Competition Policy in the NBA: A Review in the Wake of LeBron James
In the NFL, there is a franchise tag. In economic policy, there are laws that protect against antitrust and collusion. In international relations, there are multi-national bodies that deliver security and aid to nations in need. But in the NBA, the most talented player in the league, and arguably the best (LeBron James) and a top-15 player (Chris Bosh) can abandon their own teams (Cleveland and Toronto), to gang up with a top-five player (Dwyane Wade) in Miami.
If there is an argument to be made against limited government, it is this precisely—that individual players (whether they be men, organizations, or nations) can sabotage the fair competition landscape by bandwagoning and forming such special interest groups to the detriment of the entire system.
Monopolies, oligopolies, or even concentrations of power are the enemies of such a fair competition system; monopolies drive up prices to consumers while giving economic rents to the individual company. Dictatorships or even undemocratic systems, including regional organizations, concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few.
And collusion of talent means that the top player, a top-five player, and a top-15 player can be on the same team in a 30-team league.
The underlying premise is that competition brings out the best in people. We want to see Google compete with Yahoo and Microsoft, so that they have incentive to provide us with the best product at the lowest prices that is financially feasible for said companies. We don't want to see Google buy Yahoo and Microsoft and then double prices while reducing innovation because they have the power to do so.
And so, we want to see LeBron James compete against Dwyane Wade, as they have done so exquisitely in the past in a number of occasions. In fact, some of the best regular season games in recent memory have been when LeBron James has laced it up against Dwyane Wade. As NBA consumers, this is what we pay to see.
There is no value to the NBA product if it is just 'superheroes' going up against "inferior villians"that we know will eventually lose. That is what Hollywood is for. There is no value to Michael Jordan's legacy if at age 26, he gave up and decided to join the Detroit Pistons. Remember Jordan scoring 63 points at the Boston Garden in a playoff game? That is competition at its finest. Now imagine Jordan and Bird on the same team. Or Bird and Magic.
Or Lebron and Dwyane Wade (and Chris Bosh).
The most common counterargument that has been made is that several successful teams have had more than one top-billing player in the past. The problem with this counterargument is that there is a fair manner to add talent, and there is an unfair manner (collusion). Let's examine some cases in point:
Kobe and Shaq. While Shaq came via free agency, Kobe was acquired via draft-night trade as an 18-year-old rookie straight out of high school. There is a place in fair competition where skill and performance are rewarded; in this case it was the Lakers scouting team that valued Kobe Bryant. Furthermore, Shaq did not come to Los Angeles to gang up with one of the league's top players: Kobe Bryant was a rookie. The two built up their legacy together.
Kobe and Pau Gasol. Pau was a largely forgotten player in Memphis, nowhere near stature of LeBron James (plus Chris Bosh). He had not won a single playoff game in his career. Still, there are some worthy allegations here, namely that the Memphis organization okayed the trade for Gasol in order to save money. Nonetheless, the scope of the Gasol trade pales in comparison to The Decision.
Jordan and Pippen. This is probably the weakest argument. Both players spent their entire careers (Pippen's late run with the Trail Blazers notwithstanding) on the Bulls, went through trials and tribulations together, and carved their legacy together. There was absolutely no collusion of talent here.
Boston's Big Three, Malone and Payton going to Los Angeles. The primary difference here is that Garnett and Allen, and much more so Malone and Payton, were at the tail ends of their careers. LeBron and Bosh, on the other hand, are entering their primes, while Wade is in his prime, and LeBron was on a near-championship caliber team already.
San Antonio. The Spurs acquired their talent legitimately, through the draft. The scored once in the lottery with Tim Duncan in 1997, but Ginobli and Parker are late draft picks, especially Ginobli.
The Boston and Los Angeles teams of old. When the NBA started out, talent was definitely concentrated in a few places, to the detriment of the league. Everyone knew that rest of the league had no shot at the championship, and this made for a far weaker NBA product. I, for one, do not care to revisit those old days.
There is a reason that the Decision sat so poorly in the eyes and stomachs of the world audience. Never before has the most talented player in the world, just entering his prime, left a championship contender to go to a competitor.
Kobe Bryant didn't do it in 2005, and he was *not* returning to a team that was anywhere near a championship contender; in fact the Lakers missed the playoffs the following year, the only time that has happened in his career. Furthermore, wherever he was going (the Clippers, Bulls), he would have been the leader, and not an interloper into a team that another Hall of Famer had built up through the years.
The NBA ought to consider adding a franchise tag to its toolkit of regulations, and/or stricter salary cap restrictions. It helps the NBA product as a whole to see its best go against each other instead of teaming up against weaker opponents. That's the spirit of competition—whether it is in sports or economics. And if we want to see the best gang up like the Power Rangers or X-men, well, that is what the Olympics and the all-star weekend are for.
