What is the minimum and the maximum salary in the NBA?
This offseason we have seen some stratospheric numbers thrown out in the free agent market. Bradley Beal and Nikola Jokic are the two big winners so far.
The NBA has grown into one of the largest and most glamorized spectacles of any sport, anywhere in the world. With it’s popularity comes outrageous contracts for some of the games top stars, and even the guys at the bottom of the pay scale aren’t doing to bad in the finance department.
Simons got paid in the market
Since the new collective bargaining agreement was signed in 2017, players salaries have sky rocketed and now NBA players are racking in nine figure deals despite not being super stars or house hold names.
The maximum and minimum salaries depend on the salary cap determined by the league’s revenue in accordance to the CBA. That means that year by year the salary cap changes, generally in an upward trajectory.
Take a guy like Anfernee Simons, who signed a four year, $100,000,000 deal with the Portland Trail Blazers. Simons has never made an All-Star Game, or ever been considered among the top players in the league since he was drafted by Portland in 2018. That being said, he just got a deal that will pay him and average of $25 million a year after averaging 17 points and four assists last year with the Blazers. That doesn’t begin to brush what the NBA’s superstars are making, but the numbers are still jaw dropping.
NY and GS top the rich list
The league’s sky high revenue is based on a multitude of factors that continue to increase the salary cap on a year to year basis. Teams make money through television deals, merchandising and sponsorship deals and ticket sales. The average NBA franchise is worth about $2.1 billion, but when you factor in the giants of the league like New York or Golden State, who are worth $5 billion and $4.7 billion respectively you can see the disparity in resources throughout the league.
The salary cap was put in to prevent teams like the Knicks and the Warriors from using their seemingly limitless funds to lure the top players in the league and create a super team that would be unstoppable.
Depending on the team and the roster, NBA coaches generally use a seven to nine man rotation. That means your starters should be the highest paid ones, with the super stars like a Steph Curry or Nikola Jokic among the top paid players in the league. Then you have the guys like Simmons, who are starters and contributors but aren’t getting top dollar. Then you have the bench guys who see little playing time, and earn most of their money on the practice court.
Jokic and Beal get “super max” deals
Those bench guys are still getting a pretty penny when all is said and done. According to the salary cap, which grew to $122 million after a 10% jump from last season to the upcoming season the league minimum salary will be just over $1,000,000 for the rookie minimum. That number climbs to $1.8 million for a player who has been in the NBA for two years.
Some of the league’s highest paid players are given a hefty percentage of a team’s salary cap in what’s called a super max deal. The super max deals are worth 35% of a teams’ yearly cap, and are designated to teams who either drafted that player or traded for them in the first four years of their NBA career.
There have been two max contracts signed this offseason. One was Bradley Beal who signed a five year, $251 million contract with the Washington Wizards. Beal is set to earn $43.2 million in his first year, and $57.1 million in the final year of his contract in 2027.
Two-time, reigning MVP Nikola Jokic signed an extension with the Denver Nuggets this offseason making him the recipient of the richest contract in the history of the NBA. Although the deal won’t kick in until the 2023/24 season, Jokic’s contract is five year deal worth $269,990,000. According to his old contract, he will make over $32 million in the upcoming season. When his deal activates at the start of the 2023 season, he will earn $46,5500,000, and that will increase to $61,446,000 in the final year of his contact in 2027-28.
The astronomical contacts being tossed around in the NBA are only going to keep increasing as the league continues to grow and the salary cap continues to increase. Not too far in the future, nine figure deals will be a thing of the past and we will begin to see billion dollar deals.