On Friday, Nets star Kyrie Irving threw a grenade into the league's return-to-play plans. It was an odd spectacle but Irving exposed a simmering rift between the best-paid players in the NBA and the league's middle class.
“It is reflective of what is going on in a wider sense,” one prominent agent told me. “I think what you are seeing is more players wanting their input counted, their voices heard. You can go back to the last CBA and the emphasis was on the stars getting their paydays and creating new opportunities for them. For the middle-of-the-road players, they sacrificed the mid-level exception, they gave up the tools that lower-level guys have to get a good contract.
As the deal to have a restart in Orlando crystallized over the past few weeks, most players were willing to accept a quarantine-style life in Disney’s resort hotels. But a group—relatively small, but significant enough to have an impact on the rosters of playoff contenders—has chafed at not having been consulted on their concerns about returning.
Last year, only two players signed full $9.3 million midlevel deals while the number of players making $30 million or more grew to 20. Only about 140 players make the league average or more. That means well more than 325 players are below the league average.
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