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Pay does not always match up with performance, as the NBA continually demonstrates. The best player on a team is not always its highest paid, and sometimes a club receives little in return for its most prolific investment.

We've listed each team and its highest paid player below. All it takes is a glance to notice a few names and dollar figures that look out of kilter. John Salmons has been a serviceable NBA player, but after a season in which he averaged 7.5 points and put up a PER of 9.0, well below the 15.0 mark of an average NBA player, he's hardly the kind of guy you'd expect to be a top money-earner. Derrick Rose's name seems much more fitting on the list, but he won't be giving the Bulls any production for their money for at least a significant chunk of the upcoming season as he recovers from knee surgery. Chris Bosh, while an All-Star caliber player, isn't on par with three-time MVP LeBron James on the court, but they signed identical contracts back in 2010.

Perhaps most remarkable, though, is how much turnover there is. Eleven of the 30 players on this list joined their teams within the last 12 months. Three of them were involved in the four-team trade that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers, though Howard himself isn't on the list, as Kobe Bryant's $27.849MM salary will be the highest in the league this coming season. 

Here's the complete list, by division:

Atlantic Division
Celtics: Paul Pierce, $16.790MM
Knicks: Carmelo Anthony, $20.463MM 
Nets: Joe Johnson, $19.753MM
Raptors: Jose Calderon, $10.562MM
Sixers: Andrew Bynum, $16.889MM

Southeast Division
Bobcats: Ben Gordon, $12.4MM 
Hawks: Josh Smith, $13.2MM
Heat: LeBron James and Chris Bosh, $17.545MM (tie)
Magic: Hedo Turkoglu, $11.816MM 
Wizards: Emeka Okafor, $13.49MM 

Central Division
Bulls: Derrick Rose, $16.403MM
Bucks: Monta Ellis, $11MM
Cavaliers: Anderson Varejao, $8.368MM
Pacers: Roy Hibbert, $13.669MM
Pistons: Corey Maggette, $10.924MM 

Southwest Division
Grizzlies: Zach Randolph, $16.5MM
Hornets: Eric Gordon, $13.669MM
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki, $20.907MM
Rockets: Kevin Martin, $12.44MM
Spurs: Manu Ginobili, $14.107MM 

Northwest Division
Jazz: Al Jefferson, $15MM
Nuggets: Andre Iguodala, $14.968MM 
Timberwolves: Kevin Love, $12.922MM
Thunder: Kevin Durant, $16.67MM 
Trail Blazers: LaMarcus Aldridge: $13.5MM 

Pacific Division
Clippers: Chris Paul, $17.779MM
Lakers: Kobe Bryant, $27.849MM
Kings: John Salmons, $8.083MM
Suns: Goran Dragic, $7.5MM
Warriors: Andrew Bogut, $13MM

Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.

The Lakers' deals for Steve Nash and Dwight Howard coupled with the Heat's acquisition of Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, among other moves this offseason, have lent fuel to the sentiment that the NBA's high-dollar marquee franchises can more or less spend at will to bring in talent. 

By and large, though, there's little correlation between teams that were successful last year and those that spent heavily this summer, nor is there a strong connection between those that carried high payrolls last year and those that continued to spend in the offseason. The 10 teams that committed the most money to free agents this offseason, per the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Tracker, averaged just 34.3 wins during last year's lockout-shortened 66-game schedule. The top 5 teams in that category averaged 32.4 wins, for a winning percentage just below .500. 

The story is much the same if we look at team salaries as they were calculated for luxury tax purposes last season. Just three out of the top 10 teams on that list are also among the top 10 spenders this summer, and only the Celtics appear among the top five teams on both lists.

The primary reason for this appears to be the salary cap. Though the NBA operates under a "soft" cap, with exceptions that allow teams to go over it for a variety of reasons, it more or less keeps spending in line throughout the league. Teams are also obligated to spend a certain amount each year, so there isn't too much disparity among payrolls from top to bottom. 

