Because of the NBA's salary cap system, the players that are hurt most often are the best players in the league. A perfect example is LeBron James who is just the 8th highest-paid player in the NBA and should be making more than $19.1 million.
However, among the ten highest-paid players in the league, LeBron is actually the exception as an underpaid player.
Below is look at the expected salaries for the ten highest-paid players in the NBA. A player's expected salary is how much the players would have been paid if their percentage of the team's total payroll was based on their percentage of the team's total production*.
Only two players, James and Carmelo Anthony, were actually underpaid this season, while the other eight were overpaid, some by large margins. Thanks to missing most of the season, Kobe Bryant was the most overpaid by a wide margin.
* For production we used Basketball-Reference's Win Shares and the percentage of that team's total Win Shares was produced by each player.
Salary data vie HoopsHype.com