Karl Malone, already underpaid by NBA standards, lost nearly $2.4 million in salary due to the games missed during the lockout.
Then again, the pay from his part-time radio gig probably helped offset that loss. Reports were that he was earning $1,000 per two-hour show. At that rate Malone could make up his lost lockout revenue in just 2,400 radio shows.Memo to the Mailman: Pro basketball pays better than radio (and you actually have a talent for basketball).
While Malone was the Jazz player who was hurt the most, in terms of amount of money lost, due to the lockout, the other nine players the Jazz have under contract feel his economic pain. Jazz players as a whole will pocket nearly $11 million less -- $10.917 million, to be exact -- for playing the shortened 50-game regular season than they would have if a full season were played this year.
Patrick Ewing, the players union president, just happens to be the player who lost the most money due to the lockout -- simply because he's the highest paid player in the league now that Michael Jordan has retired. Ewing was scheduled to make $18 million this year. Instead, he'll have to make do with a paltry $11.28 million. Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who made headlines for signing a six-year, $126 million contract a year ago, was scheduled to get $14 million of it this season. He'll have to see if $8.537 million will suffice.
Malone, meanwhile, is only the 24th highest-paid player under contract in the league right now. Free agents like Jayson Williams, Scottie Pippen, Tom Gugliotta and Antonio McDyess will almost assuredly make more than the Mailman this year when they sign, too. That means Malone, by most folks' accounts the second-best player in the league the past two seasons behind only Jordan, will probably be around the 30th best-compensated player.
Greg Ostertag, in the first year of his six-year, $40-million deal with Utah, is the second highest-paid player on the Jazz now. John Stockton, who signed a three-year deal two years ago, picked a good year for the lockout to happen -- if it had to happen. Stockton's deal was for $15 million -- with $6 million in 1996-97, $5 million for 1997-98 and $4 million for 1998-99. He lost more than $2.5 million because of the lockout, but it could have been worse.
A couple of Jazz players -- Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley -- were scheduled to make more than $1 million this season but now won't reach that plateau.
Of course, the lockout was costly to more than just the players and the owners. Downtown restaurants, Delta Center ushers, concession vendors, downtown parking lot owners, ticket brokers and many, many others felt the pinch economically as well.
But at least there will be a season. Training camp, which was scheduled to start Monday, has been pushed back at least one day for all NBA teams so that the collective bargaining agreement can officially be signed before then. Camp is now now likely begin on Tuesday. That's also the first day free agents will be able to sign. New 50-game schedules are expected in the next couple of days with the first games set to take place on Feb. 5.