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Team
Payrolls |
||
| 1. Los Angeles Lakers |
$91,377,313
|
|
| 2. Dallas Mavericks |
$87,214,774
|
|
|
3.
Utah Jazz |
$85,111,807
|
|
|
$84,678,579
|
||
| 5. New York Knicks |
$82,504,966
|
|
| 6. San Antonio Spurs |
$80,671,324
|
|
| 7. Orlando Magic |
$80,532,126
|
|
| 8. Cleveland Cavaliers |
$79,975,195
|
|
| 9. Washington Wizards |
$79,179,646
|
|
|
10.
Denver Nuggets |
$74,860,031
|
|
| 11. Miami Heat |
$74,233,956
|
|
| 11. New Orleans Hornets |
$73,656,549
|
|
| 12. Houston Rockets |
$73,519,129
|
|
| 14. Chicago Bulls |
$69,967,615
|
|
| 15. Milwaukee Bucks |
$67,469,300
|
|
| 16. Indiana Pacers |
$66,733,257
|
|
| 17. Atlanta Hawks |
$65,865,758
|
|
|
$65,484,596
|
||
| 19. Golden State Warriors |
$64,997,917
|
|
| 20. Phoenix Suns |
$62,325,810
|
|
| 21. Philadelphia 76ers |
$61,945,532
|
|
| 22. Detroit Pistons |
$61,220,667
|
|
| 23. Sacramento Kings |
$61,043,564
|
|
|
$58,871,653
|
||
|
$57,351,407
|
||
| 26. Toronto Raptors |
$57,224,118
|
|
|
27.
New Jersey Nets |
$56,776,067
|
|
| 28. Portland Trail Blazers |
$56,713,022
|
|
| 29. Minnesota Timberwolves |
$54,577,640
|
|
| 30. Oklahoma City Thunder |
$49,887,530
|
|
The Lakers are the best team in the NBA. They haven’t played like it without Pau Gasol to start the season, but there’s a reason you haven’t heard me chirping when they lose to the Mavs or Thunder. I’ve started to actually realize that they really are a pretty phenomenal basketball team on the rare occasion when they both try and focus. Dwyer is right to give them thanks and praise. It’s natural that he spends more words per column on them than other teams (and I’ve actually ran counts, that’s how much time I have and how petty I am). They’re going to win the most games this year, though probably not 72, they’re going to be the #1 seed, they’re going to win the West, and they’re going to win the NBA championship. Sorry, Boston, sorry Cleveland, and very, very sorry Mavericks, but no one’s beating them. I almost get the sense that the league knows it, too. Every time they lose it’s like the opposing teams aren’t saying “we can beat you,” it’s “see, you’re NOT as dominant as you think you are, and we’re pretty good.” Nash has pretty much said that his team can’t compete with LA, and the games have proven that. The only team in the West that believes it can beat LA is Denver, and that to me is hi-ho-hilarious. But I digress.
My issue, though, is with all the accolades recently talking about this organization for the team they put out there. For all the glorious looks at their offense, how deep they are, how talented, we tend to gloss over the fact that they are BAZILLIONS of dollars over the cap. The cap’s set at $57.7 million. The Lakers are at $91.3! They’re paying $21.4 in luxury tax this year. Now, the rest of that top list is made of contenders, the Jazz, the Knicks who have a small country’s GNP coming off the books, and Washington. So it’s not like they’re alone. But the rest of those teams are good teams. Because they pay to be good teams. LA pays more. LA pays more money to be the best.
What does this remind you of? Oh, yeah, baseball.
Meanwhile, the Hawks have the seventeenth highest, the Blazers are 28th, and the Thunder 30th! Those are teams we should marvel at their makeup of. The Lakers are proof that if you give a team enough money with competent management, they will be the best. This doesn’t change their on-the-floor product, I’m not saying it does. Again, they’re the best. But they’re the best because they pay to be the best. This isn’t some great combination of guys who came together and play for one another and are passionate about their bond. They’re the highest paid collection of athletes in professional basketball and they play to that potential. Just because Isiah Thomas sucks at running a basketball squad doesn’t make it more impressive that the Lakers are able to do the most with the most money. It’s intuitive.
