Highest paid Detroit Pistons to never make an All-Star team

The Detroit Pistons have had plenty of great players over the years, but not all of them made All-Star teams.

But that doesn’t mean they didn’t get paid.

The NBA is one of the best professional leagues as far as salaries go and you don’t have to be an All-Time great to cash some big checks.

Recently, Mike Scotto at HoopsHype put together a list of the 50 highest-paid NBA players who were never selected for an All-Star team.

There were three former or current Detroit Pistons on the list, guys who have made big bucks even though they’ve always been on their sofa during the All-Star game.

Tobias Harris: $211,814,722

Harris one of those good-not-great players who always seems to be in the right place to get a big payday. He only played parts of three seasons in Detroit and was on a very reasonable deal at the time, so most of that 200+ million has come from Philadelphia, who gave Harris a 5 year/$180 million extension. He’ll be making just under $40 million this season, so who needs All-Star appearances? He’s unlikely to get a deal like that again, but he’s only 31 years old and will be a big free-agent name next offseason, so you never know. He’s certainly going to pad this total. Being the third-best player on a team is not bad work if you can get it.

Josh Smith: $116,294,581

Hold on while I go throw up.

The Detroit Pistons coughed up $54 million of this amount, a good chunk of it after he was no longer on the team. Smith was a good player in Atlanta, leading them to the playoffs several times, but the same can’t be said for Detroit, where he was mostly known for being the guy who made fans scream “NOOOOOOOOOO!” at the TV the most times. Smith was undoubtedly one of the worst free-agent signings in Pistons’ history, as he was never good in Detroit and just prolonged their inevitable collapse.

Bojan Bogdanovic: $104,376,530

Current Detroit Pistons’ forward Bojan Bogdanovic is another guy who has banked over $100 million even though he’s never made an All-Star team. He had one of the best statistical seasons of his career last season and didn’t get the nod, so at age 34, it’s unlikely to happen. Bogdanovic, unlike Smith, has been productive throughout his NBA career and may have made an All-Star team had he started it a little earlier, as he didn’t even join the NBA until he was 25-years-old. He’s on a team-friendly deal that will pay him $20 million for the 2023-24 season, but after that, only $2 million is guaranteed. Bogdanovic likely has one more payday coming, but it will be a short-term deal and he may have to take less money. He’s still cashing checks and will walk out of the league with well over $100 million even though he never made an All-Star team.