Don't Work for a Living. Just Be Like Kawhi.
The man who never plays basketball has figured it out. #laborhero #loadmanagement
LeBron James and Anthony Davis are injured once again and yet Lakers fans still have hope that we can make some noise in the playoffs this year. I’m starting to think we’re as delusional as the actors on Hollywood Boulevard dressing up as Marilyn Monroe and Batman.
“Basketball and Feelings,” a new weekly Substack that explores what it’s like to be alive through the rim of NBA basketball, is back with its first official post on Substack, which slides directly into your inbox, just like an IG message, but less pervy.
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Hope you enjoy this week’s ditty on Kawaiii Leonard, my favorite NBA player who never plays.
Kawaiii is an interesting poster-boy for labor in the USA. I’m kind of obsessed with labor issues, obviously, because I have nothing better to do with my time, but I can’t help how juicy it is to debate because the successful NBA players are such great symbols of the potential of a healthy labor market in the larger world. Kawaiii is obviously interesting because of how extreme his case is when it comes to this subject. Since leaving the Spurs in 2017 he has barely played, but continues to sign lucrative deals despite the heavy risk a team takes on by signing him to a contract. (The Los Angeles Clippers are currently on the hook.) But that’s how good he is, but more importantly that’s how badly his teams want to win, and need him to do it. Winning in the NBA is the name of the game, and a player like Kawaiii is a precious commodity, as precious as they come. He knows it. It means everything. So when a talent like Kawaiii comes around and wants to play for your team, you bend over backwards to make him happy and allow him to do whatever he wants as long as he promises to try and help you win a championship if he is healthy. That’s a big “if” in Kawaiii’s case but teams are so often willing to take the risk because they understand his effect on winning.
Now imagine for a second that a barista brought the same value to a coffeeshop that Kawaiii Leonard brought to a basketball team.
Our barista would get an infinite amount of sick days, flexible schedule, leniency, and most importantly trust from the owners that she is doing everything she can to help the coffeeshop be successful. She would, shocker, get a good maternity leave policy. But at the end of the day if something goes wrong, if the barista gets hurt pour-ring coffee or injured by a swashbuckling man off the street who needed to use the potty, they will continue getting paid throughout their entire rehab until they are 100, no — 1,000 Percent ready to come back to work, like our friend Kawaiii.
Now many business owners might say this is not economically possible. I know some already who have. Well then I say don’t open a coffee shop or a clothing store or an internet company. Silicon Valley might say, I can’t afford to run a tech company if I operated my company like that. Then I say, owners of Uber and Postmates, if you can’t afford to pay your drivers a living wage, don’t open your company. (If you DO open your company, though, please don’t force me to have to help pay the salary of your underpaid drivers via egregious tips.) Same goes to the coffeeshop owner. If you can’t afford to pay $18 an hour to your staff, please don’t open a coffee shop.
The other day I heard a story about someone who decided not to take a job because the Juice Company who wanted to hire them had iffy maternity leave. Adding insult to injury, the juice company was owned by women who operated under the banner of a woke political agenda. They used “the slogans” in their marketing materials but did not practice what they preached in their hiring practices. Said another way, they were more than happy to win-win-win customers by marketing a feminist agenda but less inclined to hire females whose liberal agenda they had to pay for. Neo-fucking-liberals. This would never happen to Kawaiii. If the hiree in this case was an NBA player, if her value to the company was essential and necessary to the bottom line, to winning, like Kawaiii’s, how much pushback would she have received?
Again, don’t open a company. Just don’t be an entrepreneur if you can’t support the dignity of your employees. Doesn’t Harvard or Stanford teach this? If you’re a business owner, look at the NBA as an example, follow in the footsteps of a league that has no choice but to treat their players with dignity, who has no choice but to give its players the benefit of the doubt. Or if you’re an employee, be more like Kawaiii, I beg you.
Let me know what you think via a comment or a like.
Till next week - AL