I’m not that knowledgeable when it comes to salary cap and contracts and was wondering this exact thing. At what point is having a potential winning team more important than a few million for someone who is possibly a billionaire by now. Apparently Lebron couldn’t just play for a couple of million and get a superstar teammate instead. Good to know.
Players can always sign for the minimum and it would help free up space for team building but I’m sure the star players figure why should they be the ones taking the pay cut versus the role players to make a competitive team. Although I agree that once you’ve made enough I’m surprised more older stars don’t take a slight cut to compete better.
I don’t know if this is true of basketball, specifically, but there’s been examples of players’ unions objecting to a deal. The ones I remember were in baseball and about restructuring a contract. But there’s definitely an unwritten rule that players shouldn’t take too much less than they’re worth in solidarity with other players (who would no doubt be pressured to make the same sacrifices even if they don’t have a billion dollar Nike contract).
It seems like there’s less pressure to follow that rule if a player is nearing retirement and chasing a first ring or has other goals. And the Lakers just drafted Lebron’s unproven son who recently had a heart attack. It’s gotta be unprecedented even if Bronny was a legit prospect before the health scare.
LeGM
