The riches from the NBA: LeBron James rules them all, NHL stars are poor relations to him

The most money in the NBA so far has been made by its top scorer, LeBron James. He has already hit the half-billion-dollar mark for his career, which is unreal. Compared to him, the NHL’s biggest stars are truly poor relations.

Currently, the salaries of the biggest stars are in the tens of millions of dollars per season. Annual salaries between 40-55 million per season are no exception. This is something unreal, considering, for example, the 1998/99 season, when Kevin Garnett’s megalomaniacal contract, which guaranteed him an annual contract of $20 million, practically caused a lockout.

If we look at the highest paid players in the NHL, for example, the league’s biggest stars are paid around 13-16 million dollars, which is a really marked difference from, for example, the highest paid NBA player this season, who has a salary of over $51 million for a single season.

LeBron James rules them all

Yes. It’s true. The “King” and the best scorer in the long history of the NBA has made almost half a billion dollars in his 21 seasons in the NBA! Specifically, it’s exactly $479,466,457. And if he decides to continue this upcoming season, he will cross the half-billion mark.

LeBron has split his NBA salary between 4 teams. Even as a rookie, he made $4 million in his first few seasons. It wasn’t until his fifth professional season that he crossed the $10 million per season mark. And since 2014, his salary has already increased rapidly from season to season, three years later he already crossed the $30 million per season mark.

In just his last three seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, he’s made a whopping $132 million. Compare that to, for example, Czech legend Jaromir Jagr, who at the time was the highest paid hockey player in the NHL, making $11 million per season. He would have reached that amount in about 12 years.

James and earnings in Cleveland, Miami and the Lakers

LeBron James split his 21 seasons between 3 teams. Specifically, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Miami Heats and the Los Angeles Lakers. By the way, he led all these three teams to win the championship title, while also being the MVP of the playoffs every time.

He spent the longest part of his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers, here and with a return to this club, as he bounced to Miami for 4 seasons for 2 titles. The player spent 11 seasons there and earned nearly $170 million. He only spent 4 seasons with the aforementioned Miami Heats, yet his bank account grew by another $64 million.

And now, in his sixth season with one of the most successful teams in the history of the league, the Los Angeles Lakers, he’s made another $245.5 million. Just with the Lakers and Cleveland engagements, it is very noticeable how the salaries in the NBA went up.

This season, with a salary in excess of $47 million, he is only the third highest paid player in the league. Ahead of him is Kevin Durant with almost the same salary for this season and the highest paid basketball player this season is the best three-point shooter in NBA history , Stephen Curry, who crossed the aforementioned 50 million mark.

And how about the legend Michael Jordan?

Michael Jordan, with whom James is often compared, has earned just under $94 million in 16 seasons in the NBA, and he has always been one of the highest paid players in the NBA. In Chicago franchise history alone, that’s not even good enough for 20th place.

If the NBA continues in this way, we can expect another untenable situation in the near future, which may again culminate in a lockout, as even a very mediocre basketball player can actually reach the USD 10 million mark in the NBA. In the NHL, by contrast, the league’s biggest stars have to work hard to negotiate such a fee with the club. In the NBA, this figure is rather commonplace…

Source: NBA, Spotrac