LeBron James is officially back with the Los Angeles Lakers, and the veteran superstar signed a new two-year contract on Saturday, but according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, there was one little thing that wasn’t publicly disclosed: a pay cut.
“Slight” is the best word to describe this pay cut: He was originally reported to be making the maximum amount of $104 million under the deal, but the final amount was reported to be $101.35 million — a pay cut of $2.65 million.
Now, there’s no denying that $101 million is less than $104 million. A pay cut is when you make less money than you were making before, and LeBron’s situation fits the dictionary definition literally.
But in the history of athletes’ pay cuts, this one falls into the “technically a pay cut” category. This isn’t about Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani parting ways with tens of millions of dollars to sign with their first-choice team. This is about LeBron James, the first active NBA player to become a billionaire. If his fortune was paid out in specially minted million-dollar coins, he’d never notice if two or three of them went missing (as happens all the time with a pile of pennies).
This is a little perk for the rich. If LeBron had signed a max contract, the Lakers would have been promoted to the second apron, which comes with a new set of penalties for teams that spend over a certain amount. Not only do the Lakers have to pay the league over the apron ($190 million), but they can’t add any exceptional mid-level players at all.
But according to Marks, LeBron “giving back” about $3 million to the Lakers would mean the Lakers would avoid a second apron fine of about $45,000.
