Author Topic: LeBron James doesn’t think it’s possible to be paid his actual value under CBA  (Read 14296 times)

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Offline indeedproceed

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So, how much money will he be able to make if the league didn't exist in its current form? Yeah, I thought so.

That's not really the point of his comment though. Assuming his current level of play (and that of the past few years), there is no amount of money allowed under the CBA that would pay him commisserately for the number of wins he brings, or by another standard, the amount of attention (and thus profits) he brings his team.

Its not like he's going to act on his comments, he's just stating a fact.

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Offline Q_FBE

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Why doesn't he go back to Cleveland after next year (when he has three Miami Heat championship rings presumably) and team up with Kyrie Irving and Greg Oden? I am sure that he would be in the mix for more rings with Cleveland.

Maybe we can pick up Anderson Varejao to make room for the king.
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Offline ewp

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All these guys are over paid and should be thankful for the money they make.  They play a kid's game for a living.   I for one think they are over compensated.

At the same time, though, they're the key pieces in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Sure, in a perfect world sports and entertainment figures wouldn't be the world's highest paid people.  However, when those people are generating the revenue they do, it's to be expected.

It says way too much to my sensibilities when someone who makes the money that he does can complain at all about compensation.  Sure he's the best player and not being paid more than everyone else; boo frickin hoo.  He could have gone to New York or New Jersey had he chosen to and make more.  He chose not to in a play to make a "super team" to win "Not 5, not 6..." blah blah.  Now he got a single title and all of a sudden he can't get paid enough?  There are few athletes that I find harder to root for than James.

Offline wdleehi

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All these guys are over paid and should be thankful for the money they make.  They play a kid's game for a living.   I for one think they are over compensated.

At the same time, though, they're the key pieces in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Sure, in a perfect world sports and entertainment figures wouldn't be the world's highest paid people.  However, when those people are generating the revenue they do, it's to be expected.

It says way too much to my sensibilities when someone who makes the money that he does can complain at all about compensation.  Sure he's the best player and not being paid more than everyone else; boo frickin hoo.  He could have gone to New York or New Jersey had he chosen to and make more.  He chose not to in a play to make a "super team" to win "Not 5, not 6..." blah blah.  Now he got a single title and all of a sudden he can't get paid enough?  There are few athletes that I find harder to root for than James.


Yet it is OK for an actor to ask for 20 million because his movies make so much money?



How many business people would allow to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?

Offline Brendan

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I don't think NBA teams are really competitive businesses. I think its better understood that the NBA competes with the NFL and other luxury entertainment options for $. So I see no problem with the league setting pay rules.

At the same time - Lebron is probably worth 50-100m per year, depending on what market is he playing with and the team's ability to attract talent. (i.e. his value would be higher going to a team with no shot of drafting / signing a first team talent.)

Offline ewp

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if i could make 1 percent of what he makes, i would be a happy man

Not if the service you were providing your employer was possibly worth double what he's making.

I don't understand this thinking.  At what point does what my boss is making matter to me?  Well, I can honestly see if you're underpaid.  That stinks and I get it, believe me.  Life is hard when you're struggling to make ends meet.  I however don't believe any of these players are underpaid in any sense of the word, but most of them are extremely overpaid. 

With that said, I'd love to see them make less, and make the games less expensive for people to attend.  They'd be giving back to the fans, not the owners.  Not that I'm naive enough to think that would ever happen.  I'm just saying...

Offline ewp

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All these guys are over paid and should be thankful for the money they make.  They play a kid's game for a living.   I for one think they are over compensated.

At the same time, though, they're the key pieces in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Sure, in a perfect world sports and entertainment figures wouldn't be the world's highest paid people.  However, when those people are generating the revenue they do, it's to be expected.

It says way too much to my sensibilities when someone who makes the money that he does can complain at all about compensation.  Sure he's the best player and not being paid more than everyone else; boo frickin hoo.  He could have gone to New York or New Jersey had he chosen to and make more.  He chose not to in a play to make a "super team" to win "Not 5, not 6..." blah blah.  Now he got a single title and all of a sudden he can't get paid enough?  There are few athletes that I find harder to root for than James.


