Today in The Works: Forget overpaid and underpaid. Which NBA player gets exactly what he deserves?Fans and writers like to hem and haw over which players are overpaid and underpaid, but rarely do they focus on which athletes are paid just the right amount. In part, that's because it's easier to pay the bills by resorting to hyperbole. We love to lambast players who are spoiled bums, or gloat over our ability to spot the bargains (or point out our team signed them). But these are hardly the holy grail of payroll science.
However, the very notion of someone being compensated for what they're worth is an odd one full of enigmas and riddles. With that in mind, we sat down for a chat about what it means to be fairly paid, who is the most fairly paid player in the NBA, and how the league should structure salaries in general. Please enjoy.
Eric Freeman: So who is the most fairly paid player? Can it be one of the highest-paid players in the league?
Bethlehem Shoals: Wow. That is a bold claim to make. I am impressed at the strident vibrato with which you voice such a shallow opinion. Be warned! That's a line of reasoning that might end before it begins. Aren't all max players, by definition, fairly paid, since they're the most valuable players and they make the league max?
EF: It was not a leading question, buddy; we are just trying to address all aspects of the issue. I agree that guys like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are deserving of their contracts, but what about someone like Joe Johnson? Is he only a max guy if every playoff team has a max player? Maybe there should only be a handful of guys at that pay grade.
BS: Ah-ha! I see the land from whenst you came! You are saying that, in a perfect world, we would pay LeBron James far more than the max. And perhaps some max players -- franchise sorts, if you will -- we would like to pay slightly less, no? Although if anything, from the Kevin Garnett experience, we learned that the salary structure is a good thing, for there are some player (like James) whose worth is immeasurable. Michael Jordan. Shaquille O'Neal. Charlie Sheen. Ponce de Leon. Who are these people? What have they done for us lately? Who will turn the final screw in the diabolical machinery of this good night? DONNA KAREN GRADUATES.
EF: I think you mean Donna Martin. Or at least Donna Karan.BS: It was a knock-off, jerk-face. Not everyone can get rich from simply being like you.
EF: It's true, I'm special. Anyway, let's say for the purposes of this discussion that LeBron et al. are actually not fairly paid because they should get more. Is the next stop role players? Or do secondary stars make the right amount? Lamar Odom makes a little over $8 million per year. Too much or too little?
BS: Intuitively, I would say Lamar Odom makes too little. Certainly based on how well he has played this season. But really, what is fair? What is money, anyway? Either we can find some player whose salary represents absolute fairness, and then compare the entire league to that, or we can go on the assumption that salaries, like players, work in terms of tiers, and it's a matter of figuring out what player is more perfectly suited to the tier of salary he deserves.
EF: Hasn't the max salary effectively turned everything into levels? It says there is a ceiling for worth, which along with the veteran minimum provides the poles by which every other player is judged. Before the max, no one really knew what to do, so Juwan Howard became first $100 million man when he wasn't even the best forward on his own team.
BS: Players have no inherent value. We must be saved from ourselves. I dig what you're selling. This is why people make lists of the most overpaid players, or best bargains. It's pretty easy to spot those, or even argue that max players like LeBron and Dwyane Wade are underpaid. Now, listen to me: What we have endeavored to do is very nearly impossible. Finding the very form of justice in this case is maybe nearly impossible. Leave it to the Greeks! The best teams can do is not totally "mis-file" a player, salary-wise. Any franchise player making the max is fair; any second-best guy making 12-14 million is fair; and so on.
EF: Does that apply to bad teams too? Or should everyone be penalized a level in those cases?
BS: Let me answer your question with a question: Should a bad team have to play their franchise player the same as LeBron, even if said player isn't nearly as good? Functionally, he does the same job. I am making this into a pay-scale, like with the United States Government, the mob, or Al Jazeera.
EF: So if the league truly wanted to control salaries, they would work off the pay scale rather than the cap with a maximum and minimum salary. That would be a good idea if it weren't socialist.
BS: I have said this before. A tiered salary system, from top to bottom, is the only fair way to do this. The max players have it. There's the mid-range. There's rookie deals. And there's the minimums. But everybody else gets to enjoy the free and open market? Get lost!
EF: Speaking of rookies, what do we think about them? Some are grossly underpaid, like Blake Griffin, but the busts end up making too much, like Hasheem Thabeet. It's almost like GMs are being rewarded or punished for being bad talent scouts. I suppose that's supposed to apply to all aspects of the job, but for some reason it doesn't seem to work that way once the team can assign whichever salary it wants.
BS: Relatively speaking, rookie deals just aren't that much money. And they are up sooner. The days of ill-advised $10 million a year deals, for 6 years, are over. Teams learned to be a little bit more conservative. I mean, heck with seven eyeballs, remember Jerome James? Also, signing free agents shouldn't be about judging talent. It's about figuring out if a player will fit, but if you're signing a player to a six-year deal based on what he could still grow into, even as a vet, you're stupid.
EF: Maybe all the rookies should angle to be second round picks. Then they can do what Wes Matthews did and get paid after a good rookie season. Maybe that's why Harrison Barnes played so badly at the start of this season for North Carolina.
BS: He is a very smart young man. Now let's poor one out for Wesley Matthews. That Blazers team is cursed! They will have their entire payroll back as an injury exception! I mean, there's a reason why Gilbert Arenas and Carlos Boozer were such insane situations. They went from nothing to everything, contract-wise, in two seasons. And no one could stop them.
EF: But they were also players whose draft position didn't mirror their college production. Basically I think we are finding that the draft is stupid and rookie contracts might not make a lot of sense. Maybe there should just be a max rookie salary and teams can figure out salaries like they do with veterans.
BS: Rookie contracts make perfect sense if you draft well. The only reason they can't be tiered like this ideal salary world I live in is that there has to be some benefit for not picking sooner. Save some money and buy the wife and kids some braces.
EF: I bet David Kahn's kids have terrible teeth.
BS: They are giant plant monsters. They don't even have eyes.
The Works is written by Bethlehem Shoals (@freedarko) and Eric Freeman (@freemaneric), who also contributes regularly to Ball Don't Lie. Their Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History is now available.Source: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2011/02/04/the-works-searching-for-the-nbas-fairest-paycheck/
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