I am sure an NBA GM sees how NFL teams operate and is very jealous.
Whereas NFL teams have all the leverage over the players, NBA players basically can dictate everything about their careers especially if they are one of the top stars.
In an article in the New Yorker about Rich Paul, here is what the NBA GM said.
Player empowerment has downsides. In a league of thirty teams, superstars cluster in New York and Los Angeles, as well as a few other big markets—Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco—making it more difficult for teams in other cities to compete. “Player empowerment is a catchall for the fact that the league has done a terrible job of empowering teams,” a current N.B.A. general manager told me. “The players have all of the leverage in every situation. I think it’s the worst thing that ever happened to professional sports on all levels.” Bomani Jones, a sports journalist with ESPN, framed the issue differently: “The N.B.A. has a problem, which is it’s got some bad real estate. They put a lot of teams in places that young Black men don’t necessarily want to live.”
Bomani makes a good point.
Flip the page for LeBron speaking about empowerment.