While NBA players celebrate the ‘player empowerment’ era, a dark cloud looms in the distance. An NBA lockout can be looming.
It was only 8 short years ago, NBA owners locked out the players to create a more palatable labor climate. Lost in the celebration of Kawhi’s free agency manipulation, AD’s trade request, KD’s posturing, etc – is the fact that NBA owners are, always have been and always will be… the BOSS.
Rudimentary economics teaches us that price is where the intersection of supply and demand meet. NBA players interpret this to mean: “we’re the best, so we get the highest price!” But that’s a fallacy. Because you see, money is finite. NBA player salaries cannot rise to infinity, but instead hit a ceiling that was negotiated between players and owners during the last lockout. It is foolish to believe that players have true autonomy when they are dependent on owners to write them cheques. This latest flurry of NBA player self-entitlement can be swiftly wiped out with another lockout.
The chatter has been muffled, but it persists. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has alluded to ambiguous steps in order to reign in reckless player behavior. Whispers of words like “tampering”, “honoring contracts”, etc are starting to drip into the NBA vernacular for those of us writing about the league as a job. These musings are not just opinions from fans, these are warning signs from the boss: beware.
There is a long history of athletes who get humbled quite quickly in the face of certain insubordination: Gilbert Arenas thought he was so untouchable he brought guns into the locker room, Javaris Crittenton called his bluff. Ron Artest thought he could make the fans accountable for their actions, and had to change his name to try and stay in the league. Allen Iverson refused to come off the bench and had to go find a starting lineup in Turkey. NBA owners have proven a savvy bunch. Aside from Mark Cuban, they generally keep their cards very close to the vest. But they always take swift action when the players think that inmates run the asylum. ALWAYS.
The players may be millionaires, but the owners are BILLIONAIRES. I personally don’t like those odds for the players.
Owners have egos too, and sports owners have giant ones. There is a certain personality attracted to the world of sports, and that’s COMPETITIVE human beings. When an employee thinks he can outperform his boss, he usually gets fired. He is then free to start his own firm. Some of those new firms become quite successful, but I don’t like the odds of Kawhi, Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant starting their own league. For all the outrage the WNBA players spout off, the economics of the situation always trump politics…
The players should interpret this latest series of power moves as a warning: You got what you wanted for now, but don’t push any harder. You can lean on the glass for a while, but eventually, it breaks.
Nothing is harder to clean up than shattered ego on the ground.
Just ask Carmelo Anthony. Is An NBA lockout looming? Stay tuned…
