The Insane Contracts Luka, Giannis & Other Stars Will Get By 2030

The NBA’s salary cap has doubled over the past decade and there’s no end in sight for the league’s explosive financial growth. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the NBA will be signing a massive new media rights deal in 2025, with some projections pegging its value at double the existing 2.6 billion per year agreement.

For the upcoming season, the salary cap will jump to $136 million, a 10 per cent increase from the previous year.

The new collective bargaining agreement ensures the salary cap can increase by no more than 10 percent each season, but what happens if the cap keeps growing at 10 percent every year until the CBA ends in 2029-30? Well, everyone gets rich as f*ck, that’s what happens.

For example, if Giannis Antetokounmpo turned down his player option ahead of the 2025-26 season, here’s what a new supermax contract would look like for him:

POTENTIAL CONTRACT – GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO

Year 1: $57.6 million
Year 2: $62.2 million
Year 3: $67.2 million
Year 4: $72.6 million
Year 5: $78.4 million
TOTAL: $337.9 million

If Luka Doncic turned down his player option ahead of the 2026-27 season, this would be his next supermax deal:

POTENTIAL CONTRACT – LUKA DONCIC

Year 1: $63.4 million
Year 2: $68.4 million
Year 3: $73.9 million
Year 4: $79.8 million
Year 5: $86.2 million
TOTAL: $371.8 million

But the biggest deals in the foreseeable future will be the ones signed by star players ahead of the 2029-30 season, the final year of the current CBA. Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton and LaMelo Ball will be among the best players hitting free agency that year, and here’s how their deals would look if they signed on for the supermax:

POTENTIAL CONTRACTS – ANTHONY EDWARDS, TYRESE HALIBURTON AND LAMELO BALL

Year 1: $84.3 million
Year 2: $91.1 million
Year 3: $98.4 million
Year 4: $106.2 million
Year 5: $114.7 million
TOTAL: $494.8 million

This would top the largest contract signed by a U.S. athlete, which is currently Patrick Mahomes’ $477 million deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.

So, not only could Edwards, Haliburton and Ball each earn more than Mahomes, they could do it in half the time. It’s important to note that these numbers are based on the NBA salary cap’s maximum possible growth between now and the end of the current CBA.

But even if the actual growth is only half that, a whole bunch of players are about to get paid a sickening amount of money.