While the Lakers and Heat had two of the top three payrolls from last season, they were just 13th and 24th, respectively, among spenders this offseason. The Lakers acquired Nash via sign-and-trade using the trade exception they acquired when they shipped Lamar Odom to Dallas, and they got Howard in a straight-up four-way swap. The Heat were successful in convincing Allen and Lewis to accept below-market contracts, just as the Lakers did with Antawn Jamison. L.A. and Miami were shrewd, but they weren't spendthrifts.

For a broader look, here are all 30 teams ranked first by wins, then 2011/12 payroll, and finally by their spending this offseason: 

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Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren't the only updates you'll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you'll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here's a rundown of a few of them:

• Our Free Agent Tracker features up-to-date details on this summer's free agent signings, with data sortable by team, position, contract years, and contract amount.
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Last week, we took a look at each of the NBA's six divisions, recapping 2012 free agent spending around the league. The upshot? The five Atlantic teams combined to spend way more than any other division, while the Southeast squads spent significantly less than any other division. The results provided a number of other items of note though, so let's take a look at some of our findings.

Because these figures are based solely on free agent spending, our numbers don't take into account money committed to draft picks or salary exchanged in trades. Additionally, these totals are based on the potential earnings for every free agent if he plays out his whole contract, so option years and nonguaranteed years are included in our calculations. Here are this summer's top five spenders in free agency:

• Brooklyn Nets: $243.053MM
• Boston Celtics: $133.606MM
• Indiana Pacers: $128.366MM
• New Orleans Hornets: $108.948MM
• Denver Nuggets: $63.875MM

Bottom five spenders:

• Washington Wizards: $1.801MM
• Detroit Pistons: $4.875MM
• Oklahoma City Thunder: $7.598MM
• Cleveland Cavaliers: $7.682MM
• Utah Jazz: $8.000MM

And each division's total commitments:

• Atlantic: $498.269MM
• Southwest: 262.169MM
• Central: 196.083MM
• Pacific: $189.221MM
• Northwest: 179.711MM
• Southeast: $71.836MM

For more information on the offseason's free agent spending, check out our posts for the individual division (linked above) or peruse Hoops Rumors' free agent tracker.

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Splashy, big-ticket free agent signings make headlines, but subtle pickups often make the difference between winning and losing. Players who can be had at bargain prices may be much more valuable than their contracts indicate. Two ways of evaluating that value are PER and win shares per 48 minutes, a pair of metrics designed to go beyond box score stats and evaluate a player's efficiency and contribution to the team.

Using the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Tracker, I've taken the average annual salary that each free agent signed for this summer and compared it to their PERs and win shares per 48 minutes from 2011/12. I divided the average salaries, listed here in millions, by the PERs and ranked the dividends from largest (most valuable) to smallest. For the second chart, I divided salaries by win shares per 48 minutes and ranked the results from smallest (most valuable) to largest.  

Not surprisingly, many of these guys are minimum-salary players. The minimum salary goes up for each year of experience a player has, but teams aren't on the hook for any amount beyond the minimum for a player with two years of experience, which is set at $854K this year. The league provides the rest of the money for the players. The salaries that have been adjusted down to the two-year veteran's minimum appear in yellow in the charts below. In cases where a signee didn't play last season, or appeared in fewer than 10 games, I substituted the PER or win shares per 48 minutes from the last NBA season in which he played at least 10 games, and those stats are shown here in gray. 

First, the PER chart:

Now, the win shares chart:

Some observations:

• Eight players appear on both 10-man lists: Patrick Mills, C.J. Watson, Daniel Orton, Nate Robinson, Chris Wilcox, Ronnie Brewer, Ronny Turiaf and Cartier Martin.
• The only teams to have multiple players on these lists are the Nets and Bulls. There's been criticism of the Bulls for their overhaul of the team's bench this offseason, but the numbers Robinson and Radmanovich put up last season suggest they can provide roughly the same value as departing reserves Watson and Brewer.
• P.J. Tucker's appearance on the PER chart might be something of a red herring, since it's based on a 17-game sample from back in 2006-07 with the Raptors, his only NBA experience. Though he played only 83 total minutes, he made the most of them, averaging 13.0 points and 10.0 rebounds per 36 minutes. He's the only player on either top 10 to make less than the two-year veteran's minimum, since he has only one season of experience, but if we took him off the list, the player to replace him would be Roger Mason of the Hornets. Mason's 2011/12 PER of 12.1 divided by his $854K veteran's minimum salary for next year results in a score of 14.169. 

