<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> Thursday will be a day of rejoicing around the NBA, and not because it's someone's birthday or a statutory holiday. It's because it's November 15, otherwise known as the season's first payday.</p> Granted, the league's average salary of $5.36 million is too rich for most folks to imagine, even in downtrodden U.S. funds. And most established players don't, or at least shouldn't, need the money. But it's still a big moment for many NBAers, especially rookies. Darrick Martin, the veteran Raptors guard who broke into the league in 1994, remembers well being handed his first paycheque by a club employee.</p> "I sat and looked at the cheque for about an hour and a half," said Martin, who earned an estimated annual salary of $150,000 back then. "That cheque, to me, was amazing."</p> You might assume that Jamario Moon, the only rookie on the Raptors roster, will be revelling in his new-found wealth. Not only is the 27-year-old forward coming off a couple of watershed performances, averaging 10.5 points and 7.0 rebounds in a pair of wins on Friday and Saturday, in a few days he'll begin earning his league-minimum salary of about $450,000. He'll only make that much, mind you, if he stays with the club until January 10. But by earning a spot on the opening-night roster, he earned a 50 per cent guarantee on that sum. So one assumes he'll be indulging in some luxuries come Thursday. Or perhaps not.</div></p> The Toronto Star</p>
$450,000/2 (half guaranteed) = $225,000/6 (per month) = $37500/2 (bi-weekly) = $18,750 cheque (pre-tax, excluding bonuses). It'll jump up once he passes January 10th to over $60,000 to give him what was held back. Otherwise he walks with $225,000 in his bank account.</p> Not bad for the first one of you're career.</p> Bosh's cheques, if he gets paid twice a month for six months, using the same formula but with the amount guaranteed, are $1.08-million. Holy...</p>