Yet it is OK for an actor to ask for 20 million because his movies make so much money?



How many business people would allow to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?

A) No, it's not.  But that's the way it is.
B) Most of them if they had their way.

Offline scaryjerry

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I don't think he was complaining about it, he was complaining about not getting credit for sacrificing his own pay for the good of the team. Still whining, but a totally different sort of whining.

How is he sacrificing his pay for the good of the team? Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't he payed the MAX?

It's one thing to not be paid what you're valued due to rules of the association, is another to leave money on the table that you could have gotten from your team in order to make the team better.


He took the same contract as bosh and wade when he's clearly worth more so they could all play together.

Offline indeedproceed

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All these guys are over paid and should be thankful for the money they make.  They play a kid's game for a living.   I for one think they are over compensated.

At the same time, though, they're the key pieces in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Sure, in a perfect world sports and entertainment figures wouldn't be the world's highest paid people.  However, when those people are generating the revenue they do, it's to be expected.

It says way too much to my sensibilities when someone who makes the money that he does can complain at all about compensation.  Sure he's the best player and not being paid more than everyone else; boo frickin hoo.  He could have gone to New York or New Jersey had he chosen to and make more.  He chose not to in a play to make a "super team" to win "Not 5, not 6..." blah blah.  Now he got a single title and all of a sudden he can't get paid enough?  There are few athletes that I find harder to root for than James.


Yet it is OK for an actor to ask for 20 million because his movies make so much money?

A) No, it's not.  But that's the way it is.

Why is it not 'okay'? They're getting back a payment commiserate with what they're bringing in. They're being paid fairly. If your job were to make your company money, in literally any other field, and you vastly out-performed anyone else in the industry in the world, wouldn't you want to paid on a scale that values your contribution? LeBron's point here is not that he took less money to play in Miami, his point is that even if he got the maximum allowable salary in the CBA, it still would not equal a payment comparable to the value he brings in.



Quote
How many business people would allow to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?

B) Most of them if they had their way.
[/quote]

I don't understand what you're saying here. Who is 'them', 'they', and 'their'?

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like that is always lethal." - Evan 'The God' Turner

Offline ewp

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Most of them is in direct response to the question that I read incorrectly.  :)  "How many business people would allow to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?"  I had read it as "How many businesses would allow people to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?"  It's tough to make sense when you respond to a question that wasn't asked....  :D

Why is it not OK to me has a lot to do with how I place value on professions.  I for one feel like police, teachers, firefighters, and many other professions for that matter, bring a whole lot more value to society than they are paid.  So if you base things on a purely monetary system, then I'm wrong, as these roles do not bring in revenue.  It's not to say that the players shouldn't be paid and paid well.  They (both good actors/actresses and professional athletes) a very small subset of the population which drives up their value.  I will grant you that they are paid commensurate with their market within the boundaries of their CBA.  It just so happens that their market overpays IMO, and when a person whines or complains about their pay when they make millions of dollars and chose to make less than they could have, I find it repulsive.  Most of us don't have the luxury of leaving money on the table and then complaining about it later.  If I did, I certainly would not be complaining about it.  But I don't know, maybe I wouldn't mind living in Roy H's "perfect world".

James made his bed, now he gets to lie in it.  At least he can take solace as he suffers with his unfairly low salary that he gets to lie in a multi-million dollar bed.  :)
« Last Edit: February 04, 2013, 04:04:42 PM by ewp »

Offline CelticConcourse

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Offline indeedproceed

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Most of them is in direct response to the question that I read incorrectly.  :)  "How many business people would allow to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?"  I had read it as "How many businesses would allow people to be so underpayed vs. the amount of revenue that they bring in?"  It's tough to make sense when you respond to a question that wasn't asked....  :D

Gotcha. Happens to me all the time.

Quote
Why is it not OK to me has a lot to do with how I place value on professions.  I for one feel like police, teachers, firefighters, and many other professions for that matter, bring a whole lot more value to society than they are paid.  So if you base things on a purely monetary system, then I'm wrong, as these roles do not bring in revenue.

