Who Is The Highest Paid NBA Player?

Ask any basketballer, trainer, or basketball enthusiast who the highest paid NBA player is and you may get wide grins followed by looks of confusion and then the final outburst of either an “I don’t know or the name of a basketball that crosses them like the highest paid NBA player.” 

This is most likely not the case when you ask them the names of the most popular basketballers they know. The way people indeed start to reel out names off the top of their heads like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Olajuwon, and LeBron James, can make you go dizzy because of just how many they know. 

This post would like to discuss who the highest paid NBA player is and other related topics around it while avoiding the use of lists because nothing elicits more laughs or scorn from those really participating in the sport than articles about a list. 

Introduction 

Trying to pick the top ten best, most skillful, or highest paid basketballers in the world, regardless of weight or height class, is a difficult endeavor.  

This is due to how dramatically bodies, styles, and skillsets like strength and speed differ throughout the spectrum of today’s greatest or highest paid basketballers.  

Anyone interested in weighing in on the topic may easily place a higher value on one characteristic than another basketball fan. 

How Does the NBA work? 

The NBA has 30 teams separated into two conferences, each with four divisions, according to my understanding. During the regular season, each club plays 82 games. No matter how awful a team’s record is, the top seed in each division is guaranteed a playoff place.  

This would result in a total of eight playoff positions. The remaining eight are determined by the four non-division-winning teams in each conference with the next four best records.  

Each year, 16 of the 30 clubs make the playoffs. The Western Conference has eight teams, whereas the Eastern Conference has eight. 

Each encounter in the playoffs is referred to as a best-of-seven series. In other words, the team that wins four games against its opponent progresses. Only Games 5, 6, and 7 are played if they are required.  

To advance to the Finals, a club must win three games in a best-of-seven series against three teams from their own conference, and then compete against a team from the opposite league that has also done so. 

It’s a standard 7-game series between a West and an East squad in the Finals. By the way, the 7-game series is structured as follows from the standpoint of the higher-seeded team with home-court advantage.  

Two home games, two road games, one home game, one away game, and finally one home game. Obviously, from the perspective of the visiting team, the home/away title is inverted. 

Baskets are used to determine points. A shot from inside the 3-point line, including dunks and layups, is worth two points. A shot from outside the 3-point line, no matter how far out, is worth three points. One point is awarded for each shot made from the free-throw line. 

Does height influence who the best or highest paid NBA players are? 

There are many who are terribly uncomfortable knowing that a 5-foot person would never stand a chance playing professionally. Idealists believe that any sport in which a player has a genetic edge that they were born with is defective. 

No matter what you try to tell yourself regarding the impact of height in basketball and how well very tall players have fared in the game professionally, it’s impact has been too profound to ignore and therefore must be discussed. 

Debate.org, in one of its sessions, brought to light the fact that “Of the top 25 GOAT players, The shortest is 6’0. 5″ and the average height is about 6’6.” 

The fact that the top 25 best players had an average height of less than one in a thousand demonstrates that being tall has a significant intrinsic advantage. 

Most of the other players under 6’5″, including the 6’6.5″ player, played in the 1980s and 1990s. This is because, when a game, such as basketball or any other sport, becomes more efficient, any advantage becomes increasingly apparent.  

As time passes, players have grown in stature and will continue to grow in stature. 

Read: Who Is The Highest Paid NFL Player In The World?

The NBA is popular because of how it is played, on or off the court. These are a couple of reasons why the NBA is popular; 

  • The NBA is the world’s top level of basketball competition. The top players in the world want to play in the NBA because it pays well. Because the WNBA lacks this for women, the best player in the world (is more dependant on her European team UMMC Ekaterinburg, which forced her to sit out a season of WNBA basketball to relax.
  • There is money promoting it. The Clippers sold for $2 Billion, so the league is run by billionaires who know how to make money and market things. From shoe deals to insurance company commercials, NBA players are all over television in the US, so you can’t get away from it.
  • It also features a lot of stops throughout the game, making it ideal for watching on television. Commercial breaks occur at the quarter and half-hour marks, as well as during timeouts and play reviews. This allows it to recoup its costs through advertising. In contrast to international soccer/football and NASCAR, athletes are not covered like billboards. 

Who is the highest paid NBA player? 

Stephen Curry is the highest paid NBA player and that is for the simple fact that he is exceptional at what he does. Curry is sure to make over $46 million from his current deal and may be making more when a new contract is signed. 

LeBron James is the person who many would have expected to see as the highest paid NBA player, it’s just that this year, he isn’t. 

LeBron James would be termed as the 6th highest paid NBA player and still retains the title of the highest earner in NBA history. It doesn’t come as a surprise to many who have been following up that he would have made over $400 million in total salary by the end of his contract with the Lakers. 

According to Forbes, the four-time MVP will earn $111.2 million after taking into account all of his financial interests, putting him ahead of Curry ($92.8 million), Durant ($87.9 million), Antetokounmpo ($80.3 million), and Westbrook ($74.2 million). 

