NBA AM: There Is A Reason LeBron Is The King

There Is A Reason He’s The King:  It is easy to not like Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James. Over the course of his career, he has done and said things that have turned fans and pundits against him. He is often labeled as rude or arrogant, but when the lights turn off and the locker room door closes, teammate after teammate gushes at how normal, down to earth and inclusive LeBron is as a teammate.

It’s not easy to be the biggest name in the game. There is a burden that comes with that, and few can handle it. LeBron often turns to jokes and humor as his coping mechanism of choice. That has helped a lot of teammates connect with him in ways that would be unexpected.

It is also not at all out of the ordinary for James to show up at a teammate’s house or condo and say, “Come on, you’re coming with us” and take them out for an elaborate meal or event that James is attending.

James also has numerous product-related endorsement deals and is supplied tons of gear and samples, samples he generously shares with his teammates. One former James teammate labeled it as being like Christmas Day, as you’d never know what new gadget would be waiting for you in your locker after practice: Beats By Dre headphones, a new Samsung phone or tablet, etc.

On the court, James is equally giving. His teammates appreciate that he would rather pass than score, that he wants his teammates to succeed and he forces that issue in practice and even more so in games.

James’ acumen as a basketball mind is reaching legendary status as well. For years, Kobe Bryant was considered the most cerebral player in the game, pouring over hours of game film to glean the nuisances of every player. James has become just as focused.

Teammates talk about his ability to process entire game plans and execute not only his assignments, but his teammates’ as well.

New Cavs teammate Iman Shumpert joked that after about five minutes with the plan, you could almost remove the coaches from the process and LeBron could run everything the coaches asked with precision and detail, which is not very common in the NBA.

It’s easy not to like LeBron – he is about as polarizing as a player can be in the NBA, but the one thing that becomes clear when you talk to current and former teammates is how much they enjoy playing with him. And if you look at where the Cavs find themselves after such a rough start to the season, the LeBron impact is hard to ignore.

As the NBA continues to debate who is most deserving of the NBA’s MVP award, there is a player who’s not getting nearly enough respect and that’s James.

His Cavs team is 41-17 (.706) when he is on the floor. If you back out the dreadful November he endured due to knee and back issues, that increases to 33-10 (.767). Since January 1, the Cavs are 23-6 (.793) with James on the floor.

It’s easy not to like LeBron, but the one thing you can’t do is take away the fact that’s he’s still one of the best players on the planet and his teammates love to play with him. Maybe that’s why they call him The King.

Calculating The Cap:  There has been a lot of discussion about the surge in the NBA salary cap recently. In an attempt to understand how teams are dealing with the information, I reached out to a small sample of team executives to get a feel for how they are planning for the future. Here is what came out of that.

Most executives are pegging the 2015 NBA Salary cap at just over $67 million. That lines up with projections from the NBA, which indicated a cap figure of $67.4 million was likely.

The 2016 cap is much harder to rationalize. Teams have been advised there is a band, which would be something of a best-case/worst-case scenario. Worst case is $85-86 million, best case is closer to $90 million. The variables there are tied to actual league performance, which is a little harder to project out than next season because so much is tied to sales that are not even on the books yet.

A couple of the executives that commented said they were working under the assumption of an $87 million cap in 2016.

The next part is that many executives didn’t believe every team in the league would play at or near that number in the first year for a number of reasons – the biggest being revenue constraints. While teams will be allowed by the league to spend more, that does not mean they can generate the cash to cover that expense. The TV money is not handed out in advance, it’s paid throughout the year and some teams will need to bank some cash before they can start spending to these new levels.

The next biggest comment came for a couple of executives from teams currently below the cap – their comment was they didn’t know how they’d spend $30-$40 million without handing out silly contracts that didn’t make sense for their teams. Not every team is going to be in a situation to spend.

Take Minnesota for example, they have six players on rookie-scale contracts and are looking at adding a seventh from the draft this year. Even with big money owed to Nikola Pekovic and Ricky Rubio, the Wolves have the core of their team under contract to the tune of $57 million. Where exactly does Minnesota need to spend $30 million? That’s just to meet the new inflated cap. Admittedly, Minnesota will need that room to extend all those young guys as they get into 2017 and 2018, but in the short term there is no basketball reason to spend to the new cap.

