If the UAE created a NBA-like league but had no draft restrictions...

How long before it becomes a more competitive league than the NBA?

Most NBA talents come from a tough upbringing financially, there are of course exceptions like Kobe, Luka etc. who have had the privilege of being exposed to like-minds.

But if the UAE decided to create a league with no draft restrictions which would allow high school prospects to make six to nine figures, how long do you think it would take for it to become a better product than the NBA if ever?

All that would happen is people like scoot who go to the G league ignite, and other pro but not NBA leagues would flock there for the higher pay then come to the NBA when they were eligible. If the whole rights deal doesn’t get scuttled with this ESPN and spectrum fight we are going to see $400 million contracts soon. If you can stay home and play in a league you grew up watching and retire with half a billion? that’s plenty.

Plus, there is now a path for even college washouts to get life-changing money. 18 year olds are millionaires of Anaëlle. You just maintain eligibility you’re a millionaire as a great college player. You don’t necessarily have to go pro to avoid being desperate for cash. You can stay in college and build your game as not even a first round prospect and graduate with three times your parents career earnings.

Nijel Pack signed an $800,000 NIL deal with just one company. He’s a millionaire college student who probably won’t even make the NBA.

Poor kids gonna be rich the day after they graduate high school if they can ball. Less temptation to run to the Middle East if you can become a millionaire in the town of your choosing and run it for 3-4 years.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828289]All that would happen is people like scoot who go to the G league ignite, and other pro but not NBA leagues would flock there for the higher pay then come to the NBA when they were eligible. If the whole rights deal doesn’t get scuttled with this ESPN and spectrum fight we are going to see $400 million contracts soon. If you can stay home and play in a league you grew up watching and retire with half a billion? that’s plenty.

Plus, there is now a path for even college washouts to get life-changing money. 18 year olds are millionaires of Anaëlle. You just maintain eligibility you’re a millionaire as a great college player. You don’t necessarily have to go pro to avoid being desperate for cash. You can stay in college and build your game as not even a first round prospect and graduate with three times your parents career earnings.

Nijel Pack signed an $800,000 NIL deal with just one company. He’s a millionaire college student who probably won’t even make the NBA.

Poor kids gonna be rich the day after they graduate high school if they can ball. Less temptation to run to the Middle East if you can become a millionaire in the town of your choosing and run it for 3-4 years.[/QUOTE]

Can you imagine how pissed the college stars of the past must be? I wonder if there's any talk of reparations (lol) of some form. But that's probably a whole other can of worms.

There have been so many great college players who are never going to have a pro career who could’ve made a lifetime of money. Tommie Frazier with these rules might’ve made 10 million in college.

[QUOTE=Im Still Ballin;14828297]Can you imagine how pissed the college stars of the past must be? I wonder if there's any talk of reparations (lol) of some form. But that's probably a whole other can of worms.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE] [INDENT] “The [NCAA] robbed us enough… When I was at Kentucky, we went to Mexico, and I saw 3,000 ‘Cousins’ shirts. Vendor outside made 60 bands, and I'd get in trouble for a free meal.”

DeMarcus Cousins says NIL is too little too late 👀
(via [URL="https://twitter.com/shobasketball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"]@shobasketball[/URL]) [URL="https://t.co/e49mkneIZa"]pic.twitter.com/e49mkneIZa[/URL]
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) [URL="https://twitter.com/ClutchPoints/status/1699492674221252768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"]September 6, 2023[/URL][/INDENT]

– via [URL="https://twitter.com/ClutchPointsApp"]Twitter ClutchPointsApp[/URL]

[/QUOTE]

:violin:

[QUOTE=Xiao Yao You;14828336]:violin:[/QUOTE]


do you not agree with what he said or do you just not care? College kids have obviously been the workforce of a billion dollar entity for years under the guise of being student athletes in an amateur system they were expected to be the only amateurs in.

People get in trouble for buying a college student a hamburger while making tens of millions of dollars off those students. At what point is it just…wrong?

A “free” education has always been a joke compared to the return the higher end guys provide.

You can go run 300 times and help generate millions in ticket sales and billions in television contracts and tear up your knee and have your scholarship revoked if you don’t come back the same. A lot of the people under the old system have a right to be annoyed.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828348]do you not agree with what he said or do you just not care? College kids have obviously been the workforce of a billion dollar entity for years under the guise of being student athletes in an amateur system they were expected to be the only amateurs in.

People get in trouble for buying a college student a hamburger while making tens of millions of dollars off those students. At what point is it just…wrong?

A “free” education has always been a joke compared to the return the higher end guys provide.

