So let me get this straight: you get good, real good, really good at putting a ball through a hoop 10 feet off the ground and you can be set for life?

No need to get a real job by going through a plumber’s apprenticeship program, or becoming an electrician or working as a trauma nurse.

When the advice-giving dad in the movie “The Graduate” leaned over and told Dustin Hoffman the secret to success was “plastics,” he should have been whispering “basketball” in Dusty’s ear.

These days you could, of course, replace basketball with football, baseball or any other sports with pay for play competition.

Don’t want to squeeze through crawl spaces to hook up pipes? Dribble my friends, dribble.

If the thought of caring for a badly injured human is not your cup of tea, learn to dunk, and I’m not talking about doughnuts.

Driving a truck with supplies for the country a bad-sounding idea? Develop an outside shot from three-point range.

So what is it that has tapped this vein of sarcasm?

A list I just printed out of the top 20 salaries in the National Basketball Association.

Wow! Gulp! Are you kidding me? To play a game?

Yup.

According to the list I have in my hands, at least 11 players make more than $40 million a year putting that ball in that hoop, led by the $48 million per year collected by Golden State guard Stephen Curry.

More power to them. I cannot run that fast, never have had a decent jump shot and my vertical leap is pathetic. You could almost slide a dime between my sneakers and the court on my best jump.

Baseball and football and hockey and soccer...they all make a fortune.

Basketball superstar LeBron James takes in a cool $44 million a year from the Los Angeles Lakers.

The list goes on and on. And, astonishingly, it does not include millions more that most of the elite players rake in from product endorsements.

Greed and TV money just keep stuffing the dollar pipeline. Salary “caps”, limits placed on the amount teams can spend, are skirted more than mobile homes in the trailer park.

Foreign money, right LeBron, can also pad the bank account in a big way.

So with all this reward for one particular skill, no one in the NBA, NFL or MLB would be anything but grateful for their good fortune, right?

Wrong.

Holding out for more money is to professional athletes what trying to figure out a tip on a burger and fries is to the rest of us.

And I know the argument is that they have a skill not many of us possess. They are the best of the best. Can’t argue with that.

But is anyone on this planet really “worth” $40 million a year for playing a game many of us would play for, say, 1/100th of that amount?

What about the carpenters who earn a living building palaces for the super stars? Should not a school custodian, responsible for a clean environment for our children, collect a couple “mill” a year?

It’s what the market will allow, is the standard comeback in defense of the mega-buck paychecks.

When one of these privileged few get injured, shouldn’t the nurses, physical therapists and Radiology techs get a slice of the golden pie for getting them back on the court?

No one pays to watch an X-ray tech at work. Not many would buy a ticket and dress up like their favorite plumber at work.

Would anyone fork over $50 to watch a garbage truck roll by, knowing the folks in the truck are doing a more important service to humanity than ball-in-hole dudes?

Surely, being so blessed, not one of the stars would have any gripes about the paltry millions they make, right?

I love sports and watch a lot of it.

But I’ve come to see the sport in its purest form is at the high school level.

No doubt there is some behind the scenes financial foolery creeping into the high school game.

But the players still play for free. The tickets are $5 or $6 and the spirit of competition, not the skill level of a few, is what it’s all about.

If the entire pro sports world collapsed tomorrow, which I fear could happen given the runaway salary spirals, you could still get a broken ankle fixed. And tradesmen would still be available to work their magic.

Just a little perspective I guess.