Very few NBA level talent + demand to the tune of $4 billion = High players’ salary.

All the other salaries you listed from President to soldier are not revenue producing occupations. Thus in this capitalistic society those occupations will not approach the salaries of a revenue producing monster like the NBA.

An NBA with more competitive teams will draw more interest. Did you ever think that the reason why San Antonio had such low ratings is because the NBA only really matters in a few areas such as big market NY, LA, Boston (along with their bandwagon fans), that as soon as those teams were out of the mix they just tuned out? Maybe the other owners will sacrifice those bandwagon fans in the hopes of building longer lasting fan bases across the country. Are the fans of big market, big spending teams really that concerned with a little drive to find parity? Make an NBA championship within reach to more than just a few fan bases and watch the NBA popularity grow.

Nice to know the owners bamboozled you also with this parity nonsense. The NBA has NEVER had parity. NEVER. Look back at the past winners of NBA championships and you’ll notice it’s mostly Lakers and Celtics on that list peppered with a Washington here, a Knick there, Philly here. Even during the Golden age 80s it was Lakers and Celtics. The 90s it was Bulls for 6 out of 10 championships. The 00s it was Lakers and Spurs. In fact when the Spurs experienced their mini dynasty those NBA championships were amongst the lowest rated of its era. Evidently the public didn’t care for parity. In fact I didn’t even hear any groundswell for parity until the owners made it a major sticking point in the CBA negotiations. There wasn’t a number of sports articles about NBA parity, I know a number of NBA fans and they weren’t talking about this, yea they hated how the decision went down but not because of parity just how James treated his employee by announcing it on TV. Just about everyone I talked to said it was James’ right as a free agent to leave.

Players have been forcing their way onto glamour teams for generations. Kareem Abdul Jabbar made his way from the Bucks to the Lakers way back when.

Finally….Short of taking away free agency the NBA will never be like the NFL. The NBA more than any sports league is dependent on its superstars to build a championship team and it only takes 2 megastars and a handful of good complimentary role players to win a championship. The NFL is waaay more complicated than that as the Philly Eagles has shown us. Short of taking away free agency the NBA will NEVER have parity. If a Superstar wants to take a 3 year deal instead of the max deal to hit free agency faster and choose his next team what’s to stop him? If he wants to take a 2 year deal to do the same thing what’s to stop him? If he decides he rather play in LA or New York for a lot less than Milwaukee because he can make up the difference in ad money what’s to stop him?

What the NBA needs are good story-lines and the whole Lebron and Miami Heat thing is played. I mean, if the Heat goes out and win it all this year, who cares?

Average salary of a soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN – $38,000
Average income for seniors on SOCIAL SECURITY – $12,000

Average salary for an NBA player……….5.1 MILLION

I’m glad that the many many average people who work at NBA venues will get to work again, but these salaries out whacked.

There are some good guys in sports, but for the most part they are all punks.

That’s fine, BUT those teams would be left out in the cold if it wasn’t for some lottery draft luck, good scouting (especially San Antonio), and some loyalty from some players they took in the draft, but I still don’t see superstar players banging down the doors of teams like San Antonio to play with their organization, and San Antonio is consistently a good team, maybe a piece or two away from a championship many years over the course of the last decade, or so.

I don’t believe that the players lost in this round of negotiations. They will be celebrating this deal if it makes the rest of the league competitive. Why, because if the NHL has shown us anything, making more teams competitive grows your fan base, which, in turn, will cause revenues to grow, which means that the revenue “pie” will grow, which is shared with players, leading to a healthier league and happier, and richer, owners and players.