![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="440" width="780" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
It’s not just speculation at this point. There is now actual hard evidence — after the release of the league’s All-NBA teams and the news that the NBA is set to agree to a TV rights deal worth more than $7 billion — that contract totals for elite players are about to spike.
And for Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is all but certain to sign a max extension with the Thunder next summer, that’s going to mean an unimaginable threshold crossed: a salary of $80 million for one season.
It’s still a long way off and there are yet some hurdles to leap. But as things stand, Gilgeous-Alexander, along with the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic, are in line for supermax contract extensions next summer, and it can be expected, under the NBA television deal, that they’ll get the richest deals in history.
SGA’s will be slightly richer, given that his will kick in a year later. But if things hold as they are, he will get a contract that pays him $81.5 million five years down the road. That would make him the first athlete in U.S. team sports to secure that big a payout from a team.
On the Spotrac podcast, which tracks and discusses sports spending, host Brandon Kravitz said, “It feels like Monopoly money we are talking about here now.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: $81.5 Million in 2030
Spotrac’s Mike Ginnitti went deeper into the numbers, explaining that Gilgeous-Alexander’s inclusion as an All-NBA first-teamer triggered his eligibility for a supermax contract. Combined with a salary cap that will expand by 10% in each of the coming years as the new media deal is accounted for, SGA will cross new ground.
“Luka, Shai Gilgeous Alexander (are) probably the ones you want to hang your hat on the most because what is going to happen next summer with Luka and with Shai, when they sign their max extensions, they’re gonna have six-year total contracts,” Ginnitti explained.
“For Luka, it will be one year left, five years new. For Shai, it will be two years left, four years new. When that happens, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will become the first NBA player to lock in a salary of more than $80 million a year. He will have an $81.5 million salary for the 2030 season. It’s going to happen, it’s going to be a fact, it is not even a projection.”
Now, it is possible that between now and 2030 NFL quarterbacks will see their payouts range higher than $80 million per year. But those deals won’t happen between now and next summer — Gilgeous-Alexander will be the first one to have more than $80 million on paper, even if he is not the first one to cash such a check.
NBA Salaries on a Steep Climb
It’s a remarkable spike for a sport that had a salary cap of $43.8 million 20 years ago. At least 20 players will make $43 million per year next season. Even 10 years ago, just before the last television-contract revenue spike, the NBA salary cap was $63 million.
Top NBA salaries are around the same level as the top NFL and MLB salaries, though those are for leagues that have rosters of 53 for the NFL and 26 for baseball. But NBA salaries are more concrete — fully guaranteed and without the deferred payments that are common in other sports.
The NBA is comparable to the NHL, but dwarfs its top stars—Colorado’s Nathan McKinnon is the highest-paid NHL player, at $16.5 million with a $12.6 million cap hit.
“Obviously, you’ve got 15-man rosters and 82 games, and there is just a lot going for the NBA. But so does the NHL and they’ve got players making $13 million a year,” Ginnitti said. “That’s sort of the comparison, just how globally big the NBA is vs. the NHL, who have very similar rosters, identical schedules and just yin and yang in terms of what those two organizations look like.”
0 Comments