I'm speaking in terms of the overall contract, as in $48M/3 fully guaranteed for a guy who is on the wrong side of 37 years old..
Had the Spurs not made a backroom deal with Pau, and his option year terminated this offseason, he'd be looking at being a vet minimum to mini-MLE salary player in the league. Instead, the Spurs rewarded him for his loyalty with a sizable deal that is really hard to justify.
From the Cavs perspective, we'd be looking at $32M/2Y, but we can't ignore the fact that we'd (1) be sending out one of either Smith, Hill or Thompson in this deal, simply for salary reasons alone; (2) the last year of Kawhi's deal has him at only $20M which is a steal; (3) the last year of Gasol's deal is a decently sized expiring, and we can obviously buy him out if we really need the roster slot; (4) we could use the stretch provision to minimize the tax hit of his last year...
So while Gasol's contract, from the Spurs perspective, was terrible; from the Cavs perspective, one year removed, and coming back with Kawhi -- it's definitely not something that would keep me from agreeing to the trade.
I dunno man...I just totally disagree. I think Gasol would've probably gotten around 12m/year for 3 years from another team if the Spurs hadn't re-signed him. If he were a free agent this summer, he could probably get a contract like what we gave Korver. He's still a very useful player, which isn't all that unusual for a superstar who manages to stay healthy into his late 30's. I don't know what you have against him.