Lebron James is arguably the best player in the NBA, and has been for the last several years. What does that mean in terms of money…usually max contacts. James tells ESPN, that under the new collective bargaining agreement he doesn’t believe it is possible for him to get market value so he says he’s been willing to “sacrifice.”
“What I do on the floor shows my value. At the end of the day, I don’t think my value on the floor can really be compensated for, anyways, because of the (collective bargaining agreement)”
“If you want the truth. If this was baseball, it’d be up, I mean way up there. I have not had a full max deal yet in my career — that’s a story untold,” James said.
“I don’t get (the credit) for it. That doesn’t matter to me; playing the game is what matters to me. Financially, I’ll sacrifice for the team. It shows for some of the top guys, it isn’t all about money. That’s the genuine side of this, it’s about winning. I understand that.”
Lebron James is making $17.5 million this year. Although that’s nothing to frown upon, it is 13th in the league in which he’s the featured star. No one has talked about how he took less money to win. That’s something I find admirable, because truth be told with an asset that valuable if there were no cap restrictions who knows how much teams would be willing to pay for him. Like him or not he has a point.