Friday, August 31, 2018

The Power of Star Players

It is a big deal that Tom Brady is now traveling with a private trainer. This would not be a big deal for any of the top dozen stars in the NBA. It would have been a big deal 20 years ago, but basketball is leading the culture change. The NBA also has players organizing teams and where they will play behind the scenes, while coaches and general managers are often forbidden by league rules from saying anything. While that is especially true since the Celtics assembled Allen and Garnett to go with Pierce, followed soon after by Lebron arranging to get Bosh to join him in Miami, it has been somewhat true of basketball for decades. Wilt was able to get himself traded, and O’Neal had more than ordinary control.

Why is player-under-control a big deal in the NFL but much less so in the NBA? Number of players on the floor/field. In basketball, you can only play five guys at a time, and realistically, only seven or eight are important. Therefore, a singular talent at one of those few slots is enormously valuable. In baseball and hockey, about 15 players are important. In football, almost 30 players of a 53-man roster are important, including special teams. The importance of even a star player is diluted.

Brady is an exception because he is a quarterback, now far and away the most important position in the NFL. He may be aided by the fact that the other singular talent on the team, Rob Gronkowski, uses the same private trainer. The few examples of player power are usually quarterbacks as well: Eli Manning refusing to be drafted by San Diego; Carson Palmer sitting out rather than playing for Cincinnati. Other QB’s may start to have more influence as well. The day may well be coming when Odell Beckham Jr can do as he pleases on some matters, moving the fences for other non-quarterbacks. But look at superior talents Donald Allen and Khalil Mack.  They don't have quite the juice they think they do.  They are still only one of 30 rather than one of five.

Coaches have more power when even the stars add less value per position in the sport. Football coaches get rid of players. Basketball players get rid of coaches. Baseball and hockey are more like football, but somewhere in between.

1 comment:

Tom Grey said...

Very interesting sports - economics comparisons to levels of oligarchical power.

Right now, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are the very select, very few super super stars of the internet economy. FB & Google, especially, have huge amounts of data driven power & influence.

I've become more of a politics watching spectator, so have less & less time and interest in sports. Just more spectator adrenaline entertainment -- more meaningless than last decade's runner up Oscar movies.

Yet there is something primal & emotive about rooting for "your team", your tribe, your "us", literally against "them".

Humans are hardwired to be "us" vs "them". Peter Grant & others are talking more about this and a potential US civil war. I don't see it, tho I see the increasing tribalism as increasingly dangerous.