Pistons, Bulls and Rockets: NBA Championship-Caliber Contracts 1990-94

1992 NBA Champion: Chicago Bulls
League Salary Cap: $12,500,000
Championship-Caliber Contract: Horace Grant & Michael Jordan

This was a superteam. In light of how recent superteams have formed, the fact that it was built through the draft is almost incomprehensible. What the Bulls did on the night of the 1987 draft has to be the single greatest draft day in history. They traded for the rights to Scottie Pippen and drafted Horace Grant 10th overall. The Bulls already had the best player in the league in ‘87 all they needed after that fateful night was to wait and let their dynamic young core grow together.

The ‘91-’92 Bulls are one of the greatest teams in NBA history. They won 67 games, 10 more than the next best team, and won their second championship in a row. Jordan’s salary of $3.25 million was one of the largest in the league, 26 percent of the salary cap, and still one of the best bargains.

Horace Grant was an All-Star and at $1.75 million was on a great contract in his own right. Jordan produced 22.1 Win Shares, $6.63 million in value (53 percent of the cap) and Grant offered up 17.4 Win Shares, $5.22 million in value (41.76 percent of the salary cap). Pippen falls off the list because of the contract extension he signed boosted his salary from $765,000 to $2.77 million.

With MJ, Grant, and Scottie Pippen in town all you had to do was not sign guys off the street and the supporting cast was going to be enough for the Bulls to compete. Each championship-caliber contract increases your margin for error and this Bulls team could have used the rest of their cap space on as many of the Washington Generals as they could fit and still would have had a chance.