Patrick Gerald
Jul 10, 2017 · 1 min read

While I agree that players should try to take as much of the pie from owners as they can, I think this oversimplifies the incentives at play for the involved parties. For the warriors, going super deep into the luxury tax to ensure another championship win may not be worth it to Joe Lacob, because even without the deep bench the warriors would be a very competitive team and easily sell tickets all year and have a strong chance at a title, so it really doesn’t affect the teams earnings that much whether they re-sign iggy and shaun livingston or not. There are diminishing returns. But for KD, he simply wants to maximize his championship opportunity (and is also making ~30 million a year from his shoe deal with Nike) and so being the absolute best team possible is more valuable for him. In other words, KD is affected by the ring culture of the NBA, whereas an owner simply wants to win a lot, and it’s not a championship or bust mentality.

For Dirk, I agree he should have gotten more money. Throwing a bunch of money at an aging veteran doesn’t make sense on a rebuilding roster, but it also doesn’t make sense for an aging veteran to sign with a rebuilding team. The loyalty should have gone both ways, and maybe he should have taken a paycut but they should be paying him closer to what he is worth.

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