Western Conference Salary Rankings: Small Forwards

Hoops Rumors is in the process of ranking the salaries, separated by conference, for each NBA player by position. We’ve already looked at the point guards, shooting guards, power forwards and centers of the Western Conference and will now turn our attention toward the conference’s small forwards.

All told, the teams out west have committed a total of $346,116,172 in cap hits this season to the men who man the three spot. The average conference salary for small forwards this season is currently $6,180,646, with Kevin Durant topping the list with a more than respectable $26,540,100 to account for on his year-end W-2 form.

It should be noted 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 won’t make it out of the preseason, while others will be sweating it out until January 10th. 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 the season. 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.

I should also add that not every player listed below will play small forward this season, as some will likely see some time at shooting guard or power forward. To maintain uniformity, I used their positions listed on the teams’ official rosters to determine which list to include them on. So if you see a player who isn’t expected to play small forward for his team this season listed below, that’s why.