The highest-paid players for the 2023-24 NBA season
NBA salaries are skyrocketing in a way we’ve never seen before (except for the cap spike of the summer of 2016). We’re seeing players making upwards of $50 million per season this year, and those numbers are only getting higher. By the end of this decade, or at least, in the next 10 years, we will likely see a player sign a contract that will pay him $1 million per game ($82 million per season). With that introduction, here’s a list of the highest-paid players in the NBA for the 2023-24 season and an outlook for the upcoming season.
Note: This is the total cash salary for the 2023-24 season only (per Spotrac), not the average salary per season over the length of the contract.
2023-24 Salary: $51,915,615 (1)
Is Steph Curry the best player in the NBA? Not quite, but he’s in the top five and the biggest matchup nightmare in the league (maybe ever). He deserves to be the league’s highest-paid player because he’s still dominant and still the face of the NBA (along with a certain 38-year-old below). At 35, Curry shows no signs of slowing down and should age wonderfully into his late-30s due to his generational shooting ability.
LeBron James, LA Lakers
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2023-24 Salary: $47,607,350 (T-2)
The NBA’s all-time leading scorer and face of the league for the past two decades is worth more than any team could ever pay him in terms of value added to the league and the Lakers. That said, even though he’s about to embark on his 21st season, he’s still a great enough player to justify the second-highest salary in the league this season after averaging 28.9 PPG, 8.3 RPG and 6.8 APG last season. Though his production tailed off a bit in the playoffs, he was clearly hampered by a foot injury and proved he still can reach way back to put on all-time performances like 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.
Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
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2023-24 Salary: $47,607,350 (T-2)
The NBA’s reigning MVP enters this coming season as its second-highest paid player. Joel Embiid has led the NBA in scoring each of the past two seasons, including a career-high 33.1 PPG last season. Now that he finally has an MVP award under his belt, he’ll (hopefully) be more focused on making sure he’s fully healthy and playing his absolute best heading into the postseason this season.
Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
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2023-24 Salary: $47,607,350 (T-2)
After a dominating championship run, Nikola Jokic is pretty clearly the NBA’s best player, and he’s paid as such. Jokic will begin the 2023-24 season as the league’s alpha dog, the mountaintop any challenger in the West must summit in order to have a chance to win the title. Though the Nuggets lost a couple of key contributors in Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, they return the majority of their rotation and have players either in their prime — like Jokic and Aaron Gordon — or still on the rise, like Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.
Bradley Beal, Phoenix Suns
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2023-24 Salary: $46,741,590 (5)
Well, this one doesn’t quite add up. Here we have Bradley Beal — barely a top-50 NBA player — getting paid the fifth-most in the entire league. Doesn’t make a lot of sense from a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, but the Phoenix Suns, who are about as “all-in” as a team could ever be, clearly don’t care. They’ll have Beal there with Deandre Ayton to supplement an elite duo of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant and will hope like heck that the basketball gods bless them with health and good fortune all regular season and playoffs.
Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns
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2023-24 Salary: $46,407,433 (6)
Kevin Durant is the poster child for never giving up on a great athlete after an Achilles tear. I’m not sure an athlete has ever returned to form so quickly after the most brutal soft tissue injury in all of sports as KD has. If you catch him on a night that he’s playing, he’ll drop the most effortless 30 points you’ll ever see — it’s breathtaking and makes his max salary totally worth it. Unfortunately, ever since the Achilles tear, he’s had trouble staying healthy for long stretches of time, and has shown some signs of wear and tear in the playoffs. In fact, in the four seasons since returning from injury, he’s only played 137 of a possible 246 regular-season games — an average of about 46 games per season. The Suns will need the soon-to-be 35-year-old to buck that trend this season in order to stay in contention in the West.
Paul George, LA Clippers
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2023-24 Salary: $45,640,165 (7)
Speaking of breathtaking players who are too often injured, Paul George is about as smooth a player as they come and always has his team in the mix….when he’s healthy. Unfortunately, PG13, in his tenure with the Clippers, has only played 189 of a possible 318 regular season games — missing more than 40 percent of his team’s games. That’s just not going to cut it for a superstar player in today’s NBA if his team fancies itself a contender. He recently promised to be better next season, so we’ll see whether he’s able to keep his word and give the Clippers another shot at contending for a title.
Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
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2023-24 Salary: $45,640,084 (T-8)
He’s still on the Blazers for now, but I’d anticipate seeing him elsewhere before the season begins (an aside: I’d quit messing around and just my final and best offer to Portland now if I were Miami… this current stalemate is inviting some team to swoop-in out of nowhere and steal Dame, which would leave the Heat in pretty rough shape heading into the season). Damian Lillard is worthy of this massive contract, as well as the even more massive salary hikes on his extension that kicks in after this year (two years for $121,774,039 per Spotrac). However, he waited too long to ask for a trade — he should have requested it a year or two ago, or, if he was going to wait until this offseason, he should have requested it before the NBA draft this summer. No, the remainder of his prime is in the hands of the team tasked with trading him.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
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2023-24 Salary: $45,640,084 (T-8)
It’s funny how one little play can change NBA pundits’ perception of everything. For instance, what would have happened this past postseason if Giannis hadn’t landed on his back in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Heat? Milwaukee probably wins that series and has at least a 50/50 chance of winning the East, right? How much different do the Finals turn out if Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez are wearing down Nikola Jokic on both ends of the court instead of a limited Heat frontline (besides Bam Adebayo)? We could very easily still be referring to Giannis as the unanimous best player on the planet. Which is to say, watch out for a Giannis revenge season in 2023-24.
Kawhi Leonard, LA Clippers
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2023-24 Salary: $45,640,084 (T-8)
The Curious Case of Kawhi Leonard enters year 12 this season and I still can’t decide whether this guy is a boss or a bad apple. On one hand, he’s not a leader, he doesn’t seem to have any loyalties to anyone but himself, he’s seemingly always injured, and he doesn’t communicate with the media or even his own team or head coach for that matter. Almost reminds you of Ben Simmons without the obnoxious Instagram account. On the other hand, when he plays, he’s like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen combined — cold-blooded enough to stare down anyone from LeBron James to Kevin Durant to Steph Curry in a playoff series and lead his team to victory. The Clippers are more than willing to pay max money for the latter and have been hoping for one healthy season before they must decide whether to keep this core together or move on.
Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat
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2023-24 Salary: $45,183,960 (11)
The list of NBA players who dragged underwhelming teams to Finals appearances is a very short one… Jimmy Butler has done it twice now in 2020 and 2023. For that reason alone, he’s deserving of a max salary and I’m guessing the Heat are more than happy to keep paying him whatever he wants until he hangs ’em up. Because Butler has figured out how to play on cruise control during the regular season and then unleash holy hell in the playoffs each season, they should do whatever they can to either deal for Damian Lillard or another player to soften the load on Butler as he enters his 13th season this fall.
Klay Thompson, Golden State Warriors
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2023-24 Salary: $43,219,440 (12)
Though his playoff performance left something to be desired, Klay Thompson had a fairly stellar 2022-23 season, averaging 21.9 PPG with 44-41-88 shooting splits. Those are the numbers of an elite role player, but not necessarily a superstar with a $43 million cap hit. Thus, this deal is probably a little more than Golden State would like to be paying Klay for his production, but they’ll hope that the continuity with Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Steve Kerr will make up for some of Klay’s shortcomings heading into his 11th season as a pro.
Rudy Gobert, Minnesota T’Wolves
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2023-24 Salary: $41,000,000 (13)
This one is obviously a bit of an albatross on this list. Though he was an all-time great rim-protector earlier in his career, a defensive system unto himself (and still a pretty great defender today), Rudy Gobert is too much of a one-way player to be making this kind of coin on a serious contender. It hurts even more considering what the T’Wolves had to trade to acquire him — a trade that will go down as one of the worst in NBA history.
Fred VanVleet, Houston Rockets
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2023-24 Salary: $40,806,300 (14)
Fred VanVleet barges his way onto this list after landing a huge bag from the Houston Rockets this offseason — a three-year max deal for the unrestricted free agent who spent his first seven seasons in The Six. VanVleet is the only former undrafted player on this list and has put together an ultra-impressive career thus far despite his short stature. In addition to being a focal point for the Rockets offense, he’ll be tasked with being a leader for a young Rockets team that is loaded with talent, but is probably years away from contending due to the age and maturity of the majority of its players.
