José Calderón has been a productive NBA point guard for the better part of a decade. He's never made an All-NBA or All-Star team, but he's had a solid career, and is in the NBA record books with the best free throw percentage for a single season, knocking down 98.1 percent of his attempts at the line during the 2008-09 campaign.
That might be Calderón's single greatest accomplishment in the league, though what happened this past week might be nearly as impressive. Calderón made $415,000 in one hour and 59 minutes with the Golden State Warriors, despite not playing a single second for the team.
The 35-year-old Spaniard had agreed to a buyout of his contract from the Los Angeles Lakers, which cost him $400,000. The Warriors were going to pay him a little bit more to sign him to their final open roster spot. Then Kevin Durant got hurt and plans changed. Instead of signing Calderón, the Warriors opted to ink a deal with Matt Barnes to provide additional frontcourt depth with Durant out of the lineup.
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It was terrible timing for Calderón, who passed up deals with other teams to sign with the Warriors. The team recognized the situation, however, and decided to pay Calderón the $415,000 it owed him, despite knowing they'd release him just a mere 119 minutes later. Not a bad gesture on the Warriors' part.
Barnes, meanwhile, rejoins a Warriors team that he played for from 2006 to 2008. Golden State is hoping he can rekindle a little bit of the magic of the 2007 Warriors, who were led by Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson. That squad knocked off a 67-win Mavericks team as the eighth seed in the playoffs, something that had never before been done in a seven-game series.
As for Calderón, he's already been claimed off of waivers by the Atlanta Hawks, so he will, in fact, have to play a few more games to earn additional money. But at least the world has a pretty cool collectible item now: a Golden State Warriors Calderón jersey.