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Central

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Southeast

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Southwest

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Northwest

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Pacific

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On this week in 1920, legendary Knicks coach Red Holzman was born in Brooklyn, New York.  At the tail end of his playing career, Holzman took the role of player-coach with the Milwaukee Hawks before transitioning to the club's head coach.  Following that, he returned to his native New York to join the Knicks' assistant coaching staff for a ten year stretch before taking over as head coach in the 1967 season.  Of course, Holzman would go on to coach the team to their only two NBA titles in 1970 and 1973.

If you have a great blog piece that you think we should feature in Hoops Links, then send it to me at HoopsLinks@gmail.com.  Here's this week's look around the blogosphere..

• Hardwood Paroxysm compares the Dwight Howard saga to classic theater.
• Blazer's Edge broke down Nicolas Batum's last Olympic outing.
• CelticsBlog wonders where the C's rank in the East.
• SLC Dunk looks at the Howard trade from all angles.
• The Basketball Post looks at Regal FC Barcelona.
• Bright Side Of The Sun doesn't see Steve Nash and Howard as a perfect fit.
• A Wolf Among Wolves mourns the passing of Tim Allen.
• Project Spurs wonders if San Antonio can hang with the new look Lakers.
• Fear The Sword laments the Howard deal passing the Cavs by.
• RealGM knows that this is the last go 'round for this generation of Olympic stars.
• NIU BBall sees the silver lining in China missing out on London.
• Red94 has a plan of attack for the Rockets going forward.
• Magic Basketball sees Jacque Vaughn as a low-risk, high-reward hire.
• Basketbawful brings us a special Olympic edition of the worst of the best.
• Brew Hoop examines Monta Ellis' best game in Milwaukee.
• Queen City Hoops wants the Bobcats to improve their frontcourt.
• Nets Are Scorching goes 3-on-3 to look at the fallout of the Howard deal.
• Cowbell Kingdom caught up with Isaiah Thomas.

If you have a suggestion for this feature, Zach can be reached here.

Only two players averaged more than 10 assists per game last season, and there's no convenient numerical threshold to assess the salaries for elite passing talent as we've done for the dozen players who averaged 20 or more points last season and the eight who collected 10 or more rebounds per game. So, we've simply taken a look at the top 10 guys on the assist leaderboard from last season. On average, they're paid less than their scoring and rebounding counterparts, and thanks to paycuts for Steve Nash and Andre Miller that aren't completely offset by raises for the others on the list, they'll make even less in 2012/13 than they did last season.

Here are the top 10 assist producers from 2011/12, along with their salaries for the past and coming seasons and what they make for each assist on their nightly average.

Some observations:

• Deron Williams was the only player to finish in the top 10 in assists and scoring average last year, but thanks to the timing of his contract and the new CBA, he won't get the highest raise among players on this list. That distinction belongs to Chris Paul, who was making just as much as Williams did last season and will get slightly more in 2012/13.
• Andre Miller makes more money and was a slightly more prolific assist maker last season, but Nuggets teammate Ty Lawson is the starter and saw more minutes per game in 2011/12.
• Lawson will probably soon make more than Miller when his rookie deal runs out after this season. Lawson, John Wall and Ricky Rubio all made this list on their rookie scale contracts, representing bargains for their teams. Rubio was the only first-year player last season to be either a top 10 assist producer, 20+ PPG scorer or 10+ RPG rebounder.
• The Lakers, Clippers, Nets and Wolves all have a player on this list as well as the scoring and rebounding lists.

Storytellers Contracts and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.