Welcome back y’all to another edition of BasketballandFeelings. First things first, I wanted to start off this week by saying thank YOU to everyone who has been reading this newsletter and Subscribed thus far. We’ve been doing this every week for a little over 5 months now, and it’s been a shit ton of fun. I’m super excited about where this project is heading and there’s no way that would be possible without all of you who have been reading. So, again, thank you.
The thing I wanted to get at this week is AD, who as I’m sure many of you know just signed a contract extension with the Los Angeles Lakers that’s going to gobble up a hefty portion of the Los Angeles Lakers salary cap. I believe the percentage is approximately 30%. If you’re interested in the exact amount of money of his contract in American dollars you can google it or turn on social media and you’ll see it over and over again, splayed out like a bumper sticker, that jaw dropping number soon to be arriving in AD’s checking account, the largest contract extension (until the next player’s) in NBA history.
I’ve been thinking about these contracts a lot recently, and I’ve decided that I am no longer going to repeat the dollar amounts that these players are getting. Yes, they are impressive, and I understand the desire to know, but at a certain point they’re almost offensive, and I don’t think it’s instrumental to know the number in order to understand a player’s value to a team. We’re a few years away from a player making one hundred million dollars a season in the NBA, and for me at least, it starts to feel uncomfortable saying these numbers out loud over and over again. I’m not big at defining people by how much money they make anyway, so in my estimation there’s no reason to have to put this burden on players. As much as possible I’m going to try and speak about contracts as percentage of the overall cap, that way we’re not getting flustered when we’re discussing the player.
Back to AD. At 30% of the team’s entire salary cap, some have sniffled that it’s a large price to pay for someone who can’t necessarily be trusted in the biggest moments of a game, who is injury prone, and my personal favorite, is not an “alpha.” There’s this mindset in NBA-land that says only players who have the allusive “alpha gene” are truly deserving of superstar status, and should earn the contracts that support it.
Alpha players include Michael Jordan, the granddaddy of alphaism. Then Kobe Bryant, the alpha-master’s greatest pupil. There’s also players like Allen Iverson, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, and Shaquille O’ Neal who all fall into the rarified alpha umbrella.
Then there’s players like AD who aren’t quite there. They’re supposedly not the player who you can trust when the lights get brightest and all of the eyes are on them in those tight playoff moments that we fans live for. Of course what is often left unsaid in the obsession with alpha, is that part of the reason we love the alphas is because, as much as we would like to think we are, most of us aren’t really alphas. When the lights get brightest, instead of asking for the ball, most of us probably signal for a nap.
That’s part of the reason why we get so obsessed when a player doesn’t reach their “potential.” AD has all the gifts, we say, there’s just something off about him, something weak. That weakness is a mirror to our own weaknesses usually, not necessarily mine or yours, but the human beings that most of us pretend we aren’t most of the day.
If Lebron James is the perfect James Cameron bionic alpha-fantasy, AD is fallible.
One slip or awkward fall away from sitting out another thirty games, again, and sinking our title hopes. So, yeah, sure, it’s understandable, if you’re a Lakers fan and you’re not jazzed about AD getting “the bag,” or you’re an NBA fan and you think, huh, does that delicate twig really deserve that much money for sitting out 30 games every season. I see you, but I respectfully disagree. See, I see AD exactly for who he is.
I’m not blind, I get that he’s not some alpha dog who’s going to guarantee my team a championship by sheer will power and force, and I don’t care. I like that he’s the Robin, and I think as the ultimate Robin, he’s worth every penny — because what AD can do; show me one other player who can. I’ll take a superstar sidekick like AD, who alphas like Lebron James love to play with any day. I’m nervous about the injuries, how can you not be, but there’s very few players in the league who escape the injury bug anymore.
Shorten the season NBA!
What I’m saying is that AD, yeah, he’s gobbling up 30% of the Lakers cap, and when you add another superstar like Lebron, or if I’m projecting out into the future, Luka (please, please, please) Doncic, that’s doesn’t leave much pie for twelve more players on a fourteen player roster, but I don’t care because I’m not interested in alpha, it’s not part of my equation, my player assessment. It makes no difference to me, because I am comfortable with my non-alpha-ness, I don’t need to project some antiquated form of masculinity on the athletes who make a thousand times more money than me.
Love,
Basketball and Feelings
Thanks to the following for inspiring me this week.
AD is definitely an alpha on defense! That dude is a menace in 2K.
But, great discourse. There’s a ton of toxicity when it comes to discussing the NBA, many of it tied to this perception of masculinity.
Kudos to you for challenging it.
Awesome post! Keep em' coming.