After the LA Lakers’ Championship Victory, LeBron James Remains the Highest-earning Player
On Sunday, October 11th, 2020, the Los Angles Lakers won the NBA championship against the Miami Heat, with a score of 106–93. This victory marks the Lakers’ fourth championship win, which also made LeBron James a 4-time NBA champion.
LeBron James is one of the most famous basketball players of all-time. He is, of course, very famous because he plays extraordinarily well. And because he plays well, he has been (and remains) the highest-earning player on his team.
The pie chart above lists the Los Angeles Lakers’ player salaries (in USD) for the 2020–2021 season. In the ‘other’ section of the graph, the salaries of the five lowest-earning players on the team are added together to form $13 million.
In the 2020–2021 NBA season, LeBron James’ salary was $39,219,565, which is significantly higher than his teammates’ salaries. To put that into perspective, LeBron James’ salary is roughly 32% of the reported sum of the team’s salaries, which is at $119,476,054.
In addition, the lowest-earning player on the team, Talen Horton-Tucker, earned a salary of $1,517,981 during that season. This means that LeBron James’ salary was about 26-times higher than Horton-Tucker’s salary.
Because LeBron James’ salary is so high, this must mean that he gets paid based on his performance, right? Well, let’s look at James’ statistics. Also, I will include statistics from JaVale McGee, who had the average salary out of every player during the 2020–2021 season; thus, we can say that McGee is the average player on his team based on his salary.
I am comparing James’ statistics to McGees’ because it would be insightful to see how James performs compared to the average player on his team.
Based on the graphic above, James outperformed McGee in all but one category. What's notable is that James’ average points per game score is significantly higher than McGee’s; however, McGee’s average field goal percentage is surprisingly a bit higher than Jame’s average.
Thus, based on James’ and McGee's statistics, we can come to the conclusion that LeBron James’ performance on the court is somewhat reflective of his sizable salary.