More Than Two Dozen Join $10MM-Plus Club

The NBA’s salary cap hit a record $70MM this season, and with it, 28 players are making eight-figure salaries this season after pulling in less than $10MM in 2014/15, including 26 who’ve never eclipsed the $10MM mark before. Two-thirds of the teams in the league have at least one player who’s new to the $10MM club.

Only six of those 28 changed teams in the offseason. Some of that is because a few of the players simply crossed the $10MM mark because of raises built into their existing contracts, but it nonetheless illustrates the advantages that teams have to retain their own players with new deals. Bird rights, extensions, and even a renegotiation, for Wilson Chandler, came into play.

The volume of players crossing the $10MM threshold only stands to increase next season, when the salary cap is projected to shoot up to $89MM. In the meantime, here’s a list of each player making an eight figure salary this season who didn’t last year, categorized by team with the salaries rounded to the nearest $1K:

Bucks

Bulls

Cavaliers

Celtics

Clippers

  • None

Grizzlies

  • None

Hawks

Heat

Hornets

Jazz

  • None

Kings

  • None

Knicks

  • Robin Lopez — $12.65MM (last season $6.125MM on Trail Blazers)

Lakers

  • None

Magic

Mavericks

Nets

Nuggets

Pacers

  • *Monta Ellis — $10.3MM (last season $8.36MM on Mavericks)

Pelicans

Pistons

Raptors

Rockets

  • None

Sixers

  • None

Spurs

Suns

Thunder

Timberwolves

Trail Blazers

  • None

Warriors

Wizards

  • None

— Players marked with an asterisk made less than $10MM last season, but have cleared $10MM in previous seasons.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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