2015/16 Salary Rankings: Centers

Hoops Rumors is in the process of ranking the cap hit for each NBA player by position. I previously ran down the point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center salaries for the 2014/15 season. I’ve also begun looking ahead to the 2015/16 campaign with a rundown of the cap hits for the point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards. Next on the agenda will be a look ahead at the salaries for centers already inked to deals for next season.

All told, NBA teams have committed a total of $297,475,359 in cap hits so far for next season to the men manning the block around the league. The average hit for the five spot so far for 2015/16 is an extremely robust $6,329,263 with Dwight Howard of the Rockets topping the list. Howard is due to take home an impressive $22,359,364 next season. It should be noted that the list and rankings will change greatly depending on how the free agent market develops next summer.

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 2015 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 was little more than half that amount, because of the contract 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.