Cristiano “The Brazilian Shaq” Felicio (or “The Babyface Shaq”, take your pick) made some waves in the offseason for having such a good agent that the Bulls decided to give him a four-year contract where he gets paid eight million dollars per year. This was after he averaged 5/5 on 58% shooting the year before.
I’m happy for the Brazilian Shaq. I really am. His agent took advantage of an incompetent Bulls front office just like he was supposed to. But there’s no way Felicio’s going to live up to that contract. He’s just not enough of a scorer. If he turns into Ben Wallace on defense and on the boards, then, yeah, he could be worth it. Or if he develops a Vucevic-like touch from midrange. Neither is likely, especially if he’s stuck behind Markkanen and Lopez forever and keeps receiving those DNP-CDs that Hoiberg is handing out.
The plus side to this is, Felicio can play as badly as he wants and Brazilians will never hate him more than they hate Nene.