The Philadelphia 76ers have no fully guaranteed contracts on the books in 2016 – even if they picked up all their contract options they’d have just $20.4 million committed. That’s $57.9 million to spend just to meet the floor of an $87 million salary cap. How do the 76ers pull that one off?

Not every team in the league can spend that kind of money, without just over paying middle tier players.

While the massive increase in the salary cap seems attractive to fans that want free agents, for some teams the new $87 million number is a little daunting because it will require spending that may not be sustainable.

The last issue some teams mentioned is the belief that while 2016 will have a huge bump due to the new rights deal, there is also a sense that going into 2018 that the cap may contract a little as the true revenue numbers come in and things normalize around the new revenue. There is some fear of inking huge long-term deals under the new math only to have it change as things normalize.

There was a real reason the NBA wanted the players to accept a smoothing plan, because it’s not going to work out quite like the players are hoping where all 30 teams have and spend all this cap space. There are a handful of teams that need the new room and will spend it, but there are equally as many teams that don’t have any use for the new room and are actually concerned that they may get priced out of free agency on even normally priced free agents.

If that does become the case, the number of teams trying to tank for draft picks could increase and all that parity the league sought in a tighter cap environment might go by the way side.

It will be interesting to see how everyone manages the new spending that will be required under the new cap environment.

The End Of The Line:  Yesterday, word broke that Adidas – the long-time apparel and equipment partner of the NBA – would not be seeking a new deal with the NBA and that they would be bowing out when their contract was up.

Earlier this year, the NBA sought a new deal and negotiated with Adidas before ultimately opening up the process to bids from other companies. The belief is the NBA will announce the new deal before the playoffs get underway and that much of the process may already have been decided.

Adidas sort of inherited the apparel deal when they took control of Reebok, who won the deal in 2006, inking an 11-year league-wide deal worth $400 plus million in payments to the NBA.

Prior to the Reebok deal, teams had individual deals with various companies including Nike, Champion and Puma.

The current deal pays the NBA a lump sum of roughly $40 million per year, and some royalties based on sales. For the most part, teams and the league don’t make a ton on jersey and apparel sales unless they sell it or license it themselves (hence the massive promotion of team shops during games and the NBA Store and NBAStore.com).

Unlike most sports, the NBA owes a disproportionate percentage of their revenue to their merchandising business, the envy of many pro sports leagues.

Like the upcoming TV rights deal, the NBA is looking at a huge increase in its apparel deal and if the NFL’s five-year, $1.1 billion deal (they just added three more years to it this week) with Nike is an indicator, the NBA could see a sizable jump in its apparel license rights.

It’s believed that Nike and Under Armour are the two companies trying to win the bid process. Both brands have huge apparel operations already providing equipment and jerseys to numerous collegiate and international teams in the basketball space.

Under Armour made a run at Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant this summer when his shoe deal was under negotiation, offering a package built around cash and stock said to be worth more than $325 million. If Under Armour would go that deep on a single player, it will be interesting to see what their bid would be to have the entire NBA.

One common question about the end of the Adidas deal is will that also mean the end of the sleeved jerseys? The answer there is maybe.

While Adidas did put that on the table for NBA teams, it was in response to the teams’ desire to try something different to jump start lagging jersey sales. While sleeves have not been as popular among diehard fans and some players, they have been tremendously popular at the cash register. Given that the entire reason for sleeves was to drive sales and fill an unmet need – not everyone can or wants to wear a tank top – it will be interesting to see if the new apparel partner is asked to continue where Adidas leaves off on the sleeves front.

Sources close to the process said while the contract will end after the 2016-2017 season, nothing is changing on the business front. Several teams are on track to reveal new jersey designs and those new looks will not be delayed and it will be business as usual.

More Twitter: Make sure you are following all of our guys on Twitter to ensure you are getting the very latest from our team: @stevekylerNBA, @AlexKennedyNBA, @LangGreene, @EricPincus, @joelbrigham, @SusanBible @TommyBeer, @JabariDavisNBA , @NateDuncanNBA , @MokeHamilton , @JCameratoNBA, @iamdpick, @jblancartenba, @johnzitzler, @CodyTaylorNBA, @MaryStevensNBA and @YannisNBA.