You can go run 300 times and help generate millions in ticket sales and billions in television contracts and tear up your knee and have your scholarship revoked if you don’t come back the same. A lot of the people under the old system have a right to be annoyed.[/QUOTE]

I think it's a good thing that get paid. Don't feel sorry for someone that was a POS and made 10's of millions though

Well, publicly professing a lack of empathy for anyone in any kind of hardship so long as they either have money, or have somehow annoyed you in the past is like a top-five thing to do on the Internet these days. I suppose not caring about the injustice done to college students because a fraction of them later got rich is pretty low on the list of objectionable situations like this.

I swear I’ve seen people pointing out that they don’t feel bad somebody got cancer. And not like some murderer, or a pedophile. Some kind of business person from a company they didn’t care for. For some reason we as a People just don’t want to acknowledge that rich people can be wronged and use the existence of poor people as a reason not to care about anything anybody rich is going through or went through. Even when the misfortune is from their poor days.

I’m rich now relative to where I came from, but this world has me wondering how well off I can be before people happily point out how little they care about my problems.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828354]Well, publicly professing a lack of empathy for anyone in any kind of hardship so long as they either have money, or have somehow annoyed you in the past is like a top-five thing to do on the Internet these days. I suppose not caring about the injustice done to college students because a fraction of them later got rich is pretty low on the list of objectionable situations like this.

I swear I’ve seen people pointing out that they don’t feel bad somebody got cancer. And not like some murderer, or a pedophile. Some kind of business person from a company they didn’t care for. For some reason we as a People just don’t want to acknowledge that rich people can be wronged and use the existence of poor people as a reason not to care about anything anybody rich is going through or went through. Even when the misfortune is from their poor days.

I’m rich now relative to where I came from, but this world has me wondering how well off I can be before people happily point out how little they care about my problems.[/QUOTE]

I don't care about your problems because you're a douche not because of how well off you tout yourself to be.

I’m well-off relative to where I started because I came up gathering rainwater in buckets to flush the toilet and learning how to steal power with meters taken off abandoned houses to turn ours on at night when the power company trucks wouldn’t be driving around. I certainly don’t think I’m rich by normal standards. But I do wonder when the cut off point is for people to disregard wrongdoing because ive reached that point.

I consider you the borderline unbearable kind of one note super fan, but I certainly wouldn’t want to hear about anything bad happening in your personal life. Thinking stupid things like setting a lot of screens making your contribution comparable on offense to Nikola Jokić is certainly weirdo shit but I would rather not hear you have a kidney stone or something.

Just as a fellow human….I care enough to hope you have good health and don’t get scammed out of your Rudy rookie cards or whatever it is you hold dear.

The world has too much negativity as it is.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828358]I’m well-off relative to where I started because I came up gathering rainwater in buckets to flush the toilet and learning how to steal power with meters taken off abandoned houses to turn ours on at night when the power company trucks wouldn’t be driving around. I certainly don’t think I’m rich by normal standards. But I do wonder when the cut off point is for people to disregard wrongdoing because ive reached that point.

I consider you the borderline unbearable kind of one note super fan, but I certainly wouldn’t want to hear about anything bad happening in your personal life. Thinking stupid things like setting a lot of screens making your contribution comparable on offense to Nikola Jokić is certainly weirdo shit but I would rather not hear you have a kidney stone or something.

Just as a fellow human….I care enough to hope you have good health and don’t get scammed out of your Rudy rookie cards or whatever it is you hold dear.

The world has too much negativity as it is.[/QUOTE]

never compared anyone to Jokic except papa Sabonis. You're not any better than the rest of the trolls. Making shit up for the hell of it. Have no cards of Gobert. My life doesn't revolve around a basketball player unlike the trolls who can't enough of the guy. They certainly didn't make this list :roll:

[INDENT] The most overpaid players of all time according to [URL="https://twitter.com/*********?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"]@*********[/URL]’s Real Value metric:


1. John Wall
2. Gordon Hayward
3. Klay Thompson
4. Tyson Chandler
5. Juwan Howard
6. Kevin Love
7. Dikembe Mutombo
8. Nicolas Batum
9. Chandler Parsons
10. Al Horford


— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) [URL="https://twitter.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1699073248925983091?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"]September 5, 2023[/URL][/INDENT]

– via [URL="https://twitter.com/juanonjuan10"]Twitter juanonjuan10[/URL]

Why would UAE pay Scoot before they have to? What they should do is recruit guys like Scoot AFTER they get drafted but BEFORE he signed a contract. Wembanyama is only paid $12M his first year. If UAE is willing to pay him $30M annually, is he really turning that down? Pay the top 5-10 draft pick every year. The NBA will soon be forced to raise salaries to unsustainable amount.

