#Middlebury #ASporting View
By Mark Vasto
If Stephen Curry never scores another point for Golden State, he’ll still be worth every penny of the “supermax” contract he signed with the Warriors on the first day of free agency.
The deal, which will pay Curry $201 million over the next five seasons, is the largest in NBA history. When you judge Curry’s performance over the past few years – three NBA Finals and two championships, record-setting regular seasons and playoff runs, it’s clear he is well worth the risk going ahead. But if you’re Warriors owner Joe Lacob, you can look back to how much you’ve made to know he’s worth the investment.
When Lacob bought the team, the Warriors were worth $450 million. Today, they’re worth $2.6 billion. That’s an astounding return on investment. Ludicrous, even. So ludicrous, it has NBA players actually criticizing the Curry deal as being too small.
Lebron James was the first to speak out on the deal on Twitter because he is the King and as we all know, Twitter is the communication medium of choice for kings and presidents in today’s world.
“So tell me again why there’s a cap on how much a player should get?? Don’t answer that. Steph should be getting 400M this summer 5yrs.” – LeBron James (@KingJames) July 1, 2017
James is taking issue with the salary cap in the NBA, the cap that Curry head-butted with his deal. James feels that Curry was worth double, and it’s hard to argue the fact. What team owner wouldn’t want to see their team’s value increase four or five times over?
The NBA has a collective bargaining agreement and a salary cap, designed to control costs and increase ownership’s profits. It works by calculating a percentage of the league’s revenue from the previous season. It allows for teams to pay over the calculation to a degree, but then the team is charged a luxury tax. For this coming season, the salary cap was set at $99 million and the luxury tax was at $119 million. That’s the formula that was used to pay Curry. James – and every other player in the league – feels that market factors should prevail.
The NBA players association will be renegotiating the bargaining agreement next year, and James himself will be part of the team of negotiators. If the past is any barometer, I wouldn’t expect ownership to budge. Owners seem to like profits, and they have shown a willingness in the past to lock out players, endure strikes and still get their way when all’s said and done.
Maybe this time, things will be different. Maybe the luxury tax will have a higher ceiling, and guys like Lebron James can collect hundreds of millions more for bouncing a ball up and down a court. At the end of the day, it’s always good to remember one thing: It could be worse … you could be playing for the New York Knicks.
Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.
(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.
