NBA 21/22: best and worst paid players of the season
NBA salaries have hiked in recent years, and top player's salaries are brushing $50 million a season. LeBron James is not in the top five on the rich list.
Over the years NBA’s salaries have soared to astronomical heights due to increased interest and a collective bargaining agreement that has catapulted the stars and even menial players into mega millionaires.
So who are the league’s top paid players?
If this was Family Feud’s fast money round and you were asked to name the top five best paid players in the NBA you could maybe get four, but there is one player that would stump around 95% of even the most avid sports fans.
It probably comes as no shock that Steph Curry tops the charts of the NBA’s top earners. The Golden State sharp shooting superstar will deposit $45,780,966 over the course of this season, while his teammate Klay Thompson rounds out the Top-10 raking with a humble $37,980,720 due this year.
Brooklyn's Big Three in top 20 on list
Two of the Brooklyn Nets Big Three are in the starting five of the NBA’s top earners. James Harden is set to make $44,310,840 this year, which is almost $100,000 more than what his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate and now Los Angeles Laker Russell Westbrook is making it at the number four spot on the list.
Harden’s current teammate Kevin Durant is the fifth highest paid player at $42 million, and the third member of the Big Three Kyrie Irving is getting $35 million to put three Nets players in the Top 20 largest salaries to be paid out in this year.
The other player in the top five you would only have guessed if you’re an NBA super agent, or super nerd is John Wall. The former University of Kentucky guard is currently looking for a team after the Rockets told him they won’t be depending on him for the upcoming season. Trade talks have not gone well until now because of Wall’s $44 million salary that few teams are interested in investing in.
Rookie minimum guarrantees almost a million
On the contrary, the NBA minimum contracts are dependent on how many years a player has spent in the league. A rookie who is lucky enough to make a team on the NBA minimum salary is guaranteed a $925,258.
A player like Trevor Ariza, who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers after 18 season in the league will make $2,641,961 dollars which is the minimum for a player who has been in the league for more than 10 years.
The NBA contract are only going to increase in the coming years, and pretty soon we will be talking about the top earners in the NBA getting $50,000,000 a year or more.