The Bulls are 14th, with a massive chunk expiring this year. And yet it says something about the Bulls’ organization that they got wiped off the map last night? They should get wiped off the floor! The Lakers spend $20 million more! You can argue that with Chicago’s market size they should be spending more money, and that’s fine. But let’s not act like LA’s a superior class of organization just because they spend more money than God. They’re a superior team this season, and they’re paying for that. If only the Bucks could have such a widespread bandwagon fanbase to pull revenue from in a huge market. Or you know, we could have a more effective revenue sharing system. Either way.
UPDATE: Ian notes in the comments that OKC’s primarily made up of guys on rookie contracts, and the Blazers’ massive extensions haven’t kicked in. So that’s a good point, especially given Bynum’s extension has kicked in (and is too much, but not by as much as we thought it was last year, so they’ve got that going for them).
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Why pick on the Lakers just in the one year they are have the highest payroll? Why hasn’t Dallas been the best team? Or the Blazers? They paid like they’re the best, as least.
NBA Payrolls 2008-2009 (millions)
New York Knicks ~ 100
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 90.1
Dallas Mavericks ~ 86
Portland Trailblazers ~ 81.6
Boston Celtics ~ 80.3
Los Angeles Lakers ~ 78.9
Phoenix Suns ~ 74.5
Houston Rockets ~ 73.5
NBA Payrolls 2007-2008 (millions)
Dallas Mavericks ~ 105
New York Knicks ~ 90
Denver Nuggets ~ 80
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 79
Boston Celtics ~ 75
Portland Trail Blazers ~ 74
Miami Heat ~ 73
LA Lakers ~ 72
Phoenix Suns ~ 71
Allen, thanks for your comment. If you read, I talk about how other teams completely squandered their payroll, like the Knicks. Nowhere did I “pick” on the Lakers. I’m not saying they’re overrated. Quite the opposite, I talked about how they’re going to win the championship. My point is simply that this team is obscenely loaded, and can afford to.
Now, the fact that Dallas and Cleveland were unable to win a championship despite spending the same? Speaks either to the greatness of Mitch Kupchak, the failure of the Mavs and Cavs, or something about the markets in the NBA.
You disregard the important fact that for a team to have a high payroll, it has to have drafted or traded for a player. The salary cap prevents just willy-nilly signing of free agents, so the fact that LA has the highest payroll and is the best is indicative of the organization’s ability to: a) draft players worth large conracts (Bryant and Bynum alone make up a large amount of the cap) and B) make smart moves to trade for players that help (Odom was traded for and able to sign a large contract because he was the Lakers’ free agent and Gasol, well, the GM turned Kwame Brown’s expiring K into an all-world, literally, PF). The Laker haven’t taken on the exorbitant toxic contracts like the Knicks (too many to list) or Utah (two PF’s being paid quie a bit and AK-47). Mentioning Portland and Oklahoma is just twisting facts. Next year, when Roy and Aldridge’s extensions go into effect, Portland will jump quite a bit. And why should we marvel at Oklahoma? They drafted great players, but all their core players are still on rookie contracts, what’s so awe-inspiring about that? That the Thunder found a GM who could draft solid players 20 years later than the Lakers?
2008-2009 Team Payroll
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 90.1
Orlando Magic ~ 62.9
By your logic, Cleveland SHOULD have wiped Orlando off the map last year, right?
Look, I’m not saying that paying more money has its advantages – it absolutely does help. But you can still compete and be the best without having the highest payroll. I wouldn’t just focus on the Lakers here. LA pays more money to be the best? More money than what, or whom? Last year, they didn’t pay more money than 5 other teams. Money is some part of it, but it’s not the largest factor.
The Rockets believe they can compete with L.A. That’s a second team.
The Lakers did take on bad contracts, like Kwame Brown. Yet they then turned it into Pau Gasol, which I assume you will respond was simply brilliance by Mitch Kupchak.
I’m not saying there’s anything to dog LA about here. I’m saying they are living up to what they SHOULD accomplish. That’s a good point about the Thunder and the Blazers, however, and I’ll make a note about that.
Matt, I didn’t see your comment before I posted my next, so thanks for your gracious response.
Big markets definitely have an advantage in creating stacked teams. It seems easier to bring it up, however, in years in which those teams are doing well.
Absolutely. I think you can look at Cleveland as yet another year of Danny Ferry failing to do what he should.
