When news first broke about Deron Williams heading over to Europe to play ball during the NBA lockout, I just passed it off as a player wanting to play and make some money. After thinking about it, I'm beginning to wonder if he unlocked the answer to saving the players' goal of preventing the implementation of a hard cap and non-guaranteed contracts.
If you think about which NBA superstars are the league's "money-makers", these same players are also the ones helping shoe, soft drink, and various other companies make a ton of money as well. Lebron James and Kobe Bryant are the first two players who come to mind. The NBA pumps their name and likeness all over the world to help brand the NBA and generate revenue for the league. The NBA absolutely needs these players to be able to generate revenue regardless of the costs associated with running a professional sports league/team. Do the players need the NBA to make money? No, the players simply need to play basketball in a market large enough for their sponsors to earn enough return on their investment in the player. Herein lies the sweet justice for the players, and the possibility of a silver bullet for the NBA owner's dream of a hard cap era.
Imagine a world where the two or three best players from each NBA team went to Asia to play basketball. We know how crazy China is for NBA-caliber basketball as evidenced by the hysteria surrounding team USA in the 2008 Olympics, and the fact that Yao Ming somehow never missed an All-Star game while hardly ever being able to not miss a game during a full season. It can safely be said that if China chose to embrace this exodus of talent, and improve the infrastructure to facilitate an elite professional sports league, the tables would shift in favor of the players in the current lockout. With the top 30% of NBA talent gone, the American market would either continue to watch the bottom 70% talent (Mario Chalmers' Heat squares off against Matt Bonner's Spurs!!), or they would seek out a way to watch the elite players play in Asia. Would ESPN not jump at the chance to get in on the ground level for this new league, in this MASSIVE market? Would Americans with their DVRs and more disposable income (now that they don't have to pay $200 for tickets, $20 for a dog and a beer, and $10 for parking) pay to watch this? My gut says yes. The downside for the players involves the cultural adjustment, the moving, the family issues, and the chance of getting injured. But at the same time, they're going to be making a paycheck both from basketball and from their continued presence in the sport which turns into dollars from their sponsoring companies.
Now comes the interesting part, can Billy Hunter and the players jump on this opportunity? I'm not quite certain the NBA Players' Union was crafty enough to come up with this solution (if they are, more power to you), but the solution is there and needs to be taken. The Union is there to protect the interests of all the players, which means this solution wouldn't apply to the Timberwolves' 12th man in the short term; long-term is a different story. The Union should organized a uniform contract/insurance plan for any player who wants to play outside of the NBA, so that each player has the opportunity to go play abroad and maximizes the negative impact on the current NBA owners. Doing so would not only put the NBAPA in the driver's seat come negotiation time, but it would also allow the players to continue play ball if a settlement isn't met and make some cash as well. If the owners want to play hard ball, the players should just play ball.
I like your blog. I think that the argument that he will get injured just doesn't make any sense. Why should any player be any more likely to get injured playing abroad than in the United States? Basketball is basketball. The only drawback I could see is in the case that a player is injured he won't have the same medical treatment readily available. Yet, if that were the case the player could simply fly home for any necessary surgery or otherwise.
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