Has the Maximum NBA D-League Player Salary Increased?

Up until this point, we've basically used this piece (with salary references from ESPN's Marc Stein) as our bible when it comes to NBA D-League player pay.

And with a new Showcase has come a more recent report from Stein regarding salaries, but alas, the tiers remain the same: $25,500, $19,000 and $13,000. Something interesting to note is that, according to Stein, the per-team salary cap has actually decreased, from $178,000 to a now $173,000.

With ten players per team, that's an average D-League salary of $17,300. For more, see below:

Salaries remain flat: $25,500, $19,000 and $13,000 for the league's three player classifications, which means D-League players are virtually playing for free -- and a modest per diem on the road of $40 compared to $120 in the NBA -- although they do receive housing and insurance benefits. The D-League also employs a per-team salary cap of $173,000 ... with a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax, just like in the NBA, for teams that go over that amount. Foreign teams that want to pull players out of the D-League must pay $40,000, $45,000 or $50,000, depending on the player's classification, to buy out their D-League deals.

That's from Stein. But in a recent article from Yahoo! Sports' Marc Spears, he notes that the representation for Stampede guard Pierre Jackson has received permission to help explore a potential trade of the young gun's draft rights from the Pelicans, so that another team could subsequently call Jackson up to the NBA.

In the said report, it's also noted that Jackson earns a salary of $28,000, as opposed to the aforementioned "higher" tier amount of $25,000.

This very well could be a misprint, but if it weren't, that means the higher tier salary for D-League players has increased as of late.