The top tier of professional basketball players can make a lot of money. We are talking serious dough here. This, of course, is nothing new to even the greenest of NBA fans. What is not as well known, however, is that those salaries are slated to skyrocket in coming years thanks to a lucrative new television deal that is going into effect. As this happens, the scope and structure of the league is almost certain to change. Will smaller market teams such as Milwaukee and Utah be able to compete? How will younger players react to earning so much money in such a short amount of time? There are many questions remaining that need to be answered. Let’s take a quick look at how these escalating salaries are likely to change the NBA in the short term.
There Is Truth To the Rich Getting Richer
Even in the face of escalating revenue in the NBA, there is only so much wealth to be spread around. Some clubs simply do not have the cash to splash on big name athletes. Raising the salary cap does little to help the Milwaukee Bucks and Utah Jazz’s of the world, but the Golden State Warriors.. whole different story. Small market teams did not have the money to reach it in the first place. What rising salaries have done is further polarized a league where multiple superstars playing on the same club is now possible.
Could this be the end of an era where we have the likes of Jordan, Bird, and Johnson all duking it out on separate teams? It would have been unheard of to have three such superstars on the same team, yet we just finished an era where we have James, Bosh, and Wade play multiple seasons together. Before that there was Garnett, Pierce, and Allen. Now, we are going to have Curry, Thompson, and Durant for the foreseeable future. While that is great for Warriors fan, I am not sure how it will sit with the rest of the country.
The New Reality
With a salary cap that was just raised to $90 million for this coming year, only to skyrocket to $127 million as early as next year, players will certainly benefit. What about the fans? We have already seen how the wealthy teams now have the room to pay multiple superstars to assemble their own dream franchise. Other clubs, however, will simply be unable to compete under the new system. What we will likely see are teams such as the Lakers, Knicks, Heat and Bulls continuing to compete for free agents. They will land some for sure and be able to pay them in the $30 million per season range.
The league needs to find a way to distribute this new wealth more equally. They were gradually heading in that direction for the past decade, but now that good work has dissipated. Throwing money at top name players does little to promote new, home grown talent. We might have seen the last of the Tim Duncan’s and Larry Bird’s of the world where one team is all they need. The players win under the new salary structure, but what about the fans? The jury is still out, but it does not look entirely promising.
