There are plenty of reasons why the Cleveland Cavaliers have high expectations heading into the 2025-26 NBA season.

This will be the core four’s fourth season together, the Wine and Gold finally have the vital playoff experience they’ve needed, and the Eastern Conference appears to be wide open for any team to reach the Finals.

There’s another reason everyone around the league is expecting big things from the Cavaliers this year, and that has to do with the interesting title Cleveland holds heading into the new year: The Cavaliers have the highest payroll of any team in the NBA.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks pointed out, the Cavaliers are the top spender in the NBA, by a wide margin. Cleveland’s total cap for this NBA season is $242,361,804, almost $5 million more than the second-place spender, the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

With a payroll this large, the Cavaliers are over the tax by nearly $40 million and will have a tax penalty of $163.8 million.

Here's a look at how much each player in Cleveland's starting five (when healthy) is making this season, per Spotrac.

• Evan Mobley - $53.8 million
• Donovan Mitchell - $50 million
• Darius Garland - $39.4 million
• Jarrett Allen - $30.2 million
• De’Andre Hunter - $22.5 million

That’s a starting lineup worth a total of roughly $195 million. The Cavaliers can’t call themselves the underdogs anymore with this much money on the books. 

There are a couple of takeaways after looking at how much money Cleveland is willing to spend this season.

First, is that the front office and ownership clearly believe this core of players has the talent to win a championship. Dan Gilbert has been willing to go deep into the luxury tax when his team has a window open. We saw it during the LeBron James era, and we’re seeing it again now. 

That said, if the Cavaliers come up short of a conference finals again this season, the front office may look to give itself a little more payroll relief moving forward. With the NBA’s new aprons, Cleveland will incur more penalties in the future if it remains significantly above the salary cap.

For now, this expensive Cavaliers team must continue to focus on one question: how can they get close to winning a championship this season?