The NBA salary database here at HoopsHype has data going back to the 1990-91 season, allowing us to conduct plenty of research regarding historical spending by teams and on players. As such, we have been able to look at the Top 10 earners around the league in each of these seasons, and see not only who was on those lists, but also, who was not on them.
Inevitably, of course, almost all of the game’s greatest players since that time have featured in the Top 10 at least once, and often repeatedly. That said, our research has shown that a few players you would expect to have been among the NBA’s biggest earners at some point never have been. Be it by circumstance, timing, injury, benevolence, some combination thereof or just blind luck, many All-Star players have never had the elite tier salaries to match their elite tier play.
There follows a look at NBA stars over the last 35 years who were never in the Top 10 in salaries in any season of their career.
