After acquiring Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, and Antawn Jamison throughout the off-season, the Los Angeles Lakers have a $97,740,731 payroll. This is an absolutely outrageous number. The only team that is even close to this sum is the Miami Heat, and they still spend $15,000,000 less.

Kobe Bryant is the highest paid player in the NBA and is set to make $27,849,000 this year. After this season, Bryant will be going into his last year remaining on his contract in which he is getting paid over $30,000,000!

After finalizing the four team trade today, the Lakers will pay Dwight Howard $19,261,200 for just one season. After that, Dwight will be free to test the market if he chooses to. However, Los Angeles seems confident that Howard will re-sign with the team after being in a championship environment. So between Bryant and Howard, the Lakers are spending just about $47,000,000.

After several trade rumors surfacing these past few years, Pau Gasol has somehow managed to remain in Los Angeles. He is going into his second to last year on his contract and is slated to make exactly $19,000,000. This means that the Lakers pay $66,000,000 for their top three players! That is more than many entire teams including the Charlotte Bobcats and Toronto Raptors. And that is more money than the big three in Miami will make this year.

In a surprise move, the Lakers were able to acquire Steve Nash in a sign and trade deal with the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers will pay him $8,900,000. Nash is a key component to a championship roster and arguably one of the greatest point guards of all time. He may be aging, but this guy can still ball and is definitely worth the cash.

Rounding out the starting five is most likely going to be Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) who will make $7,258,960. This means that Los Angeles is spending about $82,000,000 on their starting five. That is just about the entire pay roll for the Miami Heat! But the Lakers need a bench, don’t they?

Back-up point guard Steve Blake will make $4,000,000 this upcoming year and fellow point guard Chris Duhon who was just acquired in the blockbuster deal will get paid $3,680,000. They also owe Jordan Hill 3.5 million dollars. And the Lakers managed to sign Antawn Jamison for just the veteran’s minimum, which is a great deal for Los Angeles. They needed a good 6^th man and luckily Jamison was willing to sign for the minimum to play with a contender.

With a couple other reserves on the team, this brings the Lakers payroll to over 97 million dollars. With the talent that the Lakers have, and the amount of money they are spending, they will be a serious contender for a championship.

I believe that the Lakers have emerged as the best team in the entire NBA. The Thunder and Heat may have something to say about that, but the Lakers are poised to win another ring. For the Lakers, it is championship or bust and with an aging roster, they are built to win NOW!

But if the Lakers come up short, they will PAY the consequences…

After acquiring Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, and Antawn Jamison throughout the off-season, the Los Angeles Lakers have a $97,740,731 payroll. This is an absolutely outrageous number. The only team that is even close to this sum is the Miami Heat, and they still spend $15,000,000 less.

Kobe Bryant is the highest paid player in the NBA and is set to make $27,849,000 this year. After this season, Bryant will be going into his last year remaining on his contract in which he is getting paid over $30,000,000!

After finalizing the four team trade today, the Lakers will pay Dwight Howard $19,261,200 for just one season. After that, Dwight will be free to test the market if he chooses to. However, Los Angeles seems confident that Howard will re-sign with the team after being in a championship environment. So between Bryant and Howard, the Lakers are spending just about $47,000,000.

After several trade rumors surfacing these past few years, Pau Gasol has somehow managed to remain in Los Angeles. He is going into his second to last year on his contract and is slated to make exactly $19,000,000. This means that the Lakers pay $66,000,000 for their top three players! That is more than many entire teams including the Charlotte Bobcats and Toronto Raptors. And that is more money than the big three in Miami will make this year.

In a surprise move, the Lakers were able to acquire Steve Nash in a sign and trade deal with the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers will pay him $8,900,000. Nash is a key component to a championship roster and arguably one of the greatest point guards of all time. He may be aging, but this guy can still ball and is definitely worth the cash.

Rounding out the starting five is most likely going to be Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) who will make $7,258,960. This means that Los Angeles is spending about $82,000,000 on their starting five. That is just about the entire pay roll for the Miami Heat! But the Lakers need a bench, don’t they?

