The NBA is known to be one of the sports leagues that pays the most to its players in the world, but all of them are under the salary limit set for the NBA.
The salary a player can earn will directly correlate to the years they’ve been playing in the NBA, that’s why Stephen Currya veteran player in the league will earn around $17.7 million more than Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchellwho signed the rookie max contract.
When a player signs a deal that will pay them the max salary, they don’t necessarily win the most in the NBA throughout all the years of his contract, he rather gets the max in the first year of the deal and gets an equal proportional raise for the rest of the years in his contract.
That’s why Steph Curry earnings will continue to be above the NBA’s minimum salary for this 2022-2023 season, thanks to the annual limit not having risen to the same rate as Curry’s current 8% a year.
Michael Jordan set the record for the highest salary in an NBA season in 1997 and it stood all the way to the 2017-2018 season when players salary started increasing each year to new heights.
NBA’s 2022-2023 season highest paid players
27 players will earn more than $33.1 million this season in the NBAaccording to Spotrac.
This list includes soon to be Hall of Fame players Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpobut also a couple of players that haven’t even been selected to an All-Star game like Tobias Harris or CJ McCollum.
The top ten highest paid players for this season are:
- Stephen Curry $48,070,014
- Russell Westbrook $47,063,478
- LeBron James $44,474,988
- Bradley Beal $43,279,250
- Kevin Durant $42,969,845
- Paul George $42,492,568
- Kawhi Leonard $42,492,492
- Damian Lillard $42,492,492
- Giannis Antetokounmpo $42,492,492
- Klay Thompson $40,600,080
The top 10 includes two players from the Warriorstwo from the Lakers and two for the Clipperswith the Warriors and the Clippers being among the teams with the highest payroll, with the Brooklyn Nets coming in third place.
Next season’s list will see many different names as some contracts are already signed but start their big paying years in 2023, such is the case of Nikola Jokic or Joel Embiidwith those two players earning over $46 million to play one year.
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