Two minutes into the NBA's wildest free-agency period in years, All-Star Anthony Davis agreed to a five-year, approximately $145 million extension with the New Orleans Pelicans. It was the first move in a frenzy of activity that made the 2015 offseason one to remember.

It also was the richest contract in NBA history. Nobody blinked.

Even at only 22 years old, Davis deserved it -- at least by current standards. In his third NBA season, he led the Pelicans to the playoffs, made first-team all-NBA, led the league in blocks and player-efficiency rating and was fourth in points per game and win shares. The max contract -- and especially the super-max, starting at 30 percent of the salary cap for high achievers -- was conceived for players exactly like Davis.

The problem is, outside the rarified air where Davis and other top-shelf superstars live, the NBA's max contract has become so common and overused as to completely lose its value and meaning. And critics say it's actually had the opposite effect than what owners intended when they pushed for it during the ugly 1998-99 lockout that cost owners and players hundreds of millions and canceled the All-Star Game.

"When you place an artificial bottleneck, you're going to create disequilibrium," agent David Falk, who represented the NBA's first $30 million-a-year player, Michael Jordan, told CBSSports.com.

"By saving $20 million on the best five players, you're probably paying 30 guys an extra $10 million each. If the owners realized that by saving $100 million it would cost them $300 million, do you think they would've done it?"

To understand how we got here -- more than 30 players making max money, including 12 who received the max in the past nine days -- we have to review the origins of the cap on individual player salaries.

In 1997, after his second NBA season, Kevin Garnett agreed to a six-year, $126 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves. At the time, it was the richest contract in league history. Coming on the heels of seven-year, $105 million deals signed by Juwan Howard with Washington and Alonzo Mourning with Miami, and Glenn Robinson signing a 10-year, $68 million deal as a rookie, the owners were in a full-on panic.

"The owners drew a line in the sand and said, 'We've got to put a max in. This can never happen again,' " Eric Fleisher, Garnett's agent at the time, told CBSSports.com.

But from some agents and union officials came a "be careful what you wish for" warning that wasn't heeded.

"When you set a max, it's a clear invitation to not only the Michael Jordans but also the Vin Bakers of the world to say, 'I'm somewhere on the high end of the spectrum, but I'm going to feel disrespected if I don't get the max,' " a person who was involved in negotiating the 1999 collective bargaining agreement told CBSSports.com. "It's going to be a high-water mark, and everyone's going to be seeking that level. You knew that players who weren't necessarily deserving were going to get it."

Like Davis, Garnett was 22 when he got his record-breaking deal. Unlike Davis, he'd yet to participate in a playoff game. Under the rules in effect at the time, rookies were eligible for contract extensions after two seasons of service, as opposed to three. (The rookie wage scale was instituted in 1995 to prevent rookies like Robinson, Penny Hardaway, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill from signing massive guaranteed deals before playing a minute in the NBA.)

"What shocked [owners] the most was not just the amount," Fleisher said of Garnett's landmark contract. "It was the fact that somebody of that age, who hadn't yet been an all-pro, was able to get those kind of dollars."

Garnett's extension was set to kick in for the 1998-99 season, but the owners promptly locked the players out on July 1, 1998, determined to impose severe cost controls. Rhetoric flowed, commissioner David Stern's lockout beard grew and the league lost 32 of the 82 regular-season games plus the All-Star Game by the time the dispute was resolved in January 1999.

The new financial landscape included a luxury tax to discourage big-market teams from running roughshod over smaller ones; an escrow system to cap the players' overall share of revenues; and for the first time, a cap on individual player salaries. (Existing deals like Garnett's were grandfathered in.)

The NBA's max contract was born. And as predicted by some, it became a birthright and status symbol more than a performance standard for the best of the best.

For every Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan or Kidd, there would be three Bakers, Allan Houstons, Rashard Lewises or Joe Johnsons. And by artificially depressing what the very best players could make, the league and the union unwittingly brought pseudo-stars into an earnings bracket that was supposed to have been reserved for real stars -- Magic-Larry-Michael kind of stars.

