Tim Hardaway reveals older players would give up their rings for the players' contracts today: 'It frustrates them'

Steph Curry, the Golden State Warriors' star point guard, will earn an impressive $55.8 million as the NBA's highest-paid player for the 2024–25 season.

This staggering figure reflects the continued growth of the NBA salary cap, which now stands at over $140.5 million—a 3.36 percent increase from the previous year, and it will continue to increase as the years go by. While today's contracts might seem surreal, they represent decades of change, beginning with the efforts of earlier players who fought for better financial compensation.

The feeling of the old players

Player salaries in the early days of professional basketball paled compared to today's figures. Legends like Oscar Robertson paved the way by advocating higher salaries for players in the '70s.

By the 1990s, stars like Michael Jordan started to reap the rewards of their efforts. He earned $33.1 million during the 1997–98 season—a record-breaking sum at the time but still far below the current supermax contracts. For some older iconic players, playing in this era is a luxury.

"I talked to a lot of former players when I was playing; they were like, 'I would give up my rings to make the money," said former NBA star Tim Hardaway. "That's when we were making the money we were making, like $4 or $5 million a year. But just think, they set the stage for us: Magic [Johnson], Bob Cousy, Rick Barry, those guys set the stage for us…"

"So when I hear them talking, it frustrates them, but they got to understand that era was that era, and what David Stern did was turn everything around and make it global, and when it went global, everything is everything now," he continued.