This past week the Detroit Pistons made the decision to let Notre Dame alum Monty Williams go while still owing him $65 million for the remaining years of his contract. Williams made $7.9 million during his NBA playing career.
Add on his years as a NBA coach -- with three head coaching stints in New Orleans, Phoenix and Detroit -- Monty did quite well.
NBA head coaching salaries are rarely made public. Monty was a head coach for nine seasons, before signing his huge contract with the Pistons. Let's assume that Williams made on average $4 million per year (conservative assumption) over those nine seasons as a head coach and $500,000 per season (conservative assumption) during his 7 seasons as an NBA assistant coach. This would total $39.5 million.
Williams' Detroit Pistons contract totaled $78.5 million -- add up all of his compensation in professional sports and you have: $125,900,000 -- which places him FIRST on the all-time list of former Notre Dame student-athletes:
- Monty Williams: $125,900,000
- Harrison Smith: $122,735,243 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2026
- Quenton Nelson: $118,010,393 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2026
- Mike McGlinchey: $116,981,966 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2026
- Jeff Samardzija: $116,341,666
- Zack Martin: $113,240,531 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2025
- Ronnie Stanley: $108,645,183 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2024
- AJ Pollock: $78,498,337
- Anders Lee: $66,044,038 -- guaranteed contract to 2025
- Troy Murphy: $66,000,000
- Kyle Rudolph: $59,936,853
- Cole Kmet: $59,161,763 -- not guaranteed, contract to 2027
- Golden Tate: $56,421,672
- Stephon Tuitt: $55,710,551
- Brad Lidge: $55,335,000
- Pat Connaughton: $50,727,479 -- guaranteed contract to 2026
- Kyle Palmieri: $50,192,154 -- guaranteed contract to 2025
- Bryan Rust: $46,670,000 -- guaranteed contract to 2028
- Bryant Young: $44,000,000
- Justin Tuck: $43,248,463
- Romeo Okwara: $36,855,601
- John Sullivan: $35,800,027
- Jerome Bettis: $35,122,500
- Jeff Faine: $34,456,892
- Will Fuller: $34,246,582
- Jaylon Smith: $33,316,297 -- free agent
- Joe Alt: $33,160,944 -- guaranteed contract to 2027
- Ian Cole: $31,949,694 -- free agent
- Matt Carroll: $29,537,032
- Tim Brown: $28,432,686
- Laphonso Ellis: $27,939,000
- Rocket Ismail: $27,885,021
- Tyler Eifert: $26,310,317
- Joe Montana: $26,000,000
- Nick Martin: $25,185,579 -- free agent
- Steve Beuerlein: $22,238,265
