Highest-Paid NBA Players by Salary

Stephen Curry has been the NBA’s highest-paid player through the mid-2020s, on a reported salary of about $55.8 million for the 2024-25 season. That is a playing salary, the number on his contract, not his total income or his net worth. On endorsements he earns more still, but on the payroll line he has sat at or near the top for several years running.

Below him is a tight cluster of supermax stars, all paid within a few million dollars of each other. This is a salary ranking, so it looks different from the endorsement-driven rich lists, where Curry and LeBron James pull further ahead. Here is the table, how the supermax pushes these figures so high, and why the numbers keep climbing every season.

Highest-paid NBA players by reported salary

The table shows reported base salaries for the 2024-25 season. Figures are approximate and rise each year as the salary cap grows.

Rank	Player	Team	Reported salary (2024-25)
1	Stephen Curry	Golden State Warriors	~$55.8 million
2	Joel Embiid	Philadelphia 76ers	~$51.4 million
3	Nikola Jokic	Denver Nuggets	~$51.4 million
4	Kevin Durant	Phoenix Suns	~$51.2 million
5	Bradley Beal	Phoenix Suns	~$50.2 million
6	Paul George	Philadelphia 76ers	~$49.2 million
7	Devin Booker	Phoenix Suns	~$49.2 million
8	LeBron James	Los Angeles Lakers	~$48.7 million

The names cluster because they are all on the same tier of contract. Once a player qualifies for the supermax, the deal is worth a fixed share of the cap, so the top of the list bunches within a few million dollars rather than spreading out.

Why the supermax bunches the top salaries

The reason five or six players sit so close together is the Designated Veteran Extension, better known as the supermax. It lets a team pay a qualifying star up to 35 percent of the salary cap, a number no rival team is allowed to match. To qualify, a player generally needs an All-NBA selection, an MVP or a Defensive Player of the Year award in the right window.

That single rule is why the salary chart looks the way it does. Everyone at the top is drawing roughly the same percentage of the same cap, so their dollar figures land within touching distance. The small gaps come from years of service and the exact season each deal was signed, not from wildly different pay scales.

Salary is not net worth or total earnings

This ranking counts one thing: the money a team pays a player to play. It leaves out shoe deals, appearance fees and business income, which is where the real fortunes are made. Curry’s on-court salary tops this list, but his off-court income from Under Armour and other ventures is larger still, and the same is true for LeBron James.

That gap is the whole reason we keep the lists separate. For what these players are worth once you add up everything they own, our ranking of the richest NBA players tells a different story, with retired stars and business owners climbing above active salary leaders. Salary measures your paycheck today; net worth measures what you built and kept.

Coaches are a separate pay ladder

Players are not the only ones on eight-figure NBA deals. The top head coaches now earn salaries that would have looked like star-player money a generation ago, though they still sit below the supermax tier. If you want the other side of the payroll, our page on the highest-paid NBA coaches breaks down who leads the sideline pay chart and why elite coaching became so expensive.

Want to test how well you actually know the league’s stars? Try our Guess the NFL Player game for a daily sports guessing challenge, then come back for the money rankings.

The numbers only go up from here

Every salary here is a moving target. Player pay is pegged to a share of league revenue, so when the NBA’s new media deal kicks in and the cap jumps, the maximum salary jumps with it. Projected caps for the late 2020s point toward top salaries near or above $60 million a year, which will reshuffle this table without changing the logic behind it.

The short version: Stephen Curry has been the NBA’s highest-paid player of the mid-2020s at a reported $55.8 million, ahead of a supermax cluster of Embiid, Jokic, Durant and Beal. These are salaries, not fortunes, and every figure rises as the cap does.