Sean Clements
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

This article is full of crap, specifically communist crap. First off, I’m not friend of capitalist owners, but egalitarian society? Come on. The NBA is covered by a collective bargaining unit. That means salaries are agreed upon between employee and employer. Within agreed upon maximum and minimum values. The contract is also agreed to by both sides. An agreement to take less has to be agreed upon by both parties. The fact that the players agreed means they are being payed what they agreed to. There is no victim here. Durant could have demanded the max and probably would have gotten it. At least somewhere. How many any teams would sign a 39 year old Dirk for that much. Durant taking less than the max is an indication he values certain things more than money. Like being on a competitive team. There is nothing wrong with that.

As far as players forming their own league I’m all for it. But let’s be honest. The players don’t have the capital to do that. As much I wished during the last lockout the players would have held out, and maybe even started their own league, they couldn’t have done it, without using the capitalist system the author bemoans to raise the money to buy stadiums, facilities and hire employees. And would a player owned league be any different? Would players all take the same salary or fight for the profits among the skilled and less skilled. Would new players have to buy in to the league? And take on what would be essentially student loans to gain an ownership interest. Would retiring players take out their share and lessen the value of the league? In an egalitarian (communist) society would this author be happy being told we really don’t need more writers but you can be a garbage man?

And aren’t we all in this situation? I mean ideologically I feel like I won’t work for less than I’m worth eigther. But in reality I could make far more moving to another not as nice location. I was once offered a great paying job on Johnston Atoll. Who wants to live there? My wife sure wasn’t having it.

What I’m saying is I believe in socialist things like unions, workers rights, etc. the NBA has these things. The players profit greatly for it. Any agreement for less is fair under that system. Nobody is forcing a player’s arm to sign an unfavorable deal. Which for the player, is maybe not unfavorable at all. If anything, I wish the players would have never agreed to lower revenue sharing to 50 percent. And that maybe the max and min salaries were a little higher. (Which would could effectively be accomplished with a higher revenue sharing percentage. I feel 70 percent is realistically more fair to the players.)

While I would rather see the owners pay more. Durant taking a pay cut seems ok when the owners are far into the cap and effectively taking a pay cut as well. They are sharing the revenue loss. I’m ok with this. If it was an owner like the former Clippers owner who wouldn’t ever go into the cap or spend money, I would not be. They are both leaving money on the table for a larger goal.

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