11 Players the Spurs signed past their prime

1.) Pau Gasol

Pau Gasol's impact with the Spurs doesn't bother me nearly as much as how much the Spurs paid him. When Gasol signed with San Antonio ahead of the 2016 season he was locked in for almost $16 million a year. That's way more than anyone should have been paying a 36-year-old center with a lot of millage.

Gasol was fine, I guess? He started in almost 65 percent of the games he played in San Antonio and made a decent offensive addition in the frontcourt alongside LaMarcus Aldridge. But on defense he was atrocious.

Gasol was never known as a great defender - neither was Aldridge to be candid - and combining the two aging big men left the Spurs with a huge weak spot. The worst part is the Spurs did it to themselves. They should have known from the beginning that this was a bad idea.

I get the rationale, I really do. This was a team that still thought they could contend and they must have figured they could sprinkle some of the Spurs magic on the aging Gasol and get a few more solid years of play out of him. It just never worked out.

That's how it goes when you sign guys past their prime. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't and for every Robert Horry you're going to get at least a few Pau Gasol's.