Is their a point? There is no salary cap. Only a minimum spend.
So what is all this crap?

Wow, Violet Crumbles are expensive these days.

All we know so far:

Bogut 1,000,000
Ware 800,000
Cooks 372,000

Apparently Bogut was 1mil over 2 years (plus part ownership). But that, much like every other figure floating around, is speculation.

Kay has already skyrocketed up another 50k this year, nice.

You have to love the double standards.

When there was actually a salary cap, a Points cap, no marquees, only two imports, and guys like DD were considered legit, you couldn't read a thread in here without somebody accusing the Wildcats of somehow massively cheating the salary cap.

Now, there is no cap, nothing to stop the Kings spending $5M if they had a mind to, 3 imports, guys like Bogut, Newley, and Now Cooks brought back to the league.
And everyone's like "Oh no, Sydney couldn't possibly be spending more money than Perth or Melbourne".
FFS.

Terrible having to point out the bloody obvious like this, but it doesn't matter where you set the scale.

Hawks and Cairns are spending around the floor. Maybe a bit more depending on how the subsidies work.
NZ look to be spending a bit more but not too much more, hard to say.
Adelaide more, but not a huge amount.
Brissy Hard to say, Some players would obviously be on good coin, but others not.
SEM its hard to say, but I imagine Creek and Madgen wouldn't be too cheap.
I'd expect them to get closer to MU & Perth over time as they lock in better players.
Hard to pick between Perth and MU, A lot would ride on whether Martin & Wagstaff took big pay cuts, how much White wanted to return, and what they're paying Hunt. On MU's side, how much competition there was for Trimble and Long. Either way, whether its $2M, or $3M, its clear they both outspend most of the competition.

Then you have Sydney.
No, I don't personally know what Bogut is getting paid.
But I do find it far more plausible that he is the highest paid player in the league, than claims he's playing for peanuts and chose Sydney (and Gaze) because he looks good in Purple.
Similarly with Ware. Whether you believe MU low-balled him, that by definition means he left for more money. Putting Bogut to one side, Ware was far and away the best import in the League last season. Why would you expect he's not being rewarded for that, especially after he's switched teams?

Sure, any idiot can make up some story about any player and claim they're doing it for love and earning much less than everyone thinks. But I doubt that applies to the Entire Sydney team.

Again at the risk of pointing out the bleeding obvious, these players all have agents who do all the negotiating for them. These agents KNOW what most other players are getting, and they also shop their players around and know what they can get in other leagues.
So sorry, but if you honestly think Ware's agent stitched him up with a deal earning less money than Cotton, White, and Trimble, then I'm afraid you are beyond help.

TL;DR It doesn't matter whether you think Sydney are spending $4M, $3M, or $5M, they are obviously spending significantly more than anyone else.

If you hire a really good coach, and then he puts together a really good team, and then he out coach's everybody else, then don't be surprised if more people come and spend more money on hot dogs and merchandise and cokes, and get more and better sponsors , which means you can go out and get better players. It's not rocket science. I predict more owners will try this approach.

Things have got stupid in the NBL frankly with the salary cap.

I think we're in the territory of overpaying players.

The whole salary floor has just been lifted when it probably didn't need to. Guys who were getting "X" are now getting "X +". There's so many guys in the NBL who could be paid far less and would still be in the league (teams are basically just paying overs/premiums now).

Go through each list and the money the top four even five teams won't be that much different.

Just because you can pay a guy "X" doesn't mean you actually have to pay it. I do miss the old days where guys were paid "X" and that was what teams could pay.

Now, I only see the strong becoming stronger. Because if you assume that the top 3 or 4 spending teams are spending even just a couple of hundred thousand to a mil above the bottom 4 - then that probably gives them an extra spread of $20k to $100k on each player.

Of course quality players are going to continue to bleed to the best teams if they can get extra money in that ballpark. The difference over a 3 year deal for example becomes substantial.

Looking at it proportionally, the salary cap issues and differentials are huge. Imagine if an NBA team (or other teams in big leagues) had a 2 x salary over others. Imagine the Lakers with a $218m soft cap whilst others had $109m. Can't forgot the size of this issue when we take into account proportionality.

