basketball stream live How Past NBA Player Salaries Compare to the Upcoming Salary Cap Explosion

basketball stream live Believe it or not, today's highest paid NBA player, soon-to-be-retired Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, still doesn't make as much money as his idol Michael Jordan earned during the 1997-98 season. While Jordan earned over $33.1 million leading the Chicago Bulls to their sixth NBA title in seven years, Bryant is earning $25 million this season as his farewell tour around the league comes to a close. For all of the math wizards out there, that's a difference of almost 25 percent in earnings, not counting all sorts of endorsements both players are tied to away from the court of course.

The 25 percent difference looks even more staggering when considering that during the 19-year gap between the biggest annual paychecks of Jordan and Bryant, inflation has driven up the cost of goods in America by over 47 percent. That means Jordan's $33.1 million salary back in 1997 would be worth over $48.6 million today.

To put it into perspective, although next year's salary cap explosion in the NBA will be significant thanks to a new nine-year, $24 billion television deal that's about to see the league receive an influx of cash that's never been seen before, the top players in the league still won't be able to command more than Jordan's inflated 1997 earnings. It won't be until the 2017-18 season, when the salary cap reaches an estimated $108 million that a player will be able to get anywhere close to a $50 million annual salary.

Still, it's not as if any of the league's present-day superstars are going to complain. Many of the league's best are set to become free agents at the end of this season in order to capitalize, including Cleveland's LeBron James, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant and Toronto's DeMar DeRozan among a long list of many others. Each of those players stands to earn significantly more than their current salary, with DeRozan's paycheck likely to see the biggest increase given that he's earning a measly $9.5 million in what could be his final season with the Raptors.

It truly is incredible what's about to happen to the NBA's financial landscape. Especially when considering that in 1965, the game's most dominant player, Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, earned just over $100,000 to play for the team. The man was one of the greatest all-around players of all time and led the Celtics to an astounding 11 NBA championships. In the last 50 years, inflation has increased the cost of living by an estimated 800 percent. It sounds like a lot until Russell's salary gets measured against Kobe Bryant's. Bryant is earning 2,500 percent more today than Russell did 45 years ago.

Of course not all of that has to do with inflation. Changes in technology, broadcasting, marketing and sponsorship over the course of the last half-century have also contributed to increased revenues and opportunities for basketball players and athletes in general to market themselves as individual brands in ways that previous generations could have never imagined. One can only wonder what player salaries will be like 40 or 50 years from now. Only time will tell but at least at the present moment, the NBA's best are ready to cash in a way athletes never have before.

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