Big NBA Money Screws Up Careers (of Guys Who Don't Get It)

A counterintuitive "too much too soon" problem

I’m back from my brief adventure to NBA Summer League, where conversations reliably surprise me. Here’s a counterintuitive take, relayed to me by multiple team executives. The more I ask around, the more the take seems true. It potentially explains Draymond Green’s viral-if-vague complaint about what the new CBA is doing to younger players.

I asked about whether the massive salaries that young guys are getting nowadays hinders their professional development. I like this sort of topic because it’s quietly taboo. Back in the day, it was common to worry about the effects of athletes getting “too much, too soon,” but that was before millennial journalists arrived on the scene, seeking to upend the paternalistic unfairness of NCAA “amateurism.”

After that sea change, it was seen as problematic to say that a group of mostly young Black men might be corrupted by the money they’d earned for themselves in the free market. But the money was a lot smaller back then, even if it’s still massive by normal person standards. So I wanted to know: Is there any spiritual difference between getting a $63.6 million rookie extension, as Chris Paul did in my first year working for the NBA, and getting the potential $287 million extension that Jalen Williams just reaped? Setting aside how Paul and Williams both seem to be boy scouts, whose earnings are likely divorced from attitude towards the game, does the sheer size of modern max contracts matter in some way?

The answer I got back shocked me. It turns out that the money does matter, and that it is hurting young NBA careers. It’s just not harming the guys who get the money.