Within 21 days of the new season, Duke will play UCONN, ILL, MSU, FLA.
College Sports (Basketball)
Will Wade wore out his welcome and then some with the Alston family, I guess?
Weird...
Also this: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...rj-luis-jr-eligible-join-lsu-judge-injunction
RJ Luis attorney threating to sue Wade over 'constructive contempt' if Luis doesn't get playing time. What a freakin' odd situation there.
Good siue can rough em up a bit before we come to town.
Quite the saber rattler, but I suspect the SEC also has lawyers.
Wonder when all this gets sorted out - the list that Fly just posted is long!
Admittedly I'm not up to speed on the details of this new rule but my gut reaction is SMH. Is this the NCAA and BIG wanting to go back to the days when there was a black market of inducements? Do we really think the programs that are spending above their proposed cap will roll over? Are others like Duke going to stop trying to buy a championship?
A cap just lets the cheaters cheat. They like a cap. Cuts out the competition. They can pay less than they have to now.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
Yes. For instance, I saw that the wolves recently exercised their 27-28 option on TJ for just over $5M, and he’s currently getting about $2.8M this year. Which got me thinking, how many CBB players will make more than TJ this year? 30? 50? And when you think just 2-3 years ago top of the market was basically the equivalent of an NBA 2 way. It has gotten insane. But on the flip side, schools are willing to pay because these kids are mostly worth it.
Not to mention, the proposed cap includes NIL, which to me just seems unworkable. What happens if a player starts having an incredible year and gets endorsement interest? Like Wagler last season? Is the team forced to tell him he has to decline those opportunities because it'll mess up their cap space?
Could you imagine if the NBA tried to do something like this?
"LeBron, Joel, Tyrese, Jaylen, thanks for meeting with us. Look, here's the issue. You all have lucrative shoe deals. Which is great, you've earned it and we love that for you. But as you know the league is now counting all earning against the cap. Did our ownership vote for this? Not really no. OK, yes, Jaylen it is true that they did lobby Congress to pass a law, but that's different. That's exercise of an American right and we all love America, right? What's that Joel? Well, yes, the right to access and benefit from the free market is as American as apple pie. Sure. But surely not if it interferes with an act of Congress? Anyway, let's get to the point. I am not in Congress, just a guy trying to do his job. Look, here's the point. The most that you all, as a collective can possibly take from your various shoe deals this season is $1.8 million, that's all cap space we have. So we have to figure out who can take what from whom. So Joel, let's start with you. You have the highest cap hit as it is, and your deal is with Sketchers, which, like come on. Can we all agree that maybe Joel just foregoes shoe compensation this year and we consider his contributions to Sketchers as some form of non-tax-deductible charity?"
This is what we call a false equivalency.
For one, I agree that TSJ is a bargain for the Timberwolves. That's essentially how the NBA works. Rookie contracts are a bargain, but you get a huge reward if you make it past your rookie deal. That's why Ayo makes 10x what TSJ is making this year.
Second TSJ is the 7th or 8th guy in the T-Wolves rotation. How many CBB making $5 million or even $2 million are 7th or 8th guys in the rotation? Probably not many. Maybe not even any. Ayo, meanwhile, is the 6th man in that rotation when everyone is healthy. He just signed a deal with an AAV of $22.4 million. Is anyone in CBB making anywhere near that? Of course not.
Seems like a great comparison since it shows what a player's actual, real choice is (and how broken the NBA rookie scale is). Of course there are differences, but guys will figure out overall how much they value those.
How is it a great comparison?
No college team is paying anyone near what TSJ makes to be the 2nd or 3rd option off the bench. Like for like, NBA is more lucrative, even on the broken rookie scale.
If you're comparing whether TSJ could make more in college vs. NBA, this is also flawed for two reasons:
1. The college players making more than TSJ have one very important attribute that TSJ lacks: college eligibility. This is a major factor that drives up the price of college basketball players. The pool of players available to the NBA is much bigger than the pool of players available to college teams, due to eligibility rules. This drives up competition and prices for the top end college players. If the NCAA just dropped all eligibiity rules (not advocating for this AT ALL btw) you'd see the salary for a guy like TKR plummet. Imagine if Trent Frazier, who is now a proven Euroleague vet, and other guys like him could come back and play in college? Those are the guys that would get more of the money and the NCAA would be flooded with them.
2. TSJ's salary is not a reflection of the free market whereas college salaries are.
Seems like a great comparison since it shows what a player's actual, real choice is (and how broken the NBA rookie scale is). Of course there are differences, but guys will figure out overall how much they value those.
I think you've taken this in a very different direction from the way I read the comparison or perhaps we're talking past each other. The post you responded to was comparing the option for college with the option for the NBA...which is what the players have to do. The particulars around the different leagues don't change the comparison being primarily about the financial benefit, which is typically the main driver for most people looking at employment offers.
If your point is about the nuance between the two - there's no argument - I'll grant you they're not exactly the same.
Based on the "system is broken" language I took it to mean that it's a problem that college players are making what they are making. Which seems to be the knee-jerk default criticism whenever college player compensation comes up, and the post initially seemed to agree with that.
I probably didn't give enough credit to the last sentence though (think I may have just not seen it tbh) so I may have been way off in my initial read.
Gotcha, and in that sense I agree. The NBA market will have to decide whether they want to compete with the college market when the CBA is up, but that's not for several years.
