Hoops Rumors took the time to run down all of the salary cap hits for the 2014/15 and 2015/16 campaigns for each of the five positions on the hardwood. All told, NBA teams are on the hook for a total of $2,026,765,359 in cap hits this season, not counting 10-day contract amounts. This works out to an average salary of $4,575,091 for the players around the league this season. For the 2015/16 season, teams have already committed to $1,664,932,831 in cap hits, for an average player salary of $5,801,160. However, it should be noted that the list and rankings for next season will change greatly depending on how the free agent market develops this summer. These figures prove without a doubt that being a professional basketball player is great work to have if you can earn a roster spot.
I also should add that teams won’t necessarily pay out every dollar listed here. There are quite a few players who have non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts. Some of those players will be sweating it out until the January 2016 contract guarantee deadline. That’s when teams must waive players with no specific guarantee date written into their contracts to avoid having to guarantee their salaries for the rest of that season.
Most salaries align with cap hits, but that’s not the case for players like Jeremy Lin, who’s receiving close to $15MM from the Lakers during the 2014/15 season even though his cap hit is little more than half that amount, because of the deal he signed through the Gilbert Arenas Provision. In addition, incentive clauses that a player either triggers or fails to meet can leave a player with more or less money than his cap hit reflects. Still, the purpose of this list is to show the relative pay scale by position, which is why all contracts are included in this post.
Here are the links to each season’s rankings separated by position:
Note: Players were classified by their positions listed on the official rosters for each team.
2014/15 Season
2015/16 Season
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of these posts.