Back in April, Yahoo Sports reported that the NBA and the NBA Players Association had agreed on a 25 percent pay cut due to the cancellations of games during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the same publication is reporting that the pay cuts went into effect on May 15, though with a twist: some of the league’s stars will not be paying back parts of their salaries until next season, because they have already been paid in full for the 2019-2020 campaign.
Due to a quirk regarding how some players get paid for their services, some of the league’s best players have already received their full salaries. Those stars include LeBron James, Stephen Curry, John Wall, Blake Griffin, and the injured Kevin Durant.
That doesn’t mean that those players are exempt from the pay cuts however; they will have to pay back the equivalent 25 percent from their paychecks during the 2020-2021 season, whenever that officially begins. For Curry, that means he’s paying back $420,000 per paycheck, while James will be reimbursing $370,000 each pay period next season.
The Yahoo Sports report also states that the pay cut percentage could increase if there is a cancellation of the remainder of the 2019-2020 season; that percentage could go as high as 40 percent. If the season is cancelled, players would lose close to, if not over, $1 billion in salary.
The final point is that the teams would reimburse players if the season is resumed with all the remaining games played. There’s no clarity on whether that would happen, but there likely won’t be a decision made on the matter until mid-June, at the earliest.
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