Max Novendstern recently commented that this post by Matt Yglesias was the type of post that makes him love Yglesias more than he hates him.
Max’s love/hate relationship with Yglesias aside, the post ignores the important aspects of the James case by focusing on the money. What we should be concerned about here is not what it says about labor relations: professional sports are a hopelessly skewed example of labor/management relations, and a commenter on the post aptly takes apart Yglesias’s NBA-as-cartel analogy.
He was “forced” to “work (for a crazy amount of money)” for Cleveland because of the provisions of the draft. However, he’s not forced to work for the NBA. He could have chosen any number of leagues. The NBA is the company. The Cleveland Cavaliers is more like the branch office. For the most part if you “choose” after graduating university to go work for Proctor and Gamble, you don’t get to “choose” to work where you want. You get sent to whatever city office they want you at.
But the validity of Yglesias’s analogy is a minor issue.
What matters is sport’s social impact.
It is one of the most infuriating things about our culture, but these players are role models. Progressives should be concerned with what seeing Lebron succeed means for kids who look up to whoever wins the NBA championship.
Yglesias focuses on Lebron’s “defection to Miami” as the main reason he is the most hated man in basketball, but it is not simply his leaving the team that drafted him that has caused observers to contrast him with Michael Jordan. It is a question of competitiveness. Jordan didn’t team up with the best players in the league. He tried to beat them. Lebron and Lebron apologists can pretend he went to Miami because he wants to win, but he could have won other places. He went to Miami because it was the easiest way to win. Also, the weather is nice, and beach parties are just so much fun.
What are Lebron’s defining characteristics? Talent, sure. A desire to be the best. But what else? Vanity comes to mind, as his Decision and demeanor make evident. Hubris has to be on the list. Really, it’s all about Lebron.
You can’t blame someone for thinking they’re the center of the universe if they’ve been treated as if they were since they were sixteen. But you also can’t tell me that you would prefer kids look up to someone who pretends he gets fouled and sweet talks refs than to someone like a Derrick Rose or a Dirk Nowitzki who works hard, plays through pain, and praises his teammates more than himself.
No one is taking notes on how labor markets should work based on professional basketball. But kids are looking at these athletes as models for how to act, what to value, and what to emulate.
It’s just sports. It shouldn’t matter that much. But it does. So we should root for the people we want to be role models. That means rooting against the Miami Heat.
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Update: Check out Rick Reilly’s reasons to root for the Mavs.
photo credit: http://www.bawlingaboutballing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/58228076.jpg