30 richest players in the NBA

19

Manu Ginobili

Shooting Guard, San Antonio Spurs

One would expect a 15-year veteran having spent his entire NBA career with one team to have made a bit of coin. Manu Ginobili has put together a no-doubt hall of fame career as the sixth man for the San Antonio Spurs. In a decade and a half in San Antonio, the Argentinian national has made $122,506,730.

Originally drafted by the Spurs late in the second round of the 1999 NBA Draft, it would take three years for Ginobili to come state-side. Arriving in San Antonio in 2002, Ginobili would sign a two-year contract with the Spurs worth $2.782 million. In July 2004, Ginobili would receive his first big payday in the NBA. He would sign a six-year extension worth $52 million.

Ginobili would play out all six years of that deal with the Spurs before signing his next big contract. In April 2010, Ginobili inked a three-year veteran extension worth $38.9 million. Ginobili signed a two-year deal worth $14.5 million in July 2013.

Then in summer 2015, in an effort to conserve cap space, the Spurs would renounce Ginobili’s free agent exemption rights before signing yet another contract with the Spurs. His fourth contract with San Antonio would be a two-year deal worth $5.75 with a player option for 2016-17.

Strangely, Ginobili actually opted out of his deal with the Spurs to become an unrestricted free agent in 2016. While the Philadelphia 76ers had an interest in him on the open market, Ginobili’s heart was always in San Antonio. He signed a one-year deal worth $14 million in July 2016.

Being the perennial team player, Ginobili had to sacrifice pay in his 30s to play a huge role with a championship contender. While $14 million for a 39-year-old shooting guard coming off the bench is a ton of money, few have been a better shining example of what it means to be a sixth man quite like what Ginobili has been for the Spurs.