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NBA Players to Divvy Up $36M in 2026 Playoff Bonuses
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- NBA Players to Divvy Up $36M in 2026 Playoff Bonuses
The NBA playoffs tip off this week with the Oklahoma City Thunder a heavy favorite to lift the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy for the second straight year. The San Antonio Spurs and Boston Celtics are next in line to win the NBA title among oddsmakers.
The Thunder also posted the best regular-season record, which means they could have the highest possible playoff payday at $12.8 million if they win the title.
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NBA players have the highest salaries in U.S. pro sports by a wide margin. The same holds true come playoff time. Players on NBA playoff teams will split $35.7 million this season, with each team receiving a chunk based on how far their teams go; teams earn more for each round they advance. The total is up $1 million from last year.
The NBA also factors regular-season standings into its playoff pool, with an added bonus of $896,293 for the best record among all 30 teams. Players on playoff teams will receive anywhere from $480,715—roughly $32,050 per player based on a 15-player roster—to potentially $12.8 million ($853,700 per player) if the Thunder, who finished the season 64-18, win the NBA championship.
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Clubs that finished as the seventh or eighth seeds do not receive any bonuses for their regular-season records, and players on those teams would earn $741,650 if they made a historic run to the championship. The Houston Rockets in 1995 were the lowest-seeded team to win the NBA Finals, doing so as a No. 6 seed.
Teams do not earn anything for the play-in tournament beyond their regular-season salaries, which are typically paid out over 12 months.
The NBA playoff pool is up 3% over last year. The CBA reads: "A Player Playoff Pool for each Salary Cap Year in an amount equal to the greater of: (i) $31,014,350 multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is BRI for the Salary Cap Year immediately preceding the then-current Salary Cap Year and the denominator of which is BRI for the 2021-22 Salary Cap Year, and (ii) the amount of the Player Playoff Pool for the immediately preceding Salary Cap Year."
Playoff bonuses took a big jump for the 2023-24 season when the new CBA kicked in. They rose between 12% and 17% for each round, except for the NBA champion, whose payout was boosted 79% to $8.55 million, up from $4.78 million. It meant an overall gain of 25%.
The amount NBA players earn in the playoffs is much higher than those in the NFL, NHL and MLB.
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The NFL uses part of the playoff gate revenue to fund its player postseason pool. Players earned $53,500 to $58,500 during the first two weeks of this year's playoffs, per their CBA. Player paychecks jumped to $81,000 for the conference championship games. The Super Bowl was worth $178,000 for each player on the winning team and $103,000 for ones on the losing side. The maximum a player could earn during the playoffs was $376,000.
The MLB playoff pool, also culled from playoff ticket revenue, was $128.2 million , a tick below the previous year's record. The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers split $46.15 million of the pool, with a full share worth $484,748.
The NHL playoff pool is $24 million this season, up 4.3% from last year—it will rise to $34 million next year under the new CBA. The Florida Panthers shared about $6.6 million in 2025 for their second straight Stanley Cup championship.
The average NBA salary is more than $10 million, led by Stephen Curry at $59.6 million. Seventy-five NBA players earned at least $25 million in salary this season before incentives, including the Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ($38.3 million) and Isaiah Hartenstein ($28.5 million). The playoffs serve as pocket change for those guys, but an NBA title would bump pay for Jared McCain ($4.22 million) and Ajay Mitchell ($3 million) 20% and 28%, respectively.
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