Back-up point guard Steve Blake will make $4,000,000 this upcoming year and fellow point guard Chris Duhon who was just acquired in the blockbuster deal will get paid $3,680,000. They also owe Jordan Hill 3.5 million dollars. And the Lakers managed to sign Antawn Jamison for just the veteran’s minimum, which is a great deal for Los Angeles. They needed a good 6^th man and luckily Jamison was willing to sign for the minimum to play with a contender.

With a couple other reserves on the team, this brings the Lakers payroll to over 97 million dollars. With the talent that the Lakers have, and the amount of money they are spending, they will be a serious contender for a championship.

I believe that the Lakers have emerged as the best team in the entire NBA. The Thunder and Heat may have something to say about that, but the Lakers are poised to win another ring. For the Lakers, it is championship or bust and with an aging roster, they are built to win NOW!

But if the Lakers come up short, they will PAY the consequences…

For the 2012-2013 season NBA players will earn astronomical amounts, to the surprise of no one. Players raking in millions to go out and play a game that they grew up loving. The 2012 U.S.A. men’s basketball team has a roster made up of the highest paid players in the NBA. But does talent equal more money or is it more than that?

The 2012 Men’s U.S.A. basketball team is made up of 12 elite players from the NBA. For the upcoming year the total earnings of the entire U.S.A. team is $184,378,691 U.S. dollars. This amount is the sum of each players salary for the 2012-2013 season. It’s quite insane that only 12 basketball player salaries add up to that amount.

There are factors to consider when questioning how much a player makes in regards to his skill. Yes talent usually means making the big bucks but sometimes it’s more than that. Lets take a look at some factors.

Lebron James holds the current MVP title in the NBA and has just won his first NBA championship. James has been outstanding ever since he first got drafted in 2003. He’s arguably the best player in the league. I’m not saying he’s the best player and I’m not saying he’s not the best player. His numbers are outstanding, he plays really well and he just silenced a lot of his critics with a championship win. But there is just supernatural talent from a number of other players that makes the argument, well, arguable.

If you add all these factors up, you would think his contract is the highest out of every player in the league. That’s wrong. There are three players on the Men’s USA basketball team who will earn more in their contracts. Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul have higher paid contracts.

Bryant will earn $27,849,149, Anthony will earn $20,463,024, Paul will earn $17,779,458 and James will earn $17,545,000.

Once upon a time Bryant was arguably the best player in the league, that ship has sailed and Bryant is rapidly descending into retirement. Why is he still earning more than everyone else in the league? Well there are three big reasons: his contract states so, he’s still better than a lot of players and he has championship experience.

When a player of Bryant’s caliber signs a contract it’s usually a big one for a number of years. Thus when the contract was offered to Bryant certain factors were taken into consideration. Factors like how well he played at the time of signing and how well they think he will play after that.

Anthony has yet to make it passed the first round of the NBA playoffs so why is he earning more than James? It’s because Anthony plays for the second highest grossing team in the NBA, the New York Knicks. James could have made even more than Anthony had he chose to play for New York a couple of years back.

James went to Miami and signed a contract for a lesser amount that he would have received elsewhere. I mean $17.5 million is still a ridiculous amount of money but he could have had a higher paying contract.

Contracts are usually major contributing factors to player fortunes but in James’s case it only accounts for some of the income that he makes. One of the probable reasons why James didn’t mind taking a contract of a lesser amount is because he has many endorsement deals. When James first joined the league he signed a whopping $90-million-dollar contract with Nike, he also has deals with McDonald’s, Coca Cola and State farm.

According to celebrity net worth on the richest.org, James has an estimated net worth of $110 million dollars. Bryant has an estimated net worth of $200 million and Anthony is estimated at $60 million. Bryant has the highest net worth in the NBA with James trailing not too far way. Bryant’s wife filed for divorce and this can have a major impact on Bryant’s net worth, I doubt he will ever be poor but his ranking will surely drop. Until then Bryant has the highest net worth.