Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Coming soon: The $1 million-per-game NBA superstar

By Sai Mohan | Last updated 5/23/24

By making an All-NBA team, Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic has become eligible for a five-year, $346M supermax extension, the largest contract in NBA history. The final year of that contract – in 2030-31 – will fetch the Mavs star $78.82 million, per ESPN's Bobby Marks.

That would amount to approximately $960,000 per game.

Guess what? Doncic's salary is going to pale in comparison with the contracts star players will sign over the next five years.

After reports surfaced of the NBA agreeing to a $7B+ per season media rights agreement with ESPN/ABC, NBC and Amazon, Sportico's Keith Smith projected the league's salary cap to eclipse $200 million by the 2028-29 season.

As a result, a player who signed a supermax extension in 2028 would make approximately $95 million in the fifth year of a $419 million contract.

That would equate to a player earning a $1.15 million per game salary (not including playoffs).

Some fun numbers!

The NBA getting $7B per year for media rights will likely lock in 10% cap growth (that is the max the cap can go up) per season starting in 2025-26.

If so, the cap will top $200M in the 2028-29 season. A 35% max salary that year projects to be $72M.

The…
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) May 22, 2024

The NBA's salary cap increases by approximately 10% each season, benefiting future star players who earn more from the supermax threshold (35% of the cap). In theory, San Antonio Spurs phenom Victor Wembanayama could log more career earnings due to the fact that he was born a few years after Doncic.

A million a game. Nine-figure salaries. That's where the NBA is headed.

More must-reads: