considering all of the tampering charges la has been charged with i could see this as being a possibility.
I can too actually, but if it were ever proven they'd be sanctioned pretty hard. I fully believe they've been in contact with Lebron's reps though while he was with Cleveland. No way to monitor it.
The shoe company's own interest will stop it Nike doesn't sell shoes to just LA. It sells shoes to Cleveland, Miami, Milwaukee, China, Japan etc. Like I said "regulating" shoe companies would be just another form of control over the players which goes against the spirit of Free Agency and their own human rights. Who is the NBA to interfere with the NBA player's own business of shoe selling? Its not like the NBA itself give shoe endorsements to players, the players got it through their own hard work and the efforts of their agent and staff. Lebron's Nike shoe deal is a separate matter from the NBA and so the NBA should be hands off about it. Everything can lead to collusion and tampering, the agents can team up with NBA teams and collude. Players themselves can tamper and collude like what happened in Miami. Owners can collude with each other, Colleges can collude with NBA teams etc.The whole point of being a free agent is to sign with whatever team you want for whatever agenda you have. If you are gonna regulate players who sign with teams for their shoe companies why are you playing favorites and singling shoe company agendas over other agendas? So going to a team so your shoe company will pay you more $$$ is not ok but going to a team to be paid more $$$ is ok? People like Durant who join a powerhouse team to win a ring why is that ok but shoe endorsements are not ok? Lol what kind of logic is that? Finally how do you even legally prove the shoe company was responsible for the move? Durant going to GSW made him the 3rd most popular shoe seller, but it also lead to him getting two rings. How do you prove he signed at Nike's behest more than trying to win a ring? Harden signed a max deal with Houston and a 100M+ deal with Addidas, how do you know if Addidas told him to sign with Houston to corner the untapped Houston market? There isn't just one reason NBa players sign with teams there are often multiple reasons for it.
there is not. but it is easy to realize if the grizzlies drafted the next Michael Jordan, kobe or lebron and Nike told that player we will give you $1 billion deal lifetime deal with a base of half a billion. you just have to sell shoes to get the rest of that billion. Nike knows that players agent is smart enough to tell him that the only way to sell more shoes is if he moves to a big market franchise. said player would leave a lot of NBA salary on the table to abandon the grizzlies for a big market team. Even though the NBA forbids contract language that states you cannot say we will pay you more for joining so and so team specifically, this is the loophole. shoe deals are worth much more to the top players than nba contracts as we see with lebron. his brand is worth over 20x his entire nba salary.
Top 3 active NBA player shoe sellers today are Lebron, KD and Harden. Cleveland, Golden state and Houston are not glamor cities if they need to go to LA ir NYC to sell a bajilion shoes how come Ball and Porzingis aren't the top shoe sellers? Whatever Nike sells in 1 state is dwarfed by whatever they sell in the whole world this is year 2018 already not 2000. Besides, going to a big market team should be a player's right, like when Shaq left Orlando for the Lakers that's his prerogative I mean thats the whole point of being a free agent you get to sign to whichever team you want. While I hate Lebron going to LA he did sign a max deal to get there so as per NBA rules he isnt doing anything wrong just exercising his right to be a free agent. If you are gonna say Nike is the only reason Lebron signed with LA first you need to prove why Nike will pay Lebron even more money when he is already the top shoe seller around and the other top guys are Jordan and Kobe who are also from Nike. What exactly is the incentive here? LA is already Nike country thanks more than a decade of Kobe.
You could look at compensation draft picks like the MLB does. It works better there though since there are so many rounds as oppose to basketball where there are basicly 1 and a half rounds of guys that make the roster.
