A group of new athletes joined the NBA fraternity on Thursday night as the league held its annual draft.
The Detroit Pistons selected Cade Cunningham with the no.1 overall pick and the Houston Rockets selected Jalen Green with the no.2 overall pick.
For players, the team that drafts them can have a major impact on how they develop as basketball players, but it also can have a huge impact on their salaries.
What number draft pick a player is determines how much money he will earn on his rookie contract. This is due to the NBA’s rookie wage scale, which assigns dollar amounts to specific draft slots. The higher a player is drafted, the more lucrative their overall contracts are.
Due to the NBA’s rookie wage scale, dropping a few spots during the draft can actually cost players millions of dollars on their rookie contracts.
Each player selected in the first round of the NBA Draft is awarded a 4-year contract with an NBA franchise, but only the first two years are fully guaranteed.
Here are the estimated contracts for the first round selections of the 2021 NBA draft, according to contract monitoring site Spotrac.
Pick No. 1, Cade Cunningham
Guaranteed: $17.2 million
Total value: $38 million
Pick No. 2, Jalen Green
Guaranteed: $15.4 million
Total value: $34 million
Pick No. 3, Evan Mobley
Guaranteed: $13.8 million
Total value: $30.6 million
Pick No. 4, Scottie Barnes
Guaranteed: $12.4 million
Total value: $27.6 million
Pick No. 5, Jalen Suggs
Guaranteed: $11.3 million
Total value: $25 million
Pick No. 6, Josh Giddey
Guaranteed: $10.2 million
Total value: $22.7 million
Pick No. 7, Jonathan Kuminga
Guaranteed: $9.3 million
Total value: $20.7 million
Pick No. 8, Franz Wagner
Guaranteed: $8.6 million
Total value: $19 million
Pick No. 9, Davion Mitchell
Guaranteed: $7.9 million
Total value: $17.4 million
Pick No. 10, Ziaire Williams
Guaranteed: $7.5 million
Total value: $16.6 million
Pick No. 11, James Bouknight
Guaranteed: $7.1 million
Total value: $16 million
Pick No. 12, Joshua Primo
Guaranteed: $6.7 million
Total value: $15.3 million
Pick No. 13, Chris Duarte
Guaranteed: $6.4 million
Total value: $14.8 million
Pick No. 14, Moses Moody
Guaranteed: $6.1 million
Total value: $14.2 million
Pick No. 15, Corey Kispert
Guaranteed: $5.8 million
Total value: $13.6 million
Pick No. 16, Alperen Sengun
Guaranteed: $5.5 million
Total value: $13 million
Pick No. 17, Trey Murphy
Guaranteed: $5.2 million
Total value: $12.3 million
Pick No. 18, Tre Mann
Guaranteed: $5 million
Total value: $11.7 million
Pick No. 19, Kai Jones
Guaranteed: $4.7 million
Total value: $11.2 million
Pick No. 20, Jalen Johnson
Guaranteed: $4.5 million
Total value: $10.7 million
Pick No. 21, Keon Johnson
Guaranteed: $4.4 million
Total value: $10.4 million
Pick No. 22, Isaiah Jackson
Guaranteed: $ 4.2 million
Total value: $10.1 million
Pick No. 23, Usman Garuba
Guaranteed: $4 million
Total value: $9.8 million
Pick No. 24, Josh Christopher
Guaranteed: $3.9 million
Total value: $9.6 million
Pick No. 25, Quentin Grimes
Guaranteed: $3.7 million
Total value: $9.3 million
Pick No. 26, Nah’Shon Hyland
Guaranteed: $3.6 million
Total value: $9 million
Pick No. 27, Cameron Thomas
Guaranteed: $3.5 million
Total value: $8.7 million
Pick No. 28, Jaden Springer
Guaranteed: $3.4 million
Total value: $8.7 million
Pick No. 29, Day’Ron Sharpe
Guaranteed: $3.4 million
Total value: $8.6 million
Pick No. 30, Santi Aldama
Guaranteed: $3.4 million
Total value: $8.5million
Rookies from the NFL Draft will make similar money to NBA rookies, while rookies from the MLB Draft make considerably less.