I estimated up to 3.15mil for Sydney's player salaries, prior to signing Cooks

Now they have Cooks, they've gotta be the highest paid team in NBL history

MACDUB correct and I've said it before - in what seems like a blink of an eye NBL players (specifically the locals) have gone from being underpaid to massively overpaid.

Based on numerous complex calculations and celestial alignments I estimate the Kings salary to range somewhere between $1 mil and LV's guesstimation of $3.15 mil.

I don't think players are overpaid, if we want them to remain in Australia then we have to pay them in comparison to overseas otherwise they will all just leave.

Bogut is on 500k
Ware 700ish

Lisch, Newley, Cooks, Didi, Kickert, Tate would be on good coin

Moller would not be on chump change either.

Who are their bottom 5? I presume Walker, Bruce, Hunter must be on absolute peanuts if they're truly keeping to the rules

Since they have 12 players they get away with using 5 of 12 instead of 5 of 11 like teams without a Next Star?

So they may be ok

But overall salary would be highest ever in NBL.

"Imports have always earned more than there Australian counterparts, Bogut aside, United have Long, Trimble and Prather who were all in the league previously with huge reputations, yet most believe Sydney pay the most, I doubt it"

And people still cant pull their heads out far enough to admit the truth.

Firstly imports were only earning more prior to the Marquee rule(s) and then the abolishment of the salary cap. This had the desired effected of bringing back to the league guys like Jawai, Lisch, Andersen, Newley, Maric, and now Magden, Creek, and Cooks.

"who were all in the league previously with huge reputations"
And then you conveniently omit Ware, who should be the highest paid import in Australia.

Since they have 12 players they get away with using 5 of 12 instead of 5 of 11 like teams without a Next Star?

Lisch, Newley, Cooks, Didi, Kickert, Tate would be on good coin

Only $160k of Bogut's $1 million salary counts against the cap.

Bogut's contract figure won’t be divulged by the NBL or Sydney, but it’s understood he will earn close to $1 million.

Only $160,000 of this deal will count on the Kings’ salary cap, which is part of the NBL’s local marquee signing set-up.

The NBL changed to a "soft cap" of $1.1 million in 2016, meaning teams may exceed the soft cap provided that they pay a salary equalisation subsidy.

These funds can be filtered down to franchises that don’t exceed the limit.

You'd think that Kestleman is banking on getting a decent television/streaming rights deal in the next 2-3 years. Otherwise the NBL would surely go broke?

Averaged per player, AFL has a salary cap about twice NBL's. But AFL crowds average about 5 times NBL crowds during the home and away season and AFL team memberships average about 10 times NBL team memberships.

With these crowds and membership numbers, AFL only made an operating profit in 2018 because of the massive tv rights income - $418 million per year - and 4 AFL clubs ran at a loss. While cost structures would be somewhat different for teams in the two leagues, I find it hard to look at these numbers and see the NBL as a going concern without a healthy tv/streaming revenue deal in the near future. That becomes even harder to see if some NBL team salaries are substantially above the cap.

Numbers from AFL 2018 Annual Report.

It's not like this is the first time Sydney are top spenders in the league, although a lot of the defensive comments seem to be coming from the point of view that suggests so.

Wrublewski ended up with crumble and so did Macquarie. Will TSE continue the tradition?

Pretty sure the AFL salary cap is about $12mill? Peter John. So I don't place any credence an anything else you say.
Pretty sure an average AFL club runs at a conservative $50mill or so. Often more.
BTW, the NBL has never had a decent TV coverage, EVER, yet they have survived.
Your points are confused an inaccurate.
The AFL only made $418mill. profit and clubs lost money?
There might be 1 club that makes money in the NBL.
Yet they survive. For how much longer I don't know.

LK has United, Bullets, Phoenix and some say Adel and Illawarra in his ownership and the NBL.
He wants to own a team in Tassie as well and expand too.
Makes sense, said no one ever.
So many one eyed fans that simply don't see and recognise the truth.

[Didi isn't on anything]

Didi would be on good coin. Who's paying doesn't matter- Sydney would still have the most expensive roster, by a meaningful margin.