ESPN: Former NBA champion mocked knicks’s star after he signed a three-year, $87 million contract.
Isaiah Hartenstein’s gigantic new three-year, $87 million contract with the Thunder was challenged by former NBA champion David West. West posted a picture of Hartenstein’s new contract announcement on Instagram, highlighting a smaller representation of his statistics and implying that he wasn’t deserving of the money.
“What a time to be an NBA Player!”
Given that Hartenstein only averaged 7.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 2.5 assists in his final season with the Knicks, David West finds it incomprehensible that Hartenstein is receiving nearly $29 million annually on his current contract. It goes without saying that Hartenstein works extremely hard off the court and that this contributed significantly to his signing his deal.
David West was a 15-year NBA player who was selected to the All-Star team twice. He had excellent career averages. During his peak season, he averaged 21.0 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 2.3 assists while playing for the Pelicans.
Even in his latter seasons as a member of the Golden State Warriors, he took home two NBA championships. At no point in his career did West receive a contract as large as West, even after taking inflation into consideration.
The biggest deal West has ever inked was a $37 million, four-year deal with the New Orleans Hornets in 2007. Even as an All-Star, West’s deal was $53,785,707 after accounting for inflation, which is still significantly less than Hartenstein’s salary.
Even when we take into account his time spent with the Indiana Pacers, where he signed two separate contracts worth $20 million and $36 million (opting out after year two), he still made a lot less money after accounting for inflation, taking home only $27 million and $31 million from each deal, respectively.
After taking inflation into consideration, West’s career NBA earnings came to $127,532,703, which is just $40 million more than Hartenstein will make in his three years at OKC. While West can come out as slightly sour, he is fair in questioning the huge amount of recent NBA contracts.
NBA Contracts Are Anticipated To Increase In Salary
Jayson Tatum inked a five-year, $315 million deal extension with the Celtics earlier this week, making it the most expensive NBA contract ever. His colleague Jaylen Brown had the highest NBA deal up until that moment, but he dethroned him in 2023 by agreeing to a five-year, $286 million agreement.
After taxes, Tatum shouldn’t be expected to receive more than $25.2 million every season. He is still the NBA’s highest-paid player, though. These enormous salaries are expected given the league’s rising popularity and worth.
In reality, these contracts are projected to get quite expensive, as the NBA recently inked a $7 billion media rights deal with Disney, NBC Universal, and Amazon Prime. Thanks to these new TV rights deals, Supermax players may make up to $95 million year with the anticipated rises in the NBA wage caps.
NBA franchises are currently in a financially sound position. However, spending money is no longer the simple path to success as it once was, according to the new wage cap regulations. To make sure they have flexibility to adjust their squad, teams need to strike a balance between their cap and their individual aprons.
