Los Angeles Lakers have always been the place for the most premier players in the league. They have always dominated the game with the help of the biggest names in the league. However, be it as it may, three players from the LA side found their place on the list of under-compensated players ever. Recently, Hoops Hype released a list where Frank Urbina and Raul Barrigon listed 30 players as the most underpaid in the league.
It is really true that the list is pretty surprising because some of the league’s biggest names are in there. The first name on that list is LeBron James. Everybody knows that LeBron James is the first and only NBA player so far to become a billionaire as an active player. Moreover, he has an impressive, lucrative lifetime contract with Nike as it is worth a billion dollars. Indeed, that is a historic contract because no other player has such a billion-dollar agreement in history. Moreover, LeBron James is the highest-paid player in the league ever.
How Are LeBron James And Anthony Davis Among The Most Underpaid Players?
Hoops Hype’s Real Value metric says that LeBron James earned $434 million from the league so far. Ironically enough, he is still the most underpaid player ever, especially when compared to his Cleveland Cavaliers days. During his first stint with the Cavaliers, the Lakers star was seriously underpaid in the 2008-2009 season. They paid him only $14 million when his real value in the league was $44.4 million. Nonetheless, LeBron James won the MVP that season despite this monstrous disparity worth $30 million.
The other two Lakers players who have been the most underpaid are Anthony Davis and Darren Collison. Anthony Davis is 11th on the Hoops Hype’s list, and Darren Collison is 29th. Throughout his career, AD has been on the underpaid list. Moreover, this season, the Lakers are paying him $38.0 million when his real value is $39.4 million. On the other hand, Collison earned $1.4 million in 2010-2011. That was when he had a value of $6.9 according to the Real Value metric.
Lakers Have A History Of Signing The Highest Paid Players In The League
For the past 50 years, the Lakers have had stars like Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson. Then came the duo of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. In the current generation, the Lakers have got the duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, two big names in the league. With the help of these stars of different eras, the LA Lakers have come across winning 17 titles after all these years. They are the joint most successful team with eternal rivals Boston Celtics.
In the 1980s, the LA side had the nickname of the ‘Showtime Lakers.’ They popularised the game of basketball. Moreover, the way the NBA is reaching all over the world currently is making the players and the owners a lot of money. But the NBA team that has the biggest fan following and who generates the most money is the Los Angeles Lakers. Hence, it is hard to imagine that some of the Lakers players can have their names on the list of the most underpaid players ever.
