SLATE: What's The NBA's Optimal Labor Cartelization Strategy?

1. I'm always annoyed by the characterization of rookies not getting to choose what company to work for. I think it's more appropriate to think of it as they choose to work for the NBA, but don't get to choose what department they work in. That's a pretty common arrangement with companies recruiting workers out of college and graduate school in rotational or development programs. (The corporate structure of the NBA is more complicated than that, but the effect is similar.) Later, those workers have some choice of which department to work for.

2. It'll probably save the franchises some money at the players' expense. But, I wouldn't say it is inappropriate. More often than not, rookies aren't earning the money they are paid in their rookie season. Teams pay it as an investment in their future. You'll have the occassional Derrick Rose or Chandler Parsons who are effectively underpaid in their 1st year, but you'll have many more like Marcus Morris who spend most of their time learning instead of working.

 

This is what I've always been saying to those "players deserve freedom of choice" advocates. The players are free to choose to play for the NBA or the Euroleague or in China, or work for Best Buy, or whatever. If they choose to play for the most prestigious basketball league, it is completely reasonable that they play by the league's terms.

Of course, the players have leverage too, which is their talents. So it is a matter of how the two sides get it to work. There is not "deserved freedom" in it.

 

He can quit and go work for BP, Chevron, etc. Sports league are legalized monopolies so the same argument does not work.

 

And basketball players can go play in Europe or China. Several of them did just that during the lockout.

 

The draft needs a limited Free Agency for the top 3 players that pays them real money, allows both bad and mediocre teams a chance to get them, and prevents big market teams from getting them.

 

I guess the difference between leaving Shell to go to BP as far as salary, job surroundings, work quality, etc is comparable to leaving the NBA to play in the Euroleague.

 

If the players want all that there's nothing preventing them creating their own rival league here in the states, except for the fact that it wouldn't be financially viable.

 

1. A league with fewer young players actually helps the veteran players who get signed as a result of the younger players not being in the league- the salary cap room has to go somewhere, and it will go to older players who are more established.

2. In the long run, if the NBA keeps screwing their workers like this, athletes will simply move to the NFL, MLB, or other professional sports leagues and the NBA will be committing suicide if they continue this approach.

 

I am all for allowing for rival leagues. Look at how all those football leagues did trying to compete with the NFL over the years. The best one was the USFL, which actually was able to lure some star players. They eventually folded.

Baseball had two leagues that merged into MLB to compete for the World Series. Europe has multiple independent soccer leagues. They also have some inter-league tournaments that are highly prestigious.

The fact is, there is an inherent "monopoly" in sport leagues because of the nature of the business. You have to have a controlled environment for the competition to be meaningful. Total labor freedom would kill the competition that is the real product they sell.

Again, athletes are no different from any employees. They can choose to quit any time if the don't like it. And if they want a piece of the pie, they have to follow the rules and get paid for the skills they possess.

 

I don't see how an anti-trust exemption for the NBA would hurt a rival league created by the players, which would likely have the same anti-trust exemption. Not unless the new league had no draft, trades, or salary cap and therefore didn't require an exemption. I could see how a new league that was basically all exhibition games would fail to garner any interest.

 

it's possible i did the numbers wrong or hoops*world had bad salary information (it looked the same as some other sites) but i calculated some numbers. i compared 19 and 20 year old rookies vs the average player. the average player is someone in their 5th year or later (i.e. not on rookie contract) who played at least 200 minutes (not even 4 minutes per game so far). there were 217 players that qualified and 12 rookies that had played a minute.

the average players are making $1.424B this season and have produced 509 WS for an average of $2.798 million/WS. in terms of WS/48 it would be $61.8 million per WS/48.

the rookies are making $30.3M this season and have produced 14.5 WS for an average of $2.088 million/WS. $37.3 million per WS/48.

so if i calculated it right, the 19 and 20 year old rookies are more cost effective that your average non-rookie contract player.

 

as for the point about costing players money, while i am not in favor of an age limit it doesn't really cost players money, it just inefficiently shifts it to older players. now certainly it will cost some guys who could have been a high draft pick at 19 and then weren't at a later age or cost players who get injured, but the players as a whole have to get a certain amount of money per year so someone has to get it. the year or two of pay you miss out on up front would theoretically just be spread across contracts in your later years. which leads to overpaid older players, which apparently is what everyone wants to see. having the best players in the league and paying them is a bridge too far i guess.