There's this Pat Riley press conference after his Heat had just lost the NBA Finals. He is pleading, counting the great duos and trios of NBA history, regaling how they all climbed the mountaintop and lost, about how all of this is a momentary setback. He has his hands out, begging.
"Whatever they want to do. However we can keep those guys together—Bird, McHale, Parish together; Worthy, Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar together," he said, then he kept on going.
"Whatever it takes to keep them together, we're ready for it."
Pat Riley begged for his team to stay, and LeBron James, the most talented of all, said no, thank you.
Now, LeBron is in Cleveland, maybe forever, because that's where his family is, and that's where he wants to play out his prime and his twilight, and it's clear: The people in power aren't the ones counting the money or rearranging the pieces.
Instead, if you're good enough, those people are now the ones groveling, sick for your approval, a votary to your every whim.
Owners and executives from the Mavericks, Lakers, Cavaliers, Suns and Rockets all flew to Cleveland in secret to meet LeBron after they heard of his plans to consider leaving Miami. James' agent, Rich Paul, allegedly demanded total secrecy.
Cavs owner Dan Gilbert flew to Miami and, when fans found out, he pretended to be on vacation. When Mark Cuban was caught alone on a stoop in Cleveland last week, he had to say he was there for a "Shark Tank commitment."
All of these things are, of course, lies, and it all comes back to one thing:
Last summer, the players got outlawyered in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. A group of old white guys set up a system to keep employees in check.
Today, talent bulldozed it.
Welcome to the roots of a truly meritocratic society, where the people who fund industry merely fund industry and the most talented or most principled among us run the world, even if there are rules in place to make sure that never happens.
The economy collapsed because of greed at the top—where punishment is not allowed, and neither is production. The luster of management for the sake of it is falling off, and the shame and resentment of waiting in line to get there doesn't feel like that free of an idea now that we know what we know, does it?
This is about agency. That's all it's really about. So why the hell did we go after LeBron to begin with?
"It's so weird how James is, I think, fascinatingly vilified for trying to move his own checker piece in the right direction," says David Shields.
Shields wrote a book in 1999 called Black Planet. It was about race in the mid-'90s NBA. It covered the the unsaid racial tension everywhere, like the weekly radio appearances between Gary Payton and two stiff, mimicking white guys, and how the 1994 Seattle Sonics felt like 41 mini-revolutions in the Tacoma Dome.
In the book, Shields brings up then-Bucks owner (and former U.S. Senator) Herb Kohl's contract negotiations with Glenn Robinson. A rising star, Robinson was seeking $113 million and Kohl bragged to reporters about talking him down to $70 million.
"I was thinking of telling Mr. Robinson, 'I'll tell you what, I'll take your contract and you can have my franchise.'" This line was widely credited with helping him get reelected.
That was 20 years ago. The idea of the most talented guy out on the court having more power than a guy who owns a corporation was a hilarious joke, and everyone loved it. Get back in your place, employee. That wasn't even the overt implication. That was the joke itself.
Last week, six owners said to LeBron James, "I'll take your contract and you can have my franchise." Then they said, "No, I'm not kidding. Please, please, please. Listen this time. Please."
LeBron James has all of the power in sports, and it's because he is more important, objectively, than anyone else in the league—even, or especially, including the people who pay his checks.
"I think it's a present day mentality of all players in the league," Riley said in that press conference. "They have the inalienable right in the rules of the NBA."
If that phrase sounds awfully Constitutional, it's because it's the very foundation of the American ideal.
"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
This doesn't end with LeBron. It starts with him and Kobe Bryant, and they are providing an example for the next generation of basketball players and businessmen and firefighters and teachers and everyone else.
If the rules don't allow you to be the best at what you are, get very good anyway, and make a mockery of the rules while you do it. That's what true agency is.
There is that unwritten one among athletes, for example, to never truly answer any question—to only give trained answers, lest a Richard Sherman fiasco happen and stir up the worst backlash among the dredges of society.
Kobe is done with it. This is what he told his basketball camp last week:
He then held a press conference to chat about free agency and the Lakers' too-long coaching search and to shoot down a tabloid picture of him looking a little pudgy.
Why cower to the fear of a populace that doesn't understand you? Why let your life be dictated by others' self-interest?
Speak up. Be where you want to be. Money will get you power. Greatness will get you autonomy.
