It's no secret that Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry is one of the most popular basketball players in the world and one of the highest-paid athletes in the NBA. However, his usually fat annual payslip may take a big hit next season due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the league still managed to put up a successful 2019-20 campaign, the NBA suffered staggering financial losses ever since Commissioner Adam Silver suspended the season last March. The empty stadiums inside Walt Disney World alone cost the NBA over hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

NBA players, of course, will also be greatly affected by these losses and could have a projected 40 percent loss in salary earnings next year. As discussed by ESPN's Rachel Nicols in the latest episode of The Jump, the Warriors star could potentially lose as much as $17 million through escrow when he returns to the Dubs in the 2020-21 season.

The two-time MVP is set to make somewhere around $43 million with the Warriors in 2020-21, but he could lose almost half of it after the NBA reviews its annual revenue by the end of 2020. The escrow clause in players' contracts states that a portion of their annual salary will be withheld in consideration of the league's earnings that year.

That percentage is usually just set at 10 percent and is returned to the players shortly since the league usually exceeds its financial targets yearly. Per the CBA agreement, a portion of the players' salaries will go to the team owners in the event that annual revenues decline.

This year's losses are expected to be catastrophic, especially for a guy like Curry who rakes in quite a fortune each year. The higher the player's salary is, the greater amount of escrow is deducted. For reference, here's a graph of the projected losses of the Warriors sharpshooter as compared to Spencer Dinwiddie's mid-level deal and Carsen Edward's rookie contract.

Stephen Curry and his family are already set for life though, so he probably won't fret over losing that amount. Still, that deduction will sting for almost every player in the league, especially those with minimum deals.