LeBron James recently agreed to a 2-year, $97.1 million extension with the Los Angeles Lakers, and he made history in the process. That extension meant that his guaranteed career earnings in the NBA would amount to $532 million once this deal ends in 2025, which makes him the highest earner in league history.
While he has made all this money, the surprising thing about it is that he was never the outright highest-paid player on his team in any of his first 11 seasons in the NBA. James was at no point the highest-paid player on the Cavaliers during his first stint with the team, while he and Chris Bosh were tied as the highest-paid players during their 4 seasons in Miami.
Brian Windhorst, who had been very close with LeBron over the years, recently recounted a conversation with James about his salary during his time with the Heat. Windhorst pointed out to LeBron that he had never been the outright highest-paid player on any of his teams, which led to James ranting about the situation.
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“I brought up to him that he had never actually been the highest-paid player on his team, he was tied as the highest-paid player with Chris Bosh, but he wasn’t the highest-paid player. His head snapped around, and he goes ‘that’s an untold story’ and he kind of went off on a rant about being underpaid, which he was, he was underpaid.”
It’s not surprising then that LeBron reportedly rejected an offer from the Heat in 2014, which was below the max, and headed over to Cleveland. He would finally become the highest-paid player on the team with the Cavaliers and in the 2016-17 season, became the highest-paid player in the league for the first time.
James has received some criticism for not taking less money to help out the Lakers, but he is done taking discounts at this point. He did that for a while, but those days are now over.
