This board is gonna light this kid up!!!!!!! He is a defensive minded player who will have NO plays for run for him. He will be lucky to average 4 points on this squad. That should not diminish his value to the team, but people on here are gonna crack him for it regardless!
Watching both this and Raja Bell's interviews, I can only conclude that LeBron James is surrounded by yes men who are afraid to tell him what to do. Nice interview by Matthews. He looked good, sounded good, and said the right things.
I hope your comparing apples to apples. Although he may get $9 mil this year in payouts. His salary is still $5.765 mil on the Blazer books. He only makes the MLE. The bonuses do not increase his salary one bit. He just gets his money ahead of time. He gets $5.765 mil, $6.135 mil, $6.505 mil, $6.875 mil, and $7.245 mil over 5 years . http://www.storytellerscontracts.com/ And I would guess KG got a huge bonus as well in his initial years.
The question is highest paid sophomore. And ALL THINGS CONSIDERED salary wise, Wesley is likely the highest paid sophomore in NBA history. Mmk? That's all there is to it, no more, no less.
I have always found her to be very upfront and direct, as well as being a very nice person. She gets the job done. I prefer her over many of the others.
She asks some of the dumbest questions in press conferences and in the locker room. Most of those questions never make the airwaves.
I thought maybe Gilbert Arenas got more. He was in a very similar situation to Matthews (although clearly a lot better). But he cashed in during his third season, and it was "only" $8.5 mil. Man, anybody who doesn't include a team option for years 2 and 3 on a rookie contract is crazy. Utah could be paying him rookie scale right now with just a few extra lines on a contract that Matthews would probably have eagerly signed.
But you'd have to go through and check for signing bonuses of all other sophomore players. As Trader Ed mentioned, others could have gotten bonuses. Seems you are looking at straight salary of all other players, adn then money paid up front for Matthews.
That's why I said likely. I'm not going to look up the numbers for every other player, but considering the rookie scale contracts, and the fact that players were paid less money (relative) before the RSCs, Matthews is likely the highest paid sophomore in NBA history.
But is he the highest paid in real dollars, accounting for inflation? Also, is he the highest paid soph ever compared with the average salary? That is, the highest paid soph ever relative to the league? This analysis is currently too superficial to be proper graduate work.
Well if you want to go do some present/future value analysis, go ahead. I'd expect him to be at least one of the most paid. It's a pretty useless point anyways.
"Who is the highest paid Sophomore in NBA history?" "Gilbert Arenas... no! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" [video=youtube;pWS8Mg-JWSg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg[/video]