As the economics of the NBA have quickly exploded due to a dramatic increase in their national television deals, league executives have begun to refer to contract amounts as a percentage of the cap in order to more easily gauge their relative size. 

"When you talk to executives, they are more and more not talking about the actual number that they're paying," said Brian Windhorst on The Bill Simmons Podcast. "They're talking about the percentage of cap.

"'Oh, well that's only eight percent of the cap. That's not so bad.'"

Windhorst also detailed how Michael Jordan earned $33 million in 1998, but nobody earned $30 million again until 2016.