By Luke
Updated
The NBA, like all sports leagues, comes with high salaries, flashy lifestyles, and great game checks. However, what about when players stop their careers? A professional basketball player is not like a regular job. That can make understanding their lifetime deals a bit more confusing.
This article analyzes hall of famers’ salaries by doing an in-depth dive into the payments they get after they hang up their sneakers. That information helps shed light on what makes the NBA tick, as well as how the league treats players when they aren’t in front of the cameras.
How Much Do Hall of Famers Make
To better understand the following sections, we first have to answer the core question:
Do hall of farmers get paid?
Simply put, no. At least, not in the traditional sense. While they might have had a long and successful career, they do not get money purely for being in the hall.
Rather, the NBA pays all retired players who played at least three years in the league a certain amount. In that sense, hall of famers do get paid. Even so, they do not make any more or any less money for their merits. It’s purely based on how long they were in the league.
The Pension Plan
NBA players have one of the best pension plans out of anyone in professional sports. When a player retires, they are guaranteed a certain amount of money each year starting at age 50 depending on how long they spent playing.
Those who played for two years or less get nothing. Those in the league for three or more receive payment based on their time on the court. The low end (three years) receives $56,998 annually, but that can go as high as $195,000 for more experienced pros.
No matter how you cut it, that’s a good chunk of money for any retirement plan. However, as most hall of famers did have long careers, they do tend to get more than the average NBA player. As such, it definitely pays to be in the hall of fame.
On top of that, it’s important to note that the pensions don’t kick in until later in life. If you’re someone who only stuck around for a few years, you need to wait longer to get that money. If you stuck around a while, the time you go without a regular paycheck is also reduced.
How to Get Into the Hall
The hall of fame is not something that directly pays out, but getting into it does in the sense that you had a long NBA career. That alone is worth a lot of money, and it can only go up with time.
Some retired hall of famers, such as Shaq and Charles Barkley, are able to make their money in other ways too. That includes announcing like Reggie Miller, hosting prime time shows like Barkley, acting in movies like Shaq, or even doing commercials like Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Just note, as with the pension, that has nothing to do with them being hall of famers. It just has to do with them having long careers and well-known names.
Also Read:
- How Much do NBA Players Make a Year?
- How Much Do G League Players Get Paid?
- How Much Do NBA Refs Make?
- How Much Do NBA Floor Sweepers Make?
- How Much Do NBA Cheerleaders Make?
Final Words
In the end, hall of famers do get paid. However, they don’t make anything purely based off of being a hall of famer. They receive their pension, as well as any extra endorsem*nts they might get. Anyone in the league for at least three years has access to those perks too.
Still, being a hall of famer is a nice life. Not only do you get money for your likely long NBA career, but you get to be a part of the basketball elite forever. For many superstars, that is more than enough.
