(Photo by Tim Heitman/Getty Images)
NBA players — and professional athletes overall — are making way and way more money as the years go by.
We’ve reached sums of money that would’ve looked crazy or even ridiculous fifteen or twenty years ago, and let’s not even get started with the early stages of the league.
At the peak of his career, the great Wilt Chamberlain made under $100,000 a year to play basketball.
Now, Anthony Davis has an average annual value of over $59 million.
That’s why it’s not crazy to think that we could witness a player becoming a billionaire out of his playing salary alone sooner rather than later.
With that in mind, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas predicted that Victor Wembanyama would be the first billionaire player in the NBA.
“Wemby’s gonna be a BILLIONAIRE while he’s playing. Faster than LeBron was and then the generation after that…”
Gil on Victor Wembanyama’s futurebag pic.twitter.com/0rsEHxC1S6
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) May 30, 2024
Talking on “Gil’s Arena,” he stated that he would reach billionaire status faster than LeBron James did it, mostly because he’s not even going to need endorsements or investments to do so.
Of course, NBA players don’t get to keep every penny they make, as they have to pay hefty taxes.
Still, it wouldn’t be crazy to see Wembanyama top $1 billion in career earnings before taxes.
The salary cap keeps going up, and with TV deals and the CBA constantly changing as well, this is going to become the new norm.
Some might think it’s crazy or even argue whether professional athletes should be making that kind of money, but that’s a pointless debate.
Whether Wemby will be the first to top that number remains to be seen, but it’s definitely going to happen at some point.
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