So you’re Michael Jordan.
Admit it, you do wonder what it would be like.
Anyway, you had a pretty good year.
You didn’t win the league MVP award, but your team won another championship, you led the league in scoring, you were the MVP of the NBA Finals and you played better in the Finals than you did the year before. You were tremendous when healthy, remarkable when you were not.
It would seem that you deserve some kind of pay raise.
So you’re Jerry Reinsdorf.
Admit it. You know what you’d do, but you’d never want to be in his shoes.
Anyway, you’ve got this little negotiation coming up with Michael Jordan.
And you think you’ve been extraordinarily fair to him.
When, with no notice, he decided to quit your team, you not only paid him his full salary when he didn’t play, you indulged his fantasy and allowed him to try professional baseball.
Then, when he said he was ready to play basketball again, you welcomed him back, continued to pay him and let him run up tens of thousands of dollars in fines for your team so he could exercise his whim of changing uniform numbers in the middle of the playoffs.
You took a risk on the most lunatic player in American sport last year to give Jordan a chance to win another title. And then, when Michael became a free agent after that season, you made up for all those years he was underpaid with a one-year deal worth $30 million that almost doubled the highest one-year salary ever in sports.
That gave you the biggest payroll in NBA history and reduced your profit to almost break-even.
Maybe you’d go for another $30 million contract this year.
But $36 million? Or $40 million? Why?
And so comes the negotiