NBA superstar Luka Don\u010di\u0107 has become the first player in league history to reach a projected annual salary of over $80\u202fmillion. <\/p>\n
On August 2, he agreed to a three\u2011year, $165\u202fmillion maximum extension with the Los Angeles Lakers, keeping him under contract through 2028\u2014with a player option for 2028\u201329, according to the Washington Post<\/a>. <\/p>\n That deal is paving the way for an even larger contract in 2028, and as salary caps continue to climb, Don\u010di\u0107 is projected to surpass<\/a> all previous income benchmarks, possibly topping $95 million in a single year by the 2028\u201329 season.<\/p>\n The Slovenian basketball player’s new contract sets a new standard for NBA salaries, with the current highest paid players making between $55-$65 million per year on their deals. Stephen Curry, point guard for the Golden State Warriors, was the first NBA player to reach over $50 million with his salary, according to Forbes<\/a>. Now, it looks like Don\u010di\u0107 is poised to overtake that number if his projected earnings play out.<\/p>\n Sports fans had mixed reactions to the recent trade. On Reddit<\/a>, one user said, “They\u2019ve got Luka locked up for under $60 million per season!!! What a damn steal for the Lakers.” Another person said, “At that discount is crazy. Must be nice to be Lakers fan.”<\/p>\n About his earnings, someone quipped, “Decent chunk of change.” Another commenter joked, “Maybe now he can afford the rent in LA, maybe.”<\/p>\n As one of the NBA\u2019s brightest stars, Don\u010di\u0107, 26, began his career playing for Real Madrid from 2015 until 2018. He then went on to play a stint with the Dallas Mavericks between 2018-2025. His most recent deal to play for the Los Angeles Lakers has been regarded as one of the most stunning trades of NBA history, according to NBA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA superstar Luka Don\u010di\u0107 has become the first player in league history to reach a projected annual salary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-48081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}