NBA’s Highest Paid Players: Except for the summer 2016 cap surge, NBA wages are increasing at a rate we’ve never seen. Players are earning more than $50 million each season this year, and those figures are only rising. A player will probably sign a deal before the end of this decade, or at the very least during the next ten years, that will pay him $1 million every game ($82 million per season). Following that brief introduction, the NBA’s highest paid players for the 2023–24 season are listed below, along with predictions for the next campaign.
Not the average pay paid throughout the course of the contract, but the total cash compensation for the 2023–24 season only (per Spotrac).
NBA’s Highest Paid Players for the 2023–24 Season
Here are the NBA’s Highest Paid Players for the 2023–24 season. Check them out:
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Is Steph Curry the NBA’s top player? Not exactly, but he’s among the top five and the league’s (perhaps all-time) worst opponent. He deserves to be the highest-paid player in the league since, along with the 38-year-old player below, he continues to be dominant and the NBA’s public face. Due to his generational shooting talent, Curry, who is 35 years old, shows no signs of slowing down and should mature well into his late 30s.
LeBron James, LA Lakers
In terms of value provided to the league and the Lakers, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and face of the league for the past 20 years is worth more than any club could possibly spend. In spite of this, he’s still a good enough player to earn the second-highest salary in the NBA this season while entering his 21st season. Last year, he averaged 28.9 PPG, 8.3 RPG, and 6.8 APG.
He showed he still has the ability to reach way back and put on all-time performances in his last game against Denver, where he went for 40 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists while playing all but four seconds of the 48-minute game. Although his performance dipped a little in the playoffs, he was obviously hindered by a foot injury.
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Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
The second most NBA’s highest paid players in the NBA is the current MVP going into the upcoming season. Each of the last two seasons, Joel Embiid has led the NBA in scoring, including a career-high 33.1 PPG last year. He’ll (hopefully) be more focused on making sure he’s totally healthy and performing at his best heading into the postseason this season now that he’s finally won an MVP award.
Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
Nikola Jokic is very much without a doubt the finest player and one of the NBA’s highest paid players, and he is compensated as such after a dominant championship run. Jokic will start the 2023–24 season as the league’s top dog, the peak that any rival in the West needs to reach in order to have a shot at winning the championship. Bruce Brown and Jeff Green were two important contributors that the Nuggets lost, but the core of their rotation is still there, and they still have guys like Jokic and Aaron Gordon who are in their prime, as well as Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. who are still developing.
Bradley Beal, Phoenix Suns
But this one doesn’t really add up. Only one of the league’s top 50 players, Bradley Beal, now has the fifth-highest pay. That isn’t really sensible from the point of view of a cost-benefit analysis, but the Phoenix Suns, who are as “all-in” as a team can be, certainly don’t care. They will have Deandre Ayton and Beal to help a great duo of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, and they will be fervently hoping to the basketball gods to keep them healthy and lucky throughout the regular season and the playoffs.
Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns
After suffering an Achilles rupture, Kevin Durant serves as a model for never giving up on a great athlete. He is also one of the NBA’s highest paid players I doubt any athlete in the history of sports has ever recovered from a soft tissue injury as rapidly as KD did. His most effortless 30 points you’ll ever see will fall if you catch him on a night when he’s performing; it’s stunning and makes his maximum contract completely worthwhile. Unfortunately, he’s had difficulties staying healthy for extended periods of time ever since the Achilles injury, and he’s started to show some wear and tear in the playoffs.
In actuality, he has only participated in 137 of the 246 regular-season games that he might have, or an average of 46 games per season, in the four seasons since his injury-related return. The soon-to-be 35-year-old must buck that trend this season for the Suns to be competitive in the West.
Paul George, LA Clippers
Paul George is about as slick a player as they come and always has his team in the mix…when he’s healthy. Speaking about dazzling talents who are too frequently injured. Unfortunately, PG13 has missed more than 40% of his team’s games throughout his time with the Clippers, having only participated in 189 of a possible 318 regular season games. If his club considers itself a contender in the NBA today, it just won’t do for a great player. We’ll see whether he can honour his recent pledge to improve and offer the Clippers another chance to challenge for the championship.
Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
He’s still with the Blazers for the time being, but I’d expect to see him elsewhere before the season starts (side note: If I were Miami, I’d stop playing games right now and make Portland my final and best offer because the current impasse is inviting some team to come in from nowhere and steal Dame, which would leave the Heat in a precarious position going into the season). Damian Lillard is deserving of both this sizable deal and the even bigger pay increases on his extension that begin at the end of this year (two years for $121,774,039 according to Spotrac).
He should have asked for a trade sooner rather than later, or if he was going to wait until the offseason, he should have done it before the NBA draught this summer. Instead, he waited too long to do so. No, the group entrusted with trading him is in charge of the remaining years of his prime.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Funny how one minor play can alter the way NBA analysts view the whole league. What would have occurred, for instance, if Giannis hadn’t fallen to the ground in Game 1 of the playoff series against the Heat? Milwaukee will most likely win the series and has at least a 50% chance of winning the East, is I correct? If Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez are wearing down Nikola Jokic on both ends of the floor instead of a weak Heat frontline (apart from Bam Adebayo), how different would the Finals be? Giannis could still be referred to be the world’s best player without a doubt. So beware of a Giannis retaliation season in 2023–2024.
Kawhi Leonard, LA Clippers
This season marks the 12th year of The Curious Case of Kawhi Leonard, and I’m still not sure if the character is a rotten apple or a boss. On the one hand, he lacks leadership qualities, doesn’t appear to be loyal to anybody but himself, appears to be wounded constantly, and doesn’t interact with the media, let alone his own squad or head coach. Almost makes Ben Simmons come to mind, minus the annoying Instagram account. On the other side, when he plays, he is like a combination of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen; he is cold-blooded enough to take on Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant in a playoff series and win for his club. In order to determine whether to retain this core together or move on, the Clippers are more than prepared to pay the maximum amount for the latter player and had been hoping for one healthy season.
Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat
There are relatively few NBA players who have helped lacklustre clubs reach the Finals. Jimmy Butler has already accomplished it twice, in 2020 and 2023. He deserves a maximum salary just for that, and I imagine the Heat would be delighted to keep paying him as much as he wants until he hangs up. They should do all they can to either trade for Damian Lillard or another player to lessen the burden on Butler as he enters his 13th season this fall because Butler has figured out how to play on cruise control throughout the regular season and then unleash holy hell in the playoffs each season.
Klay Thompson, Golden State Warriors
Klay Thompson had a respectable 2022–23 season, averaging 21.9 PPG with 44–41–88 shooting splits, despite his lacklustre postseason showing. With a $43 million cap cost, they are the stats of a superstar but not necessarily an excellent role player. Therefore, this contract is perhaps a bit more than Golden State would like to pay Klay for his output, but they are hoping that the continuity with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Steve Kerr would make up for some of Klay’s weaknesses going into his eleventh season as a professional.
Rudy Gobert, Minnesota T’Wolves
On this list, this one is plainly a bit of an albatross. Rudy Gobert is too much of a one-dimensional player to be earning this sort of money on a real contender, despite the fact that he was an all-time great rim-protector earlier in his career and a defensive system unto himself (and is still a very solid defender now). Given what the T’Wolves had to give up in order to get him, a transaction that will go down as one of the worst in NBA history, it stings even more.
Fred VanVleet, Houston Rockets
As an unrestricted free agent who played his first seven seasons in The Six, Fred VanVleet storms his way onto our list after signing a lucrative three-year max deal with the Houston Rockets this offseason. Despite his diminutive size, VanVleet, the lone ex-undrafted player on this list, has so far had an incredibly outstanding career. He will be expected to manage a youthful Rockets team that is full of talent but is likely years away from contending due to the age and maturity of the bulk of its players in addition to serving as the centre of the offence.
Anthony Davis, LA Lakers
Anthony Davis has agreed to a new supermax contract that would pay him around $177 million from 2025 to 2027 and again in 2028 (the last year is a player option). He has already signed a maximum deal for both the current season and the one after. After suffering horribly from injuries the previous two seasons, AD had a very good playoff for a Lakers team that made an unexpected run to the Western Conference Finals. Even while his offensive effectiveness wasn’t quite as strong as it was in the Bubble, his defensive effectiveness was basically the same. If he can stay healthy this year, the team should challenge for the Western Conference title and even the NBA championship.
Zach LaVine, Chicago Bulls
As seen by his accomplishments in the Dunk Contest, Zach LaVine has all-galaxy athleticism and is one of the world’s smoothest, most accurate jump shooters. He is also a stunningly aesthetically pleasing basketball player. Being in the middle of his peak at age 28, this deal essentially represents fair market value for what he brings to the table. Unfortunately for the Bulls, they have not been able to assemble the ideal squad around him for him to be competitive. LaVine and the Bulls will probably compete for the Play-In Tournament once again this year.
Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks
Like Zach LaVine, Trae Young is incredibly skilled and deserving of this kind of money from a production viewpoint. As the franchise player, Young’s problem is that he hasn’t found the correct balance between carrying every move by himself and giving his other excellent teammates regular touches during games to keep them interested and the defence off-balance. Quin Snyder, who took over as the Hawks’ head coach at the close of last season, will definitely be able to help him if he ever manages to find that balance.
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Luka Legend will be at the top of this ranking for the following ten to twelve years. He could even have a chance to become the first NBA player to earn $1 billion in total compensation payments, depending on the wage ceiling and the length of his career. He is currently in his sixth NBA season and is perhaps the league’s most successful player. As such, one would expect him to start stacking MVP trophies and NBA championships at some point during the next years, perhaps even this season.
Tobias Harris, Philadelphia 76ers
Tobias Harris is a living example of a Catch-22. He is both overvalued (in terms of his deal) and underestimated (in terms of how the general public sees him). In comparison to how his club mostly utilises him (as a corner three-point specialist), Harris is a very talented basketball player. Harris is capable of much more, and if James Harden is dealt with, Harris’ usage will rise sharply. Philadelphia pays Harris like a superstar, which is the problem. He is hardly a superstar, not even an All-Star, really. He is an excellent player, and if his deal was for $25–$30 million, nobody would object.
Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
Pascal Siakam has been linked to trade rumours all off-season, so by the time you read this, he may be playing for a new team. He is in the final year of his deal and has said he would prefer to test unrestricted free agency over signing an extension, so it would be intriguing to see what a team is prepared to give up for him in a trade.
Despite only being in his eighth season, Siakam will turn 30 during the current campaign, so even if a team is successful in acquiring and re-signing him, they’ll likely be paying him top dollar for at least a year after his prime (unless, of course, he can improve his offensive game further). Knowing Masai Ujiri and how much he frequently exaggerates the worth of his own players, there’s also a chance the Raptors shock everyone and decide to keep Siakam, much as they did with Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet in previous years, regardless of their performance.
Ben Simmons, Brooklyn Nets
Possibly the largest NBA talent waste in history. He ought to be, at most, a less talented LeBron James in his peak, but instead he’s terrified to play and shoot, but delighted to post phoney Instagrams of himself working out and earning his salary. His deal is the worst in the NBA, and I know the Nets would be glad to get rid of him without having to give up a first-round selection that isn’t protected.
So these are the NBA’s Highest Paid Players for the 2023–24 season. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