[QUOTE=iamgine;14828364]Why would UAE pay Scoot before they have to? What they should do is recruit guys like Scoot AFTER they get drafted but BEFORE he signed a contract. Wembanyama is only paid $12M his first year. If UAE is willing to pay him $30M annually, is he really turning that down? Pay the top 5-10 draft pick every year. The NBA will soon be forced to raise salaries to unsustainable amount.[/QUOTE]

ABA, AFL, WFL, USFL. Good luck!

You never compared Rudy to Jokic? What would you call this:

[QUOTE]

The best finisher in the game. You do know that the dunk is still the most efficient shot in the game and Rudy set a new record for dunks? You do know he's the best at setting screens in the whole league? That is the Jazz offense just as running the offense through Jokic is Denver's. He's better at running the floor. He's more athletic. He won the head to head matchup clearly too.
[/QUOTE]

Far as that list, I saw it on Twitter a while ago and actually wondered if somebody would post it and get a response like that from you. Never got around to posting it.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828367]You never compared Rudy to Jokic? What would you call this:



Far as that list, I saw it on Twitter a while ago and actually wondered if somebody would post it and get a response like that from you. Never got around to posting it.[/QUOTE]

your best comparison made the list and he didn't for some strange reason

[QUOTE=iamgine;14828364]Why would UAE pay Scoot before they have to? What they should do is recruit guys like Scoot AFTER they get drafted but BEFORE he signed a contract. Wembanyama is only paid $12M his first year. If UAE is willing to pay him $30M annually, is he really turning that down? Pay the top 5-10 draft pick every year. The NBA will soon be forced to raise salaries to unsustainable amount.[/QUOTE]

He probably would turn it down. If he’s the player he’s supposed to be he’s gonna sign for 300 million in 3 years and another 400+ when he’s in his late 20s. He could reach $1 billion in career earnings in the NBA if he becomes what he supposed to become. Leaving for the short in Money would be smart if he doesn’t believe in himself, I suppose.

[QUOTE=Xiao Yao You;14828368]your best comparison made the list and he didn't for some strange reason[/QUOTE]

nothing strange about it. I’ve been on here explaining that the people we call overpaid now aren’t historically over paid people just have no idea how much of the Previous generations highest paid players took up. I have specifically referenced Mutombo I’m pretty sure. Let me look into that….

*insert Jeopardy theme music*



Ok.

This is me 4 years ago


[QUOTE]

You know what a guy like John Walls makes relative to the cap in 2021(his first year over 40 million)?

A lot less than Clyde Drexler made on the Rockets.

Clydes pay in 1996 relative to a modern cap? About 49 million dollars.

Patrick Ewing? 86 million. Only one player in the NBA made half as much. Maybe we need to quit wondering why his teams never got another star in the 90s...

Horace Grant made the 2021 cap hit equal of 70 million dollars in 1997(he was the second highest paid player in the league).

To make it a bit more modern....Kobe in 2014 made the cap hit equal of 53 million dollars in 2021.

Dikembe Mutombo in his last few good years? The equal of 50 million. He was over 44% of the salary cap.

[/QUOTE]

This is also me responding to someone saying Rudy makes 40 million and never developed as a scorer:


[QUOTE]

I don’t know what he was scoring when they signed him to that contract but whatever it was, I doubt they expected him to develop into a scorer.

30-40 million is just what good players cost these days. If a really good player makes under 30 million it’s because he signed the deal before he broke out.

[/QUOTE]


whatever he is or isn’t his contract has never really been an issue to me. I stopped caring about the eye-popping number on all these contracts years ago.


In fact this is me the day that deal was announced



[QUOTE]

In all seriousness I like Rudy if only because I generally favor defense and doing the little things and considering how many people are max players these days he absolutely is one....

But he’s still the other guy in a good band.

[/QUOTE]

I never had much to say about anyone’s contract once I realized how little it really matters with these giant and ever rising salary cap numbers.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828348]do you not agree with what he said or do you just not care? College kids have obviously been the workforce of a billion dollar entity for years under the guise of being student athletes in an amateur system they were expected to be the only amateurs in.

People get in trouble for buying a college student a hamburger while making tens of millions of dollars off those students. At what point is it just…wrong?

A “free” education has always been a joke compared to the return the higher end guys provide.

You can go run 300 times and help generate millions in ticket sales and billions in television contracts and tear up your knee and have your scholarship revoked if you don’t come back the same. A lot of the people under the old system have a right to be annoyed.[/QUOTE]


Ive been saying this for years, and it’s exactly why I dropped out of college after one semester. I had no intention of becoming a doctor or a lawyer, and so it made no sense to me why a degree should be important. Despite everyone around me including parents, peers, high school teachers etc etc insisting college is a no brainer, so important, everyone should go, I analyzed the system for myself and decided it made no sense for ME to be paying some SCHOOL to saddle me with busy work and have some teachers assistant hack assign me a grade so they justify charging thousands of dollars.