Well, this is bringing in all kinds of points, and I understand what you're saying. But its also not like money saved by paying athletes or actors less is going to be pooled and given to civil servants (although firefighters/police/law enforcement in general, I think are paid pretty well if you're contrasting them against teachers). It kind of just muddies the whole thing and inflicts a personal irrational bias on it. Not that this is a bad thing in a conversation about the wages of the country's citizens in a social sense, but here in this conversation (about how much money athletes are paid vs how much they bring in) it might not be the best place for the comparison.

Quote
Most of us don't have the luxury of leaving money on the table and then complaining about it later.  If I did, I certainly would not be complaining about it. 

James made his bed, now he gets to lie in it.  At least he can take solace as he suffers with his unfairly low salary that he gets to lie in a multi-million dollar bed.  :)

Ah, I understand where your complaint comes from here, and I think maybe a clarification would be useful. There are two separate points:

1) LeBron James did opt to leave tens of millions of dollars (over the life of the contract) to play with both Bosh and Wade. He has never, in fact, taken max salary in a contract.

2) If LeBron James had taken the maximum allowable contract under the CBA, which would've been from Cleveland, he would still only be allowed to sign a contract that paid him less than $20 million dollars a season. He currently makes 17.5 million.  He'll opt out of his contract next year, and probably sign a new deal that gets him roughly the same amount of money. But for the wins he brings you (and people have broken this down), LeBron likely is underpaid by about 50%. His real market value according to estimated wins added is roughly $30 million dollars annually, IIRC.

Here were LeBron's actual comments:

Quote
"What I do on the floor shows my value. At the end of the day, I don't think my value on the floor can really be compensated for, anyways, because of the (collective bargaining agreement)," James said Friday ahead of the Miami Heat's game against the Pacers (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Indianapolis.

"If you want the truth. If this was baseball, it'd be up, I mean way up there."

"I have not had a full max deal yet in my career -- that's a story untold," James said.

"I don't get (the credit) for it. That doesn't matter to me; playing the game is what matters to me. Financially, I'll sacrifice for the team. It shows for some of the top guys, it isn't all about money. That's the genuine side of this, it's about winning. I understand that."

"I think teams understand that you need three guys to do big things; the "big three" thing is pretty cool if you can get it," James said. "To keep teams like this together, you may have to take even less because of the new CBA. I guess we'll find out."

So his point is, since I can't get paid what I'm actually worth, I might as well take a little less than the max to make sure I have great teammates.

Its actually a pretty cool sentiment.

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like that is always lethal." - Evan 'The God' Turner

Offline kozlodoev

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So, how much money will he be able to make if the league didn't exist in its current form? Yeah, I thought so.
And how much money would the league lose if all the top stars disappeared? 

Notice he is not asking for more money.  Just stating an opinion (which I think he is right about)
He has every chance to disappear, if he so desires. He hasn't, so this is not the issue. On the other hand, playing a bunch of irrelevant games that undermine the product is a very real issue -- just watch some baseball.
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Offline indeedproceed

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So, how much money will he be able to make if the league didn't exist in its current form? Yeah, I thought so.
And how much money would the league lose if all the top stars disappeared? 

Notice he is not asking for more money.  Just stating an opinion (which I think he is right about)
He has every chance to disappear, if he so desires. He hasn't, so this is not the issue. On the other hand, playing a bunch of irrelevant games that undermine the product is a very real issue -- just watch some baseball.

That is really interesting. You're saying that baseball's extended season (and profits because of it) actually undermine the quality of the product, so people watch it less?

That is very interesting. I cannot believe I have never heard that before.

Seriously, no sarcasm.

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like that is always lethal." - Evan 'The God' Turner

Offline ewp

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Quote from: IndeedProceed
Its actually a pretty cool sentiment.

Agreed, right up until the point that he complained about it.

If he wanted to be paid like a baseball player, he should have played baseball.  FWIW, although I have respect of James as a player, and don't care for him overall, I don't see this as all that different from when Latrell Sprewell famously made the statement "I got my family to feed." after calling an offer of only 27-30 million dollars insulting.