If you read commentary about the NBA, you’ve likely come across the term ‘salary cap’. Meaning there are rules about how much a team is allowed to pay a player. You can find more details about how that works at cbafaq.com ( from Larry Coon ).
There is also a ‘minimum salary’ in the NBA. In the 2020-2021 season the minimum NBA salary for a player after one year is $1,003,665. Yep, a cool $1M per year. The analogy of making it to the NBA being like winning the lottery isn’t just about the odds, the dollars are similar as well.