"Without the max," said the person involved in league bargaining, "LeBron James would be making twice as much."

As a result, the max contract also has ushered in the era of the $30 million backup center who couldn't play (Jerome James), the $30 million third-string point guard (Cory Joseph) and the role player who gets the max (Gordon Hayward) because of leverage rather than accomplishment.

"Gordon Hayward's a very good basketball player," an agent who doesn't represent him said. "But the max? Really?"

In the NBA's alternate universe, leverage for a max deal often is dictated by a small window of performance and the simple economics of supply and demand (loads of cap space, not enough stars).

"Sometimes, it's purely fortuitous," said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You're coming off a good year and the team is saying, 'All right, what the [expletive], let's try it.' "

Hayward was able to get a max deal last summer as a restricted free agent. Charlotte had money to spend and knew the only chance to overcome Utah's matching rights was to offer the max. In the end, the Jazz matched, and Hayward got $64 million for four years.

(Another restricted free agent, Chandler Parsons, left Houston for Dallas last summer with a four-year, $46 million deal that was a touch under the max, according to NBA salary data.)

"If players were allowed to and able to get whatever the market would bear, does anybody think the numbers wouldn't be different than what they are right now?" Fleisher said. "My gut feeling is they'd be less. There would be a few guys with astronomical deals, but they're worth it."

How many current NBA players are "worth it"? That's a judgment call, and one the market is not capable of sorting out and agents can no longer fully negotiate. In Falk's estimation, you start with James and Kevin Durant and get to "maybe Russell Westbrook," he said. Bryant, who in 2013-14 became the first $30 million-a-year player since Jordan, would've spent a decade earning more than that in a free-market system. (Bryant's seven-year, $136 million deal from 2004-11 had been the high-water mark before Davis came along.)

"If you only had Kobe and LeBron making the max all these years, no player in the league would ever think they were worth what Kobe and LeBron are worth," Falk said. "So you're grossly overpaying the people that aren't as valuable because you've created this artificial limitation."

James agreed to a two-year, $47 million deal and can opt out again next summer -- or be eligible for a five-year, $204 million deal in 2017. His $23 million salary next season is 0.5 percent of the NBA's estimated revenues of $5 billion -- any way you slice it, the biggest bargain in pro sports. Alex Rodriguez, who bats five times a game, hit the $22 million mark in 2001.

"The union has made the decision that it's better for LeBron James to give up $20 million or $30 million in salary so that Jodie Meeks can make $6.7 million," Falk said. "... They try to make rules to homogenize everybody because there are many more Matthew Dellavedovas than LeBrons, so the rules are skewed toward those guys. It would be like the competition committee making a rule that once you score 12 points, you have to sit down. So LeBron would play six minutes and score 12 points a game and Delly would play 41 minutes and score 12 points a game."

Beyond James, the other players who have agreed to max deals this summer are LaMarcus Aldridge, Marc Gasol, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard, Enes Kanter, Wesley Matthews, Davis and yes, one of Falk's clients, Greg Monroe. Davis and Lillard got their max deals on extensions with their current teams, the Pelicans and Trail Blazers. Kanter, a restricted free agent, agreed to a max offer sheet with Portland.

Tim Duncan officially returned to the San Antonio Spurs Thursday, signing a one-year deal with the silver and black. Most stunning? 

Max Contracts Signed in 2015
Player Years Amount ($Millions, U.S.)
LaMarcus Aldridge 4 $84M
Jimmy Butler 5 $94M
Anthony Davis 5 $145M
Marc Gasol 5 $113M
DeAndre Jordan 4 $88M
Kawhi Leonard 5 $94M
Damian Lillard 5 $120M
Kevin Love 5 $113M
Greg Monroe 3 $51M
LeBron James 2 $47M
Enes Kanter 4 $70M
Wesley Matthews 4 $68M

Matthews, who originally committed to a four-year, $57 million deal with Dallas, reportedly was bumped up to the max ($70 million) once Jordan backed out of his commitment to the Mavs and returned to the Clippers.

