the Lakers made Mozgov a priority target as free agency opened, it made some sense. They needed a big man to hold down the middle after other options has failed the previous year. Signing him to a four-year/$64 million dollar deal didn’t make much sense, however, especially considering his tepid market. The Lakers had to be hoping for more than 7 PPG and 5 RPG in just 21 MPG when they invested this much in Mozgov. Not even his contract dipping down in the 2017-18 season before back up for 2018-19 saves this mess of a deal. Mozgov will turn 31 this summer and big men don’t always age well, especially not those with history of knee troubles. 

7. J.R. Smith (3 years/$44.2 million, last year partially guaranteed): Smith was a huge part of Cleveland winning their first NBA title, but the Cavs faced somewhat of a money crunch this summer. Already expensive, they were pushing never before seen levels with the luxury tax. Had another, cheaper option shown up, Smith may have been thanked for his contributions and shown the door. None did though, and Smith and the Cavs eventually “settled” on a four-year contract. That deal has three years to run after this one and Smith will be 34 in the last year of the contract. He’s currently out with a serious thumb injury and that might not bode well for a player who was already shooting only 34% this season. The chances of this contract ending well seem few and far between. But hey…Cleveland won the title! Sometimes you pay for past performance and nostalgia. 

6. Evan Turner (3 years/$53.6 million): The story goes that Turner got his offer from Portland and brought it back to Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens to see what Boston would do and the Celtics' brass encouraged him to sign the Portland deal right away. Turner is a nice enough player, a solid defender who can play 1-3 and is good when the ball is in his hands. The Celtics let him run their second unit and he had great success. The Blazers already had two ball dominant guards in Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, so Turner is relegated to playing off the ball. As a poor shooter, this puts him in a bad spot. Portland has at times let him run the show, but far too little to justify his monster contract. And, as far as being a trade piece, not many teams are signing up for a player who is best with the combo of a high usage rate while in a bench role.

5. Chandler Parsons (3 years/$72.3 million): Parsons is now a part-time player who can only play every other game and for less than 20 MPG when he does play; not exactly the kind of guy you want to be paying $20+ million to. Desperate for shooting, the Grizzlies gave Parsons a big deal to fill the small forward spot and to space the floor around Marc Gasol. Instead, Parsons has “rewarded” them with 36% shooting overall and just 25% from behind the arc. And that is before him being unable to play back-to-back games and being a poor defender. Given the cost constraints they’ve put on their roster, the Parsons deal looks like an albatross for Memphis.

4. Luol Deng (3 years/$54 million): Deng is now a shell of the player he once was. After a bit of a career renaissance in Miami as a small ball 4, he’s now taking up valuable minutes at small forward for the Lakers and averaging career-lows across the board. By the time the Lakers had signed Deng, they had already drafted Brandon Ingram to be their SF of the future and Julius Randle was in place at power forward. Deng would have been a nice veteran bridge, but not on a four-year contract. As it stands now, when the Lakers are trying to add pieces to their young core down the line, Deng will be sitting on the books as an old and unproductive player just taking up cap space. 

3. Miles Plumlee (3 years/$37.5 million): Plumlee’s deal is as confusing as it is bad. After coming to Milwaukee in the trade for Brandon Knight, Plumlee has been a backup/spot starter for the Bucks. He’s never looked as good as he did in his one year as a starter in Phoenix and last year he played just 14 MPG with decent offense and average defense. His profile screams backup big man. So, why in the world did the Bucks offer him a four-year contract that pays him $50 million dollars? The lack of options or partial guarantees means that he’s on the books for each of the next three years after this one at $12.5 million per season. For a backup who is now barely in the rotation, that is a waste of money. The Bucks are another team that is growing into a contender rapidly and could use the additional cap flexibility to ink complementary pieces, but Plumlee will remain on the books for years to come.

2. Omer Asik (3 years/$33.9 million, last year Player Option and $3 million guaranteed): You could have made a guess that Asik would reign supreme at or near the top of this list, but he was bumped down a spot by an equally unfathomable deal. Asik is now completely out of the rotation in New Orleans, which is probably making lemonade from lemons. When he does play, he’s unproductive and plods up and down the floor. He clogs the paint, taking away driving lanes from Anthony Davis and the guards and his defenders barely pay attention to him. Had the new CBA contained an Amnesty Clause this time around, Asik would have been close to a mortal lock to be released. As it is, the Pelicans just have to wait two more summer before they can finally clear his contract away and move on.

1. Joakim Noah (3 years/$55.6 million): The minute the Knicks signed Noah to this deal, computers and phones were nearly set ablaze as everyone rushed to type some version of: How long and for how much? Noah was coming off an injury ravaged season that saw him play in just 29 games, most of them off the bench, and he wasn’t very good in those 29 games. He hit free agency at seemingly the worst time possible. The league was moving towards small ball, negating players like him, he was hurt with a long injury history and he was already 31 years old. But here came the Knicks with a preposterous offer of four years and near $73 million. By the time this contract ends, Noah will be 35 years old and making over $19 million dollars. And none of that mentions that he’ll also have blocked the center position for countless games over the life of it, where Kristaps Porzingis should be playing at least several minutes a game. Money is rarely an object for the Knicks, but that is when they are able to spend over the cap to retain their own players. As Carmelo Anthony ages out and possibly moves on, the Knicks need as much space to add to a Porzingis-centric roster as possible and they don’t need $18 million-$19 million tied up an old, ineffective, injury prone center. Add it all up and Joakim Noah is the least tradable player in the NBA.