Anthony Davis, LA Lakers
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2023-24 Salary: $40,600,080 (15)
In addition to being locked in for a max contract this season and next, Anthony Davis just signed another supermax extension which will pay him approximately $177 million from 2025-26 to 2027-28 (the final year is a player option). After struggling mightily with injuries the past two seasons, AD had a very good playoffs — not nearly as great offensively as he was in the Bubble, but basically just as good on the defensive end — for a Lakers team that made a surprise run to the Western Conference Finals. If he can remain healthy this season, the team should be in the mix for the Western Conference crown and maybe even the NBA crown.
Zach LaVine, Chicago Bulls
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2023-24 Salary: $40,064,220 (T-16)
Zach LaVine is a wonderfully aesthetic basketball player — he’s one of the smoothest, most efficient jump shooters in the world and he has all-galaxy athleticism as seen by his Dunk Contest performances. At 28, he’s also in the middle of his prime, so this contract is effectively fair-market value for what he brings to the table. Unfortunately for the Bulls, they’d have to build the perfect team around him in order for him to contend, which they have failed to do. This year will likely be yet another year of competing for the Play-In Tournament for LaVine and the Bulls.
Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks
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2023-24 Salary: $40,064,220 (T-16)
Like Zach LaVine, Trae Young is uber-talented and, from a production standpoint, is worthy of this type of money. Young’s issue is, as the franchise player, he hasn’t figured out the right balance between running every play through himself and getting his other talented teammates consistent touches throughout games to keep them fully engaged and to keep the defense off-balance. If he is ever going to figure out that balance, it’ll probably come under the tutelage of Quin Snyder, who became the Hawks head coach towards the end of last season.
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
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2023-24 Salary: $40,064,220 (T-16)
Luka Legend is going to be at the top of this list for the next 10-12 years, and could even flirt with becoming the NBA’s first player to reach $1 billion in total NBA career salary earnings by the end of his career (depending on the salary cap and the length of his career). He’s arguably more accomplished than any player ever who is entering his sixth NBA season, and one would expect him to begin to stack some MVP trophies and NBA championships at some point in the next handful of years… maybe even this season.
Tobias Harris, Philadelphia 76ers
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2023-24 Salary: $39,270,150 (19)
Tobias Harris is a walking Catch-22. He’s simultaneously underrated (in terms of the way the public views him) and overrated (in terms of his contract). Harris is a very good basketball player, especially when compared to how his team uses him (which is basically as a corner three-point specialist). Harris can do so much more and, if James Harden is traded, you can expect Harris’ usage to increase dramatically. The problem with Harris is that Philadelphia pays him like a superstar. He’s not a superstar; he’s actually not even an All-Star. He’s a very good player, and if his contract was $25-$30 million no one would bat an eyelash.
Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
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2023-24 Salary: $37,893,408 (T-20)
By the time you read this, there’s a chance Pascal Siakam is on a different team as his name has been floated in trade rumors all offseason. If he is traded, it’ll be interesting to see what a team is willing to give up for him because he’s in the last year of his contract and has indicated that he would like to test unrestricted free agency rather than sign an extension. Another factor to keep in mind: Siakam, despite this being only his eighth season, will turn 30 during the season, so even if a team is able to acquire and re-sign him, they’ll probably be paying him max money for at least a year after his prime (unless, of course, he can add more to his game on the offensive end of the floor). Knowing Masai Ujiri, and how much he tends to overvalue his own players, there’s also a chance the Raptors surprise everyone and hold onto Siakam regardless of their record like they did with Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet in recent years.
Ben Simmons, Brooklyn Nets
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2023-24 Salary: $37,893,408 (T-20)
Arguably the biggest waste of talent in NBA history. He should, at worst, be a poor-man’s prime-LeBron James, but instead he’s afraid to shoot, afraid to play, but happy to post photoshopped Instagram posts of him working out and collect his paycheck. His contract is the worst in the league and I’m sure the Nets would be thrilled if they could unload to another team without having to give up an unprotected first-round pick.
