NBA salaries have grown exponentially over the past two decades. Five players from the league were recently featured in the top 15 of Forbes Magazine’s list of highest-paid athletes in 2023, and the number is only expected to rise over the coming years, as salaries continue to balloon well past the $60 million-a-year mark. However, while more players from the NBA earn more guaranteed money than arguably any other sport on the planet, this wasn’t always the case.
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On the latest episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast, Charles Barkley recalled being blown away by Magic Johnson‘s 25-year, $25 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. He told host Shannon Sharpe,
“I remember vividly. Me, Doc [Julius Erving], Moses [Malone], Bobby Jones, Andrew Toney were in the locker room one day, and it broke that Magic Johnson had been the first NBA player to make a million dollars. We were walking around high-fiving each other. We could not believe that an NBA player made a million dollars… That’s how crazy it was thinking about money back in the day.”
When Johnson signed the 25-year extension, only teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Philadelphia 76ers’ Julius Erving and Moses Malone, New Jersey Nets’ Otis Birdsong, and San Diego Clippers’ Bill Walton earned $1 million a year in salary.
The Los Angeles Lakers point guard had played only two seasons in the NBA when the franchise handed him the biggest guaranteed contract in American sports history. On the flip side, in 1981, Kareem was a 12-year veteran, Erving had played 10 seasons, Walton and Malone were entering their eighth campaign, and Birdsong had just signed with the Nets after four years with the Kansas City Kings.
A third-year player earning the same amount as the five highest-paid players in the NBA reset the market for younger stars and gave veterans the liberty to demand at least twice the amount when their contracts were up for renewal.
Johnson’s record-shattering contract extension became a reference point for the league’s superstars and began a wave of players signing bigger extensions each year. And the wave has yet to go down.
Last year, Jaylen Brown signed a five-year, $286,230,000 contract, the biggest in NBA history. But Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic will soon dwarf it, as he’s eligible to sign a five-year, $346 million supermax extension in the 2025 offseason, which will pay him close to $70 million a year. It all started with Johnson’s monumental deal in 1981, which Barkley knew would change the lives of NBA players.
However, he once almost skipped out of the movement completely.
Charles Barkley intentionally tried to get too fat to get drafted
Money was tight in the NBA in the 1980s as the league struggled to captivate America’s overwhelmingly caucasian population with its product that primarily featured African-American players. But teams with rich owners, like the Lakers and 76ers, were sparing no expense in building strong rosters, prompting the NBA to step in and penalize teams above the salary cap.
Franchises that had committed to paying over $4.5 million in salary in the 1984-85 season could only offer a 1-year, $75,000 deal to their rookies. Barkley, one of the best players in the 1984 draft class, learned that the 76ers, who owned the fifth pick, were his most likely landing spot, and were among the teams penalized for breaching the salary cap.
On the Club Shay Shay podcast, Barkley told Sharpe he was miffed when his agent told him about the 76ers’ predicament. He said,
“I didn’t leave college for $75,000. Are y’all crazy? [My agent] says, ‘I don’t know what to tell you. The Sixers want to take you. And I said, ‘I didn’t leave college for one-year and $75,000. What if I get hurt? I’m trying to take care of my family. I’m trying to set my family up financially for life.'”
Barkley had met with the 76ers’ owner Harold Katz and the rest of the team’s higher-ups a month prior. They had concerns about Barkley’s weight and asked him to drop it from 295 lbs to 285. They also requested he visit the 76ers’ training facility in Philadelphia before heading to New York for the 1984 NBA draft so the team could monitor his weight.
The then-young star initially worked hard and got his weight down to 282. But upon learning that the 76ers could only offer him a one-year deal, he began pondering ways to avoid getting drafted by the franchise.
Knowing the 76ers were concerned about his weight, Barkley indulged in binge-eating two days before the draft and put on over 20 pounds. Katz and the franchise’s top brass were shocked during his pre-draft visit and the young star felt his plan had worked. But to his surprise, the 76ers picked him with the fifth overall pick and an astonished Barkley resigned to his fate.
But the franchise did right by their new young star. After watching Barkley dominate in the Princeton Summer League, they handed him a four-year, $2 million rookie deal, traded Marc Iavaroni to the San Antonio Spurs, and let Franklin Edwards join the Los Angeles Clippers to create cap space. It all worked out eventually for Barkley.
