When Kawhi Leonard forced the Los Angeles Clippers to deal away 7 first round draft picks in order to sign him, it was clear that “player empowerment” had gone too far.
When Kawhi Leonard signed for only 2 guaranteed years, it was clear that a serious line had been crossed.
We are at the crossroads, NBA fans. After an unprecedented free agency period of stroboscopic transactions, most iconic jerseys have become relics of the past. The biggest names in the sport have all seemingly changed teams in the same 2-week window: Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, etc, etc. While some may view this flurry of roster moves as ‘exciting’, I lean more towards ‘embarrassing’.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has one major trump card up his sleeve: Stop making NBA contracts guaranteed. I think it’s time to end guaranteed contracts in the NBA.
The NFL has already set the precedent here: When players sign deals, only a portion of the contracts are for guaranteed wages. This fact prevents player apathy, continually putting pressure on the players to produce. It also guards the team against injury, poor performance and, wait for it, player empowerment.
While some may view this article as anti-player, I think of it more as pro-sport. I’m not pro-management per se, but this latest flurry of NBA activity surely shows how destructive an era of enabling superstars can be. The exorbitant prices paid for Anthony Davis & Paul George (via Kawhi Leonard) show that desperate teams are willing to risk DECADES of poor team performance for ONE CHANCE to win a championship. The real losers in this equation? The fans.
Financial incentives in NBA management also contribute to this toxic environment. GMs can risk it all because they will be fired anyway if they don’t produce. These terrible deals involving handfuls of 1st round picks + young assets will be irrelevant to the fired GM – as the ramifications won’t be felt until YEARS after said GM has taken a new job as Head of Fries at McDonald’s. But it’s the FANS who will be left with literally years of depression if/when their team performs poorly – with no obvious paths to rebuilding for thousands of days…
So why should the players bear the brunt of these costs?
For a couple of reasons: 1) It’s their demands that are often selfish and unreasonable; 2) They’re overrated.
Here are a few players in the Top 10 of NBA salaries for 2019/20:
Chris Paul – $38.5 million (#2 tied)
Russell Westbrook – $38.5 million (#2 tied)
LeBron James – $37.4 million (#6)
Blake Griffin – $34.5 million (#8).
While I could probably take ANY player making a salary this high, I’ll focus on these four to prove my thesis.
All four of the aforementioned players are in the Top 10 salaries in the league. None of them won the championship, 1 of them (LeBron) didn’t even make the playoffs, two of them (Russell and Blake) got eliminated in the very first round of the playoffs and all of them SEVERELY limited their teams from adding significant roster pieces to improve the team.
While GMs certainly have to be held accountable for their transactions, my line of argumentation is quite easy to follow: Spending more money on a player guarantees you absolutely nothing.
So we find ourselves in an NBA salary cap environment where exorbitant individual player salaries derail the team’s roster options at an accelerated rate. We have already proven that paying these overrated superstars accordingly produces no tangible benefits in any definitive way. Add in that the escalating costs of acquiring said superstar now involve packaging many years worth of valuable 1st round draft picks as a sort of “acquisition tax”, and the whole situation seems like utter chaos.
From my vantage point, the whole system needs to be reset. And the fastest way to do that is by abstaining from offering guaranteed money all across the board – effective immediately.
Admittedly, this article is somewhat of a thought experiment, but it underscores the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that could be utilized here. We need to find immediate solutions to create true parity, sustainable organizations, and accountable players.
There is such a long history of players performing poorly after signing large contracts, that it’s become a cliché. Organizations are held hostage by players who decide to stop working out, stop performing at an optimum level, stop truly caring about how well they perform on the court – because the economic incentive is gone. It’s well-known that players experience a spike in stats during contract years – as their performance will be rewarded by income. Well, what if every year was a contract year? What kinds of optimum performances would we see across the board in that situation?
Player empowerment has become player extortion.
It’s time to do the right thing: Take rewarding the player for bad behavior a thing of the past.
Perhaps Kawhi’s famous laugh should be more of a subtle nod.
A little humility is always a good thing.
Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who create the biggest problems… Is it time to end guaranteed contracts in the NBA?