Further complicating matters, the max isn't the same for everyone. For Love and Gasol, it's five-years, $113 million since they stayed with their current teams, the Cavs and Grizzlies. Aldridge got four years and $84 million; the rules dictate that a player can get at most a four-year deal with smaller annual increases if he changes teams. (Jordan chose to take a four-year, $88 million deal with LA instead of the five-year max.) Leonard's max deal with San Antonio is five years, $94 million -- less than Gasol's and Love's because he has fewer years of service.

The total numbers for Davis ($145 million) and Lillard ($120 million) are higher because their extensions kick in when the salary cap escalates in 2016. Aggregate player salaries are calculated as 50 percent of basketball-related income, which gets a massive boost after next season with the influx of the NBA's $24 billion TV deal.

But none of this addresses the underlying problem: Salaries for sub-maximal players have been artificially inflated in response to the limit on what the true stars can make.

"I think it's probably cost the owners more than it saved them in the first place," Fleisher said.

Well, not in a capped system, where the players' aggregate salaries come in just north of 50 percent of BRI no matter what. But the argument against the individual max centers on value.

"If I know I'm going to overpay," Falk said, "I want the best return."

There's also intangible value for superstars in a system that caps their earnings. What players like James have given up in salary, they've made up for in power. By having his own earnings capped, James was able to team up with two other max players, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and win two championships in Miami. Wade took slightly less than the max to allow Pat Riley to fit all three under the cap.

"Players have more control over who they play with and where they go than they ever did before," Fleisher said. "That's another unintended consequence that teams and the league are going to have to navigate." If James had been making $50 million with a $58 million salary cap in 2010-11, he would've been playing with Falk and some other old cranks from the senior home in Bethesda. Of course, when Jordan hit the $30 million mark for the first time in NBA history in 1996-97, the Bulls' next highest-paid player was Dennis Rodman ($9 million). Scottie Pippen made $2.25 million.

Next season, James will make $23 million, Love will make $19.7 million and Kyrie Irving will make $15.8 million. (Owner Dan Gilbert hasn't even gotten to Tristan Thompson's presumably max extension yet, but that's none of my business.)

"Time is an amazing thing," Fleisher said. "I've done this for 35 years, and I've seen the pendulum swing in different ways. It wouldn't shock me to see the pendulum swing back and see league say, 'Wait a minute. We can't have this.' And when they run the calculations, are they better off paying $50 [million] or $60 million to a few people or paying millions to too many?"

Falk, who represented Howard, Mourning, Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo, Elton Brand and other stars, said he proposed a solution to Stern many years ago. But his idea of a two-tiered pool for player salaries never went anywhere, in part because it would've further divided a players' union in which different classes have always had different priorities.

"When you go to the airport, is everybody in the same union?" Falk said. "There's a pilots union, a mechanics union, a baggage handlers union. If I were 40 years old, I would try to start my own union with the top 40 players and I'd go to the league with no maxes and make a deal with Adam Silver. Those 40 guys are what make the TV money go.

"Then I'd say [to the NBPA], you represent the other 400 guys," Falk said. "I'd love to have your guys, but if not, I'll get guys from the D-League, from high school, from Europe. Your guys are better, but they're slightly better. Then you explain to the 400 players that unless they agree that LeBron is not going to be capped, he's going to create his own league and you're not going to be in it."

That's a radical solution, to say the least. But in the NBA, transformative times often lead to extreme reactions. The power exerted by Miami's Big Three in 2010 led to an ugly lockout in 2011, just as Garnett's landmark deal led to an even uglier one in 1998. With revenues soaring and the deepest class of "max" players ever carving out their niche, what perils await in 2017, when the owners or players can opt out of the agreement that governs all this madness?

"If history has borne one thing out," Fleisher said, "it would be foolish not to be concerned."

Anthony Davis is worth a max contract. (USATSI)
Anthony Davis is worth a max contract. (USATSI)