Report: LeBron James, Stephen Curry Headline Highest-Paid NBA Players for 2023-24

LeBron James and Steph Curry will combine for more than $225 million in earnings during the 2023-24 season, according to Sportico's Kurt Badenhausen.

James is set to rake in $128 million as the highest-paid player in the league. That's thanks to an estimated $80 million in endorsements on top of his $47.6 million salary, per Badenhausen.

Curry will earn an estimated $101.9 million off of $50 million in endorsements.

Curry and James are joined by Giannis Antetokounmpo ($90.6 million), Kevin Durant ($88.4 million) and Klay Thompson ($64.2 million) as the top five highest earners in the league, followed by Damian Lillard ($62.6 million), Joel Embiid ($56.6 million) and James Harden ($55.6 million).

Nikola Jokić ($54.6 million) and Paul George ($54.1 million) round out the top ten.

The top 15 earners in the NBA are set to make a combined $1 billion in 2023-24, Badenhausen reported.

Curry, Antetokounmpo and Durant will each make approximately half of their earnings through endorsement deals, according to Sportico data.

Curry's endorsements include a signature brand with Under Armour as well as deals with brands including Chase, Nissan, Sony, JP Morgan and Rakuten, per Sportskeeda.

Antetokounmpo has endorsement deals with Nike, WhatsApp, JBL and Google and T-Mobile, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's JR Radcliffe, while Durant is the third athlete in NBA history to hold a lifetime endorsement deal with Nike.

Endorsements aren't the only additional source of money for the NBA's top owners, Badenhausen noted. James, Curry and Durant are also owners of companies making investments that range from media platforms to liquor brands to team ownership in other leagues.

Even without endorsement deals, top NBA salaries have skyrocketed to dwarf other major North American leagues. The most expensive annual contracts in North America belong to Lillard, Anthony Davis, Jaylen Brown, Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker and Jokić, each of whom makes an average of over $55 million per year in salary.

Those are higher than any other professional athlete salary AAVs on the continent, with the Cincinnati Bengals' Joe Burrow and Inter Miami's Lionel Messi leading non-NBA players at approximately $55 million apiece, per Sportico data.

Those salaries are set to continue rising in the future. After increasing the salary cap to approximately $165 million for the 2023-24 season, the NBA is projected to raise the cap by up to 10 percent next year.