By Brooke Marendino
April 19, 2020 3:26pm
Starting May 15th, 2020, all NBA players will see a change in their bi weekly paycheck. This comes after the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association finalized an agreement on how players will be paid for the remainder of their contract.
For each player, they receive a paycheck every 15 days of each month. The NBA commissioner, Adam Silverman, and other executives came to terms on how every player will be paid during the season’s suspension. 25% of each player's paycheck (every 15 days) will be removed from their salary, and for some, this may be a lot. 25% of a $40,000 paycheck is $10,000, and for many players, that is more than what they excepted. As so many players have families or investments to take care of, the news seemed troubling at first. Phoenix Suns power forward Cheick Diallo had this to say about the recent news. “It’s tough you know, coming from Mali, Africa, my family relies on me a lot to make sure that they have food in the house and better opportunities in my country. I’m not worried about not providing for them because I made sure to save a lot of my earnings just in case basketball were to end, and for right now it is.”(Diallo, C)
The agreement would fill in as something of an escrow account that would return cash to the players should all the regular season games be played in a resumption of the period. If games were to not resume by mid-June, teams would be able to keep a fraction of the money based on how many games were canceled. The Collective Bargaining Agreement is to ensure that both players and employees regulate working salaries, conditions, and benefits, ''Force Majeure Event." The power of Majeure is another financial apparatus the NBA uses to make sure that players receive the 51% share of revenue with he owner.
Effectively, 10% of players' compensations is held bonded by the association. There have been many speculations on when the season will return causing an uproar in conversations. ESPN commentator/host Sage Steele spoke with Stephen A Smith and Won on Sportscenter on their reaction to the news.
Players will be paid in full on May 1st. The pay cuts have been anticipated by players and teams since the last game was played on March 11. The NBA has not released any indication that the season is not going to start back up, giving teams and fans hope that it may return sooner than later. The union has contacted teams informing them that it may be until June 15th until they have a plan on whether the season will end, or pick up where it left off.
The NBA playoffs should have started Saturday April 18th. There were 259 incomplete games left in the regular season, and if not played, the players in the league would lose almost $800 million in gross salary. Health comes first before anything else despite the financial burden that may come with the issue.
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