The NBA’s new $24 billion television deal has a lot of players speaking up about their salaries and the collective bargaining agreement. During the 2011 lockout that yielded the present day CBA, the owners claimed to be losing money and the players made a lot of concessions on the division of revenue. Now that NBA teams are more valuable than ever coupled with the new TV deal, players aren’t trying to hear that story anymore.
In 2017 the players will have the opportunity to opt-out of the current CBA which many feel favor the owners. In fact many players lately have been encouraged to take less money in order to build great rosters and not have the owners pay luxury tax. Kobe Bryant was one of those players who refused to do so. Bryant was highly criticized for signing a two-year contract extension with the Lakers worth $48.5 million. The deal left the Lakers a little cap strapped and didn’t land any big names this offseason as expected (although there were other factors). Bryant has never been apologetic about his extension and took to his Twitter account to reaffirm his feelings in light of the new TV deal.
