The Super L33t Effect

The l33t effect in salary capped sports, and to a lesser degree uncapped sports, in America is a shame.  It has nothing to do with LeBron as a person, or his mental toughness, or what he does in "winning" time, or crunch time, or whether or not he steps up in big moments, or is "passive", or whatever.  The only thing it has to do with is the perception that you have to, absolutely have to be paid requisite to your abilities and relative to your peers at all times and to do anything less would be an admission of some kind of failing in your skill set, relative to everyone else playing the same game, and is absolutely unacceptable.

I mean, I get it: professional athletes are competitive in every aspect of their game and it makes sense that the competitive "I am the best, I will get the best" mentality bleeds over into other aspects of their lives.  I wasn't terribly shocked when Tiger Woods slept with other women.  The guy's a competitor.  Were you really shocked back in the day when Tanya paid that guy to smash Nancy's leg with a hammer?  Did I get those names in the right order?  I hope I'm remembering that correctly.  Anyway, when athletes do ridiculous things, why is anyone terribly shocked?  9/10ths of their lives is spent growing up in their sport and continuing that sport on an adult level against other people who have devoted the greater parts of their lives to the same game would, could, and does warp them with respect to 9 to 5 human beings who don't do what they love (not even close) and who haven't been doing it since they were old enough to... I dunno... carry a plate from the kitchen to their table and back when they were done eating.

What I've been thinking is that the LeBron effect basically makes it harder to win as a team, rather than easier.  Maybe call it the A-Rod effect, or don't.  That wouldn't be all that accurate as there aren't salary caps in baseball.  You can throw away as much money as you want depending on your market.  It's still there though, but a shadow of what it is in capped sports.  In salary capped leagues the ultra l33t athlete effect is real.  Basically, you are awesome.  Well, I should start off by saying "this is where it starts."  So, basically, you are awesome at what you do.  Top twenty in the country.  In the top fifty human beings on the face of the Earth at whatever thing it is that you do.

However, the only way you get to do it, is by signing on with a team and the team only has so much money to spend.  On top of that, there is already an established amount of money everyone else who can't do it as well as you gets paid.  So you have to be paid more because you're better than them.  It'd be like a CEO of a grocery store being paid bagger money.  The money establishes, or rather, confirms hierarchy.  Pay grades are like school grades in that way.  The problem arises when you are so good that a team has to pay you so much money that there is none left to pay the baggers or cashiers or maintenance staff and the grocery store eventually folds, but damn there was a good CEO leading them straight into the ground.    You could take less money, but taking less money would be the same as saying "I'm not the best at what I do and I want to acknowledge it publicly."

The super l33t effect basically rots out the infrastructure, completely blows it out.  So as contracts inflate, the model of a few super l33ts surrounded by dreck grows less and less tenable.  I guess what I'm getting at is this:  every time something goes wrong with the Miami Heat NBA team and the finger pointing starts up, I cringe a little bit.  It is a no win situation for that team and everyone involved.  If they do eventually win a championship or two, it will be great, but I think it will be the last time, at least for the foreseeable future, that any general manager will make moves that will eat the massive majority of their available folding money on a massive minority of their players (the elite few on the team).  It's a bit ridiculous.  It's a self perpetuating system.  If LeBron could take less money to bring in a better supporting cast, would he?  I guess that's up for debate too.  But, we'll never know.  So screw it.

Either way, athletes are paid way too much money regardless.  Average people aren't paid enough.  And God, if he exists, is a Steelers fan.  That is all.