The system has been a racket and a ponzi scheme for years, and I dont have much sympathy for anyone who went thru it and then said after the fact “hey wait a minute, im not satisfied with the outcome!”

If you cant see the moves until after theyre made youre bound to get screwed.

[QUOTE=FultzNationRISE;14828376]Ive been saying this for years, and it’s exactly why I dropped out of college after one semester. I had no intention of becoming a doctor or a lawyer, and so it made no sense to me why a degree should be important. Despite everyone around me including parents, peers, high school teachers etc etc insisting college is a no brainer, so important, everyone should go, I analyzed the system for myself and decided it made no sense for ME to be paying some SCHOOL to saddle me with busy work and have some teachers assistant hack assign me a grade so they justify charging thousands of dollars.

The system has been a racket and a ponzi scheme for years, and I dont have much sympathy for anyone who went thru it and then said after the fact “hey wait a minute, im not satisfied with the outcome!”

If you cant see the moves until after theyre made youre bound to get screwed.[/QUOTE]

I take it this is before you took your talents to Hollywood. Is this all covered in that book you wrote?

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828370]He probably would turn it down. If he’s the player he’s supposed to be he’s gonna sign for 300 million in 3 years and another 400+ when he’s in his late 20s. He could reach $1 billion in career earnings in the NBA if he becomes what he supposed to become. Leaving for the short in Money would be smart if he doesn’t believe in himself, I suppose.[/QUOTE]
Well UAE could pay that too. $12M will be $6M after tax. $300M will be like $130M after tax.

You offer them $30M vs $6M...come on now. This is not a game NBA likely to win.

[QUOTE=Im Still Ballin;14828377]I take it this is before you took your talents to Hollywood. Is this all covered in that book you wrote?[/QUOTE]

Only one way to find out ;)

[QUOTE=FultzNationRISE;14828379]Only one way to find out ;)[/QUOTE]

If I remember correctly, the book was titled something hilarious like [I]From Rags to Riches Back to Rags[/I]

[QUOTE=iamgine;14828378]Well UAE could pay that too. $12M will be $6M after tax. $300M will be like $130M after tax.

You offer them $30M vs $6M...come on now. This is not a game NBA likely to win.[/QUOTE]


Americans have to pay taxes in both countries tho, unless they renounce their citizenship. I believe the US is the only country in the world that taxes foreign income.

Im not sure if money made abroad is subject to a different set of tax brackets, but assuming it’s not, by the time you pay off both country’s taxes youre probably taking home like 20% of what you made.

Altho that brings up an interesting point.

If a player is getting paid by the same institution he’s directly taxed by (ie a saudi sovereign wealth fund etc)… from the employer’s perspective theyre not paying the full salary, because some of it comes right back.

Like if the government pays Ronaldo 300 million but collects 100 million back in taxes… then theyre only spending 200 million to bring in Ronaldo.

NBA teams - who undoubtedly take advantage of every tax loophole and write off imaginable - technically arent in that position. If they sign a guy for 300 million, it’s costing them 300 million. And then they have to find creative ways to mitigate it thru filing taxes with the government. But it’s not as much of a direct guarantee it would seem.

[QUOTE=FultzNationRISE;14828381]Americans have to pay taxes in both countries tho, unless they renounce their citizenship. I believe the US is the only country in the world that taxes foreign income.

Im not sure if money made abroad is subject to a different set of tax brackets, but assuming it’s not, by the time you pay off both country’s taxes youre probably taking home like 20% of what you made.[/QUOTE]

UAE has no income tax. Playing in the NBA, you have to pay significant additional state taxes. Also, many of them are not American.

[QUOTE=iamgine;14828386][B]UAE has no income tax.[/B] Playing in the NBA, you have to pay significant additional state taxes. Also, many of them are not American.[/QUOTE]

Damn, didnt know that.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855;14828370]He probably would turn it down. If he’s the player he’s supposed to be he’s gonna sign for 300 million in 3 years and another 400+ when he’s in his late 20s. He could reach $1 billion in career earnings in the NBA if he becomes what he supposed to become. Leaving for the short in Money would be smart if he doesn’t believe in himself, I suppose.[/QUOTE]

I expect a lot of players would choose the better deal now over the prospect of greater potential gains down the road. You never know what could happen in three years, so some would take the risk, and some would go for the sure thing.

[QUOTE=FultzNationRISE;14828393]Damn, didnt know that.[/QUOTE]

Oil money.

NBA players are overpaid as is. Why would they need to scoot over to the UAE?

Shocked me that soccer players did tbh.