Good question......my job was around back then, but totally different equipment. I should ask some of the old-timers.
Did they all sign those contracts this year? Wow. I was unaware of this. Good job. You got me. They must have been tanking last year too. http://espn.go.com/nba/salaries/_/year/2013 Or perhaps the year before that? http://espn.go.com/nba/salaries/_/year/2012 It's cool. I did all that by clicking the original link I gave you, then filtering it by year. It's cool to do that sometimes.
Cool story bro, let me know how often they arent top 5 highest salaried teams like the Yankees and just buying championships rather than producing quality team product.
Apparently $2,145,000 is the equivalent of $4,646,217.52 in 2013. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2,145,000&year1=1985&year2=2013