The Warriors’ star is once again at the top of the NBA’s highest-paid players list. Curry will earn roughly $46 million in the last year of his current contract, but the cash will keep flowing in.  

This past summer, he agreed to a four-year agreement that will begin with the start of the 2022-23 season and is for a total of $215 million. 

What do we know about the highest paid NBA player? 

Curry is the older brother of current NBA player Seth Curry and the son of former NBA player Dell Curry. He played collegiate basketball with the Davidson Wildcats, where he established Davidson’s and the Southern Conference’s all-time scoring records.  

Steph Curry was twice voted conference player of the year and set the single-season NCAA record for most three-pointers made during his sophomore year. The Warriors took Curry with the seventh overall choice in the 2009 NBA Draft. 

For those who consistently ask the question how tall is Steph Curry, it’s safe to say that he’s 6′ 3″. This we can confirm when he seemed to be telling people “It’s official, I’m 6’3!” he tweeted after visiting the 2009 Draft camp, where he was measured at 6ft 3.25 in sneakers and 6ft 2 without. 

He also listed his weight: “6’3″ 185lbs” on another occasion. “Without shoes, I’m officially 6’2′′ and 3-quarters,” he stated in 2019. 

Curry established the NBA record for three-pointers made in a regular season with 272 during the 2012–13 season. In 2015, he set a new record with 286, and in 2016, he set a new one with 402.  

Curry passed Ray Allen for the NBA record most career three-pointers on December 14, 2021. Curry and teammate Klay Thompson have acquired the moniker “Splash Brothers” for their shooting talents.  

In 2013–14, they established the NBA record for combined three-pointers made in a season with 484, which they broke the next season (525), and again in the 2015–16 season (678). 

Read: 30 Highest Paid EPL Players| Best Reviews

Why do NBA players get paid so much? 

Because the NBA is an entertainment-based industry, a single athlete may mean the difference between a lot of exposure on television, selling out games, selling goods, and encouraging other top talent to join the team. 

This isn’t to say that a CEO can’t have an even more significant impact, but we’re talking about a CEO with a vision who is fundamentally changing his company for the better.  

Not a CEO who is running the exact same business units but with vastly greater effectiveness than if some other top-tier executive had the reins. 

NBA players currently get nearly half of total league earnings before expenditures under the current labor agreement. Players are given around $3 billion in total, based on an expected $6 billion in qualifying NBA league earnings. 

NBA players receive about (or precisely) half of the league’s income. As a result, half of the money goes to the players and half goes to the owners, who are already billionaires. Also, keep in mind that NBA players (like all athletes) should make as much money as possible.  

This is because when they retire, they likely will have to live off that for the rest of their life, especially if they weren’t good enough to land a lot of endorsements or if they weren’t well-spoken enough to get an analyst job.  

So, if NBA players should not be compensated, who should be compensated? Who are the proprietors? Really? You’re suggesting that the billionaire owners be compensated more? What makes you think that’s fair? They’ve already received a large sum of money. 

How often do NBA Players get Paid? 

Discussions surrounding how NBA players get paid are very interesting, and at the same time, quite normal when boiled down to its most basic forms and basketballers seen as contractors. 

To begin with, most businesses in the United States pay employees twice a month or once every two weeks, therefore NBA players’ wages are paid in batches rather than immediately after signing a contract. 

Take, for example, James. In the 2019-2020 season, he was paid $35.65 million. Following that, his compensation grew in lockstep with the increase in the wage cap each season. His compensation will be $41 million in the last season.  

Of course, from November 1 to November 1 of the following year, each season’s remuneration is divided into 24 installments totaling $1.485 million. 

What are the NBA’s Rules Around Salaries? 

All players should follow the NBA’s rules when receiving their salary, according to the league’s rules. It is not permissible to get all of the salary at once. This regulation is readily accepted by the team.  

However, there have been rare outliers in the NBA’s long history, such as Kobe Bryant’s one-time advance of $24 million 360 thousand dollars, and Anthony’s straight payment of $63 million. 

Because the league has a regulation that players may only advance up to 80% of their yearly wage once a year after October 1, this is the case.  

However, the advance salary can be said to be the only privilege of superstars. For ordinary players in the league, unless it is injury or other reasons, they can only receive the salary according to the regulations.  

As for those players with short contracts and two-way contracts, the team will not pay the players in advance at all, and the players think more about how to stand in the team and strive for a stable long contract. 

Read: Who is the Highest Paid NBA Player? | Top 10 NBA Players in the World

Conclusion 

Steph Curry, currently the highest paid NBA player in the world is an entertainer and is deserving of the huge sum paid to him to perform.  

There are 360 NBA players in the world and people pay money both at the arena and through subscriptions to watch them play, so it is believed that if any of them perform in ways that impresses both their manager and the watching public, they should get paid more. 

References 

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