Confirmed! The signing was reached, the 820 million group of giants set a record, the NBA championship is about to break up the team

Editor|Old Kankanqiu

This offseason, many NBA stars have won the coveted maximum salary contract. For example, the Lakers and Luca Doncic reached a three-year, $165 million maximum salary renewal contract, which is absolutely worth it; the Suns and Booker also reached a two-year, $145 million contract extension ahead of schedule, setting a record for the highest salary in the NBA in a single season; the Mavericks reached a three-year, 119 million salary reduction contract with Irving, which is obviously an impact on the renewal of Ou Shenxian; the Magic renewed Ban Kairo for five-year, $287 million, and also wanted to disrupt the Western Conference.

It has to be said that with the entry into force of the new NBA broadcast contract (US$76 billion in 2011), the league's salary cap has risen, and players' salaries have grown year by year. In the 2025-26 season, as many as 14 people in the NBA's annual salary exceeding 50 million, of which Curry ranked first in the league with 59.61 million. You should know that the total salary of the San Antonio Spurs in 2013 was only $63.5 million, while the total salary of the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2025, Alexander alone reached $71.3 million, which is really terrifying.

And the most terrifying thing is that there are as many as three such maximum-paid players in the Thunder. After the boss Alexander won the 4-year, $285 million super maximum salary renewal contract with a record high of 4 years and $285 million in the NBA, this offseason, the Thunder management successively gave Chet Holmgren a five-year, $250 million in the inside pillar and second-in-command Jaylen Williams a five-year, highest $287 million in the five-year, completely opening the most expensive lineup lock-up plan in NBA history - the total total salary of the three giants reached an astonishing $822 million, setting a record for the NBA history.

In order to maintain the championship lineup, the Thunder, a small-season team, paid an unprecedented price.

Authentic, the Thunder Three still have a year of rookie bonus period. However, in the 2027-28 season, the huge contracts of these three begin to show true lethality. The total salary of Alexander, Homgren and Jewish will reach a terrifying $151 million this season. According to the current public salary structure, the latest forecast for the season's salary cap is about $199 million, which means:

The salary of the Big Three alone will account for 76% of the team's salary cap, which has exceeded the "dangerous red line" recognized by the NBA management;

If the salary of other players is included, the total salary of the Thunder will inevitably break through the second luxury tax line;

The remaining roster of the team must be filled with basic salary, and the depth of the lineup is severely squeezed.

Compared with the 2024 Phoenix Suns Big Three (Durant + Bill + Booker) salary accounts for 70% of the team, it is the highest in the league. It is already known how weird the lineup is, and the Thunder's salary structure will reach a more extreme level in 2027.

Obviously, the sequelae of winning the championship are seriously affecting the league team's path to defending the title.

In 1996, Zhu Wan Howard signed a seven-year, $105 million contract, becoming the first "million-yuan" in NBA history.

In 2017, Curry signed $201 million for five years, becoming the first "two million-dollar" in the NBA.

In 2023, Jaylen Brown's five-year, $304 million contract set a new record.

Salary inflation is accelerating: it took 17 years from 100 million to 200 million, and only 6 years from 200 million to 300 million. After the salary inflated, everyone in the championship team asked for a maximum salary. When the proportion of maximum salary reaches the red line, the direct consequence of the team's lineup is the deformization of the team's lineup. After the Big Three eats most of the salary space, the rest of the positions can only be filled by the basic salary players. This model can still operate in the regular season, but in the playoffs, when the opponent attacks the team's weak links in a targeted manner, insufficient lineup depth will become a fatal injury.

Ctually, the Thunder won the championship this year because of its deep lineup. In the next few years, the contracts of key players such as Dort and Caruso in the championship puzzle will expire soon, and the salary pressure will be tightened like a noose. The 2027-28 season will become a watershed in the fate of this freshman champion team - demolition has become inevitable.

When Homgren's new contract enters its second year in 2027, when Alexander's annual salary of 71.3 million accounts for 35.8% of the salary cap, the team's bench will only have veterans with an annual salary of less than 4 million. Obviously, this is not a management mistake, but an inevitable dilemma under the NBA salary rules: the Golden State Warriors broke up the championship core, the Phoenix Suns' Big Three went to two and saved one, and the next one, it's the Thunder's turn.