Rockets steal another player from the Lakers: BJ Young signing with Rio Grande Valley

wth? How do you live off 13,000?

 

i'm sure room & board is included... So, you are basically in college without the classes.

 

For the short term.. You make a good point.

Long term, he really does not have 4 pg's ahead of him. In all likelihood AB will be gone after the season. Lin very well could be traded. So that leaves Bev, Canaan, and Young.

Perhaps Young believes he can beat out one or both of those guys..

 

That's $13K for the season. But since the season is only a few months, they can work other non-basketball jobs during the off-season to earn money.

Or they get support from family. Greg Smith's mom works at Krogers. Scott Machado's dad was doing illegal taxi cab driving off books (before he was killed in an incident with police).

 

They jump around from league to league. 3 months with D-League. Perhaps 3 months in a league in Europe. Perhaps another 3 in Asia etc..

 

It's supply and demand. Huge supply, low demand.

They're playing based on talent with very low barriers to entry. Any kid playing basketball on a street corner can sign up to try out for a D-League team. It doesn't mean they'll have the talent to make it, but there's no barrier to entry like a medical degree or years of schooling or professional board certification. So the low barriers to entry means there's a glut of guys in the pipeline and a large supply of new young guys every year who want to try out.

There's also very low demand, since they're not generating much economic value. No one is paying thousands of dollars for luxury box seats to see the Vipers. No big TV contracts for the D-League or mega endorsement deals for D-League allstars.

As with most talent based professions with low barriers to entry, a few guys make it big on the top and everyone else toils away chasing the dream and living on scraps barely able to make ends meet. Acting, novel writers, music, etc. You have a few guys making megamillions like Leonardo DiCaprio, Stephen King, Celine Dion, Lebron James. And then you the vast majority of out of work actors clogging Hollywood waiting tables in between gigs hoping for their big break, zillions of self-publishing (vanity) novelists or guys who keep sending submissions to the editorial slush pile who don't make a dime in profit, guitar players playing on street corners waiting for people to toss in dollars to their guitar case, and D-Leaguers.

At least the $13K means they make more than the curb side musician. They're getting paid to play a child's game. If you want music or basketball to be more than a hobby, you have to be really good to be a professional. And even then, you still might not be lucky enough to make it.

They're not going to pay the D-Leaguers lots of money, because, honestly, how many of you will pay premium money for luxury box tickets to D-League games, or buy authentic autographed D-League jerseys, or buy a cable subscription just to watch D-League games? The out of work actor working as a waiter at a restaurant in between auditions probably contributes more economic value to the economy than a guy putting a ball through a hope in a D-League child's game.

But that's the risk they take when they follow their dreams to try to make it big, instead of choosing a safer stable career route like becoming a doctor or accountant. There's a much greater chance that they'll end up being an "actor" who waits tables, or singing on a street corner, or getting rejections to their latest manuscripts, or being a D-Leaguer than there is that they'll be Leonardo DiCaprio, Celine Dion, Stephen King, or Lebron James.

 

But the D-League makes the NBA better by developing young players and finding new talent. Just like the "farm system" minor league baseball helps the MLB. It's much easier for an NBA team to scout and acquire new players in the D-League than for them to go all the way to Europe to get players.

D-League salaries should reflect the benefits they provide to the NBA.

 

The D-League is not like the minor leagues in MLB. MLB teams have a farm system relationship with their minor league teams. That's not the case with D-League teams where not every NBA team has an exclusive relationship with a D-League teams.

It's only recently that some NBA teams have begun to develop a farm system relationship like the way the Rockets are connected to the Vipers. Some D-League teams are affiliated with multiple NBA teams because not every NBA teams has their own D-League team.

Not every D-League team is owned by an NBA team, nor do all of them have an exclusive financial relationship. Thus money from NBA teams don't flow back to D-League teams as much.

And NBA teams are much more likely to draft out of college (or overseas) than out of the D-League. So while D-League can be used to develop prospects AFTER they've been drafted, the NCAA serves more of a farm system role than the D-League, compared to the way the MLB uses the minor leagues.

Players developed by a D-League team can also be called up by ANY NBA team, not necessarily the one the D-League team has a relationship with. This further distances the farm system aspect compared to MLB/minor league teams. What's the point of developing guys in the D-League only to have another NBA team that has no financial relationship with the D-League team swoop in and take them away?

And in the case of the large media markets like NY or LA, they use OTHER NBA teams as their farm system (Denver Melo to Knicks, Cleveland Lebron to Miami, New Orleans CP3 to Clippers, Toronoto Bosh to Miami, etc.).

The D-League system is nothing like the MLB/minor league farm system.