Former Cats made more than $61 million in the NBA
One of the biggest selling points of Kentucky basketball is putting players in the pros. Now no other school can claim to have more NBA players than Kentucky’s 20. And before long, it seems likely former Wildcats will be making the most dough too.
Duke currently leads the way, with its former players bringing in more than $77 million. Kentucky still has most of its draft picks under rookie contracts, which lowers the total dramatically from what it will be in several years.
Here is the breakdown of the top five schools’ former players making the most money in the NBA.
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5. UCLA -$56,905,864 (11 players)
Almost half of the Bruins’ total comes from superstars Russell Westbrook ($13.7 million) and Kevin Love ($13.7 million).
4. Kentucky – $61,882,315 (20 players)
Kentucky’s two highest paid players come from the pre-Caliapri era, with Rajon Rondo ($11 million) and Tayshaun Prince ($6.7 million) making the most. The Cats have 18 other players in the league, and are still under their rookie contract. In the next few years, Kentucky will skyrocket on this list.
3. Florida – $61,998,530 (10 players)
David Lee, Al Horford, and Joakim Noah made a combined $36 million, which is more than all but eleven schools’ total figure.
2. Connecticut – $76,047,203 (13 players)
Rudy Gay, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, and Caron Butler all made over $8 million this season.
1. Duke – $77,244,780 (18 players)
Duke has three players making over $10 million, incuding Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, and Corey Maggette. Also consider a future NBA star Kyrie Irving only made $5.3 million. Once his rookie contract is up, his salary will increase dramatically.
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In the conference round-up, the ACC leads the way with four schools in the top-15, including the top team. The Big East and SEC are next-best with three teams each. The Pac-12 and Big 12 each have two schools in the top-15, and the Big Ten has one team.
14 Comments for Former Cats made more than $61 million in the NBA
This will change pretty soon…another class and Wall, Bledsoe and others getting new contracts.
Cheaters! Why would any recruit pick UK?
Interesting stuff!
UConn definitely has the most overpaid players in the league. Charlie Villaneuva, Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor, and Caron Butler shouldn’t be making more than $8 mil per year.
Duke is number 1. No wonder Matt Jones went to Duke and came back to make a small fortune selling KSR to local hicks.
Otis, you are very cool to troll this hick website.
Otis needs Deing to sign a 50 Million dollar contract if they want to make that list.
5. And yet your every click makes money for him.
When Bledsoe, boogie, and Wall sign their next contracts UK will For sure be number one. Imagine how big of a gap their will be in another 3 years when Davis and Gilly sign their next deals.
Their sure will be a big gap.
I am sure they will all follow Antoine Walker’s financial gurus and make even more money and bring all there cash back to Kentucky
Where is Louisville?
Anthony Davis has some guns in that picture! When did that happen?
what about nazr?
I think that Cal and UK are missing a great public relations opportunity not getting these players to set up scholarships at UK. The players need tax deductions anyway, and they look good doing something like this.