Many of the NBA’s highest-paid players are on contracts considered maximum-salary deals, but the 2024/25 salaries for those players vary significantly depending on when the player signed his contract and how much NBA experience he has. That’s why a player like Stephen Curry will earn nearly $22MM more than Deandre Ayton in ’24/25 despite both players technically being on max deals.
When a player signs a maximum-salary contract, he doesn’t necessarily earn the NBA max for each season of that contract — he earns the max in year one, then gets a series of identical annual raises. In Curry’s case, his 2024/25 salary actually exceeds this year’s maximum, since the annual cap increases since he began earning the max haven’t kept pace with his annual 8% raises.
Listed below, with some help from Spotrac‘s salary data, are the top 50 highest-paid NBA players for the 2024/25 season. The players on this list don’t necessarily have the contracts with the largest overall value. This top 50 only considers the current league year, with the player’s ’24/25 base salary listed.
Additionally, we’ve noted players who could potentially increase their earnings via incentives or trade bonuses. We didn’t add those notes for players like Curry or Jaylen Brown, who have trade bonuses but are already earning the maximum — their salaries for this season can’t increase beyond their max.
Here are the NBA’s 50 highest-paid players for the 2024/25 season:
The cutoff point for this year’s top-50 list very nearly reached $30MM for the first time in NBA history. And it’s actually possible that cutoff will exceed $30MM by the time the season concludes.
A handful of players who just missed the top 50 have the ability to earn more than Grant’s $29.8MM base salary if they achieve certain performance incentives during the coming season.
Here are the players who could break into the top 50 by season’s end:
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