Salary
Average Salary: $5,200,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $24,960,000
If you’re Kobe Bryant, you’re killing it. You’re making $64.5 million a year—$30.5 million in salary and $34 million in endorsements.
If you’re the average NBA player, you make $5.2 million a year for about 4.8 years. Not Kobe money, but not bad at all.
There are overvalued and undervalued players in the league. Carmelo Anthony, who makes $19.4 million a year and is considered overpaid, produced a win ratio of only 0.7 in 2013. Then there are underpaid players like Matt Barnes, who took home only $854,389 and brought in 7.1 wins for his team.
But when it comes to money in professional sports, the paycheck you collect from your team is only a small part of what you actually make. There’s some serious dough in endorsements. How much? Well, in 2014, LeBron James made $42 million in endorsements alone. Yeah, we’ll wait while you read that again. But beware, that's far, far from the norm. While NBA salaries are pretty sweet, it’s the endorsement deals that are the silver cloud on the platinum lining of an NBA player’s Air Jordans.
Speaking of shoes, they’re a pretty big deal in basketball. As a matter of fact, most players probably have more of ’em than Imelda Marcos. Shoe deals for NBA players can be incredibly lucrative, just ask Derrick Rose about the 13-year contract he has with Adidas that pays him $185 million.
Aside from the shoes, NBA players have their names attached to soda, cereal, burgers, and protein shakes. But it usually comes back to the shoes. At least they’re multifaceted and useful for things other than dunking. Just remember, your odds of making a dime as a pro basketball player in the NBA:
0.03 percent
Just keeping it real for you.