Some Free Market

One of Arturas Karnisovas’s first hires as new head of basketball operations for the Bulls was J.J. Polk as a team v.p.  A story in last week’s The Athletic described Polk as a “salary-cap expert” for the Pelicans, his former team, while nbcsports.com referred to him as one of New Orleans’ “salary-cap specialists.”  This is not the kind of talent I would want to be on the receiving end of. 

 

In the real world, where pro-sports team owners make the piles of money required to buy a franchise, businesses mostly howl in protest over government oversight of the marketplace.  Let the market decide, CEOs and their media mouthpieces chant, let the market decide.  Only not when it comes to the business of sports.

 

No, then owners want government involvement 24/7, provided they dictate the terms.  Show me an owner who’s ever spoken out against publicly-funded stadiums or antitrust exemptions for his sport, and I’ll show you proof of alien life on earth.  Owners are no different—or less hypocritical—on the subject of salaries.

 

In the real world, CEOs will take any amount they can get away with it.  In the sports’ world, the CEO-turned-owner will do everything in his power to put a cap on player salaries, hence the special talent and importance of Mr. Polk.  NBA and NFL players are fools to accept salary caps, and the only thing that makes MLB’s soft cap, aka the luxury tax, palatable is that it goes to subsidize financially-constrained franchises, and even then I wonder. 

 

If the Yankees could spend $300 million or $400 million on salary a year, would that really put the Royals or Pirates out of business?  Or would it only be a matter of time before the NY Post blared headlines about the “BRONX DUDS” following a very expensive 100-loss season, followed by extreme fiscal prudence practiced by the Steinbrenner clan?  Personally, I’d like to find out.

 

I also wonder if the NBA’s salary cap doesn’t have at least one unintended consequence, viz., encouraging the one-and-done decision by teenaged players?  Baseball allows talent to develop over seasons.  Just one example from last year is Evan Marshall of the White Sox, who bounced around with three teams from 2014-18.  Then, out of the blue with the Sox, Marshall posted a 2.49 ERA in 55 appearances out of the bullpen.  The right hander didn’t even make it to the majors until the age of 24.

 

If you haven’t established yourself in the NBA by then, let alone the age of 29 like Marshall did last season, you become little more than salary cap fodder for J.J. Polk and his brethren.  They work their numbers’ magic to gather up enough money to sign the next can’t-miss talent in the draft (just like Zion Williamson in…New Orleans!) and roll the dice.  Anthony Bennett or Jabari Parker, anyone?  Or how about a high school star like…Eddie Curry?

 

Who knows, maybe if the NBA were more like MLB and had a real minor-league system instead of the college—and, on occasion, high school—pipeline, the Bennetts and Parkers could develop more slowly into courtside versions of Evan Marshall.  Or not.

 

But either way, owners should not be allowed the protection of salary caps.  What they don’t want done to them in the real world they shouldn’t get to do in the sports’ world.