I’m sure most of you have been hearing about the hype surrounding Lebron James. He is expected to announce what team he will be playing for tonight, 7/8/2010 at 9 p.m. eastern time. James has been busy in the last week, meeting with a number of teams. I think it is funny how teams have lined up to even talk with him. ESPN was reporting that James was meeting with a number of teams during various days and his schedule looked something like this: Nets at 11:00 a.m., Nicks at 1p.m., and then another team to follow. It is crazy to think that sports teams are drooling over one player so much. It is also sad to think that he met with some teams, knowing that they never had a chance. It is interesting to see how James, Wade, and Bosch all had their contracts made so that they would become free agents at the same time. Various articles on Foxsports.com cover James’s footsteps until he makes his free agency position.
I figured it would be a good time to talk about how influential these high stock players can be and how crazy it is what teams are paying them. James currently makes around 20 million dollars a year compared to a salary chart of Missourians where an attorney or lawyer makes 72,790 on average. It’s safe to say that James is crazy rich. Oh and I forgot the part about him making 12.8 million dollars a year with Nike, the contract which he signed before he went into the NBA out of high school. I always think it is interesting to think about how much these high profile players make and how much these teams must be raking in to keep up with growing salaries. What do these players do with the money besides buying ridiculously nice houses and cars? Think about it, if James makes 20 million dollars a year, not to mention his Nike contract among other things, let’s say he buys an extravagant 4 million dollar home and cars that total to 1 million dollars. What does he do with the remaining money? Obviously he has taxes and whatnot to pay, but that’s a lot of pocket change! So he buys a house and some cars and has 15 million left….hmmm…what to do now? And he’s going to get more money next year. Many of us can only imagine what we would do with that kind of money. Coming from someone that currently has student loans and works at the school for 7.75, it is crazy to think about even having an extra couple hundred dollars and we’re talking about millions here!
Don’t get me wrong, Lebron James is an amazing basketball player and future shoe-in hall of famer.
I’m just stating the obvious because we all know we’ve thought about it. Sometimes I think these teams are paying too much money for some players. I love to see God given talent perform well on the court, but I also like to see them pay it back off the court too. I think it’s great when you hear about guys like Kobe, Wade, or James putting some back into their communities or spreading their blessing to others. I know you only hear about the high profile players too, which is too bad. Sometimes I think about how regular season games are a joke because no one will play defense or it’s a sprint to see who can score the most points. Times are changing but whatever happened to playing for the love of the game? I think some players have forgotten about that aspect. People have forgotten that money isn’t everything too.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I believe that God given talents should be displayed and paid well for it. I don’t like the fact that all the news cares about is how well they play. Maybe they should talk about another aspect of a player’s profile. How about including community service? It’s too bad that not many people think about it nor care to hear about anything but the game. I love to see prodigy players proving themselves as much as anyone else, but I don’t just judge a player on his athletic ability.
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