And it’s definitely not the largest factor, talent is, but the two are related, and as we saw with ARtest, often the market size can impact how much a player will play for. Ron Artest isn’t playing in San Antonio or Charlotte for the MLE.
The Rockets don’t think. They are machines. They just execute. I honestly don’t think they go into any game thinking about what they’re up against, or how easy it should be. They don’t get intimidated, nor do they get overconfident. They just execute.
They should change their name to the Houston Robots.
Man, you guys are posting at an absolutely furious rate around here! Gracias for all the content :)
I hate to say it, but entries like these kinda reflect your latent Laker hatred. After all, LA was the best team in the league last year without having the highest payroll. And then you make a semi-snide crack about Bynum still being overpaid. Really? What do you think a 22 year old seven footer with Durant-like length who is averaging 20 & 11 on 59% shooting is worth? Name another center in the league who’s played better so far this season. And don’t say Dwight Howard, cause Bynum’s averaging the same blocks per game that Howard is, while slightly edging him in boards per game and averaging 3 more points per game. Yes, Dwight’s a better player, but he’s also two years older, and is getting $3 mil/yr more. And to be fair, Bynum’s a much, much more polished offensive player than Howard is (though obviously Howard’s D is light years ahead of Bynum’s). But Bynum’s almost surely a top 3 center in the league right now, and that’s if you include Yao. With all that in mind, is a 3 year contract at an average of $13.7m/yr really more than Bynum could get as a free agent? Keep in mind the length of the contract for someone his age and who is showing his talent, and come on, that’s a very reasonable deal for LA (also remember this is the first year of this contract, so you have to compare what he’s getting paid now with what he is delivering now, not in the past).
Anti-Laker bias aside though, you really can’t compare basketball and baseball when it comes to salaries and salary structure. In baseball there is no salary cap at all, so signing a player to a humongous contract only to have that player do nothing only hurts the owner’s wallet, but does not prevent the team from spending more money on a slew of other highly paid players. This is why the Yankees can just outbid everyone every summer if they want to, and all that matters is whether Steinbrenner wants to pick up the check or not.
In basketball, having a large payroll usually carries as much downside as it does upside. This is because each team has limited roster space, and for every player a team signs who is not worth their contact, it means that team is now stuck with that player, and they’ve now given up not only a roster spot, but money they could spend on someone else. This is why the Knicks have continued to be awful for years and have simply had to wait it out till all their bad contracts are gone. It’s also why the Lakers are stuck with someone like Sasha Vujacic until his deal expires after next season, cause there’s no way anyone would want him at that price.
Because of all this, and as you alluded to in your late addition to this entry, you really need to look at each team’s salary with the prior and upcoming seasons for context. Really young teams like Portland or OKC are cheap now, but that’s because they’re gonna have to spend through the nose to keep all those players there. Teams like Chicago are intentionally keeping expenses low so they can throw truckloads of money at players like Wade or Bosh. Few teams have shown in the NBA that they can remain competitive without ultimately spending a lot of money. For years the Spurs tried to do this, but after last year it was clear that if they wanted to stay in the title hunt they were gonna have to go way above the luxury tax.
Ultimately I have to call shenanigans on this post a bit, just as a long time reader, because there was so much insisting last year that yes, the Lakers were great, but there would be no way they’d spend enough to keep Odom and Ariza. Well, Ariza thought he was worth more than he was, but clearly the Lakers were more than willing to spend what it would have cost to keep both (as they did keep Odom, and Artest is getting the money they offered Ariza – which is the same amount Ariza took from the Rockets). So look, rather than just say “of course LA is the best team, it’s cause they spend the most”, the reality is that they’re the best because they’ve spend the most WISELY.
There is a valid argument to be made that being in such a big market gives the Lakers a competitive edge when it comes to what they can spend, but the flip side of that coin is that Dr. Buss has pockets that are nowhere near as deep as most other owners in the NBA. If you really want to know which teams are well put together, look at any roster and what each player is making and ask yourself how many guys on there are not worth their contracts. The fewer guys there are with bad contracts, the better that team is gonna be; and on the Lakers there are really only two or maybe three guys like that: Sasha Vujacic for sure, and probably also either Luke Walton or Adam Morrison.
great comment Wild Yams. i agree with everything you said.