NBA: Why NBA Players Must Compromise on Contracts to Avoid a Lockout
For the love of the game.
That phrase could be a little ubiquitous. You hear just about every player say it in any respective sport.
It mostly rings true in hockey; those guys take a beating like a football player and play just as many games as those guys in the NBA, but on average only get paid a fraction of the amount. Those guys play for the love of the game.
You could argue some baseball players play more for the money rather than the game (A-Rod, looking at you, champ). You can't fully blame A-Rod (though we in Seattle do) for chasing all this money; his agent Scott Boras is probably one of the most greedy men in all of sports today. I bet he hangs out with Donald Sterling on the weekends.
Football guys, they do tend to be out for the money, but the physical strain those guys put on their bodies is amazing, and they deserve just about every dime they get. As long as they save it and prepare for the future, then I really have no issue with how big their contracts are. Medical bills are expensive and add up very quickly—take it from a guy who had more than $250,000 in medical bills from a battle with cancer.
Then you look at basketball.
Basketball is a game that I love and have played for more than 25 years. The amount I play isn't the amount I used to, but a perfect day for me is getting seven or nine other guys together and getting a four-on-four or five-on-five full-court game going and playing until the sun goes down. Or if we are lucky enough to have lights, we play until we can't run anymore.
Outside of guys like Kevin Durant and Steve Nash, what player out there is just in it for the love of the game?
There are other guys in the NBA like Durant and Nash; guys who go out there every night, play their hearts out and would probably do it for just about minimum wage and decent medical benefits.
You can't convince me otherwise. They just have a different mindset from most other players.
For every one of those guys though, there is an Eddy Curry, Darius Miles or Stephon Marbury. Guys who only care about stats, collecting a paycheck whether they play or not and whether they win a championship or not. It's guys like these who change the perception of the NBA player; these are the guys who sign the big contracts that make their teams immediately regret it.
Yes, I completely understand this is the player's goal and should basically be the goal of any person in America. If you are better at your job than 90 percent of the people in your profession, then you should be paid better than that 90 percent, unless you are in that bottom one percent of the upper quota. Then you should not be making anything remotely close to the guys who are at the top.
Guys like Curry, Miles and Marbury made way too much money in their careers, and because they got paid, other players in the NBA had delusions that they should also be making an absurd amount of money. I could list some of the current contracts out there, but I don't have to. Just by reading these sentences, I'm sure you've already thought of about 20 contracts in the NBA that are horrible and should not have been signed.
Again, it is the job of the players and the union to get the highest absolute contract per player. Even Steve Scheffler had the right to get paid millions more than he was worth. Damn, I miss The Scheff.
Even though they have the right to the contract, should the players really go for it?
A lot would argue yes, because if an owner is going to throw millions of unjust dollars at a guy like Amir Johnson or Travis Outlaw, then hell yes, they are going to take it. It goes back to owners not being able to help themselves, and they really needed to get this spending in line. The players should have some resolve and not always go for the highest dollar amount.
Why?
Well, for one, I love to attend live basketball games. There is nothing like sitting so close to the court that Scott Foster can hear your every comment and threaten to kick you out because he can't take the heat for calling a bad game.
Not everyone can afford this luxury, and I can't myself anymore.
It's now almost cheaper to get NBA League Pass for a whole season than it is for a couple to attend a basketball game with decent seats. Food is cheaper at home, parking is cheaper at home and well, everything is just cheaper. Not mention that your couch is probably much more comfortable than the seat you're sitting in.
With games in 1080p and some in 3D, why would you want to go spend a few hundred dollars at a basketball game? You can spend substantially less at a baseball game or again, by just staying home.
As players keep going after huge contracts and getting every dime they possibly can from owners' pockets, that just opens up owners to crying that they aren't making enough money, spending is out of control and things need to be done to rectify the situation—like jacking up ticket prices in the worst financial depression the United States has seen since the 1920's.
Yeah, that's going to really work. Games weren't already affordable to the masses; now they are even less affordable.
And beer has gone up an extra $1.50 on average? To hell with that. I'll enjoy my 58-cent bottle of Miller Lite from my own fridge. You can keep your $9.50 20-ounce beer, I'm good. I'll drink two at home for $8.50 less than you're charging for one.
See, now this is also two-fold.
Prices will get even higher once fans stop going, but if we the fans take a stand to stop going and just watch from home, then let's see how those contracts end up getting paid. For my second point, high player contracts can drive owners to lose tens of millions of dollars a year, then we get higher ticket prices, fans stop coming to games because it is so expensive and we get a form of this quote:
"Unless we get taxpayers to pay for a $500 million arena, we are picking up this team and moving or selling to a guy who will move it."
Welcome to the world of Charlotte, New Orleans, Seattle, Vancouver and soon-to-be Sacramento. Yes, I do realize the Hornets haven't moved yet, but I can almost guarantee they won't be in New Orleans after the lockout.
Now here is the catch-22 of the situation.
If the owner keeps costs low by keeping payroll low, then the team is probably going to stink, fans will stop showing up, the owner will lose money anyway when he tried very hard not to and will be "forced" to sell or move to another location. The owners, even though they helped create this mess, could always be seen as the losers. They pay way too much for a franchise that is almost guaranteed to lose money nowadays. Why would you want to put yourself in that position now?
Another reason to keep costs low is to win a championship. A player gets more money for making the playoffs anyway, and if you make the playoffs and you're remotely good, you're going to get some sort of endorsement money from a corporation.
But look at Miami. They have three top-15 players on their team, and then what else? How are they going to get anyone remotely decent that is going to help them win a championship?
That is the problem with that situation. If they all decided to take around $80 million each, that would have freed up nearly an extra $60 million a season to go out and get good role-players to fill around them. Are you going to win a championship when Mario Chalmers is your fourth best player? Sorry, this isn't Kansas anymore.
Lower contracts, better players around the stars, more championships, more profit.
Oh my! I think I just figured this whole thing out!
Where the players have to compromise to avoid the potential lockout is at the contract level. They need to be willing to accept less on the contract front; winners will be put on the floor, franchises might stop moving, quality talent will be drawn together to win championships and owners and players will then get a little bit more money.
Sadly, this isn't a perfect world, this is America.
So we're not going to see a hard cap, probably won't see non-guaranteed contracts (biggest franchise killer, just ask every Knicks fan) and we'll see reduced spending for a year or two. But then we'll see a guy like Carl Landry getting a four-year, $64 million contract from the New Jersey Nets in 2014.
Crap, we basketball fans are just going to keep getting shafted, aren't we? Should we just prepare for the lockouts in 2018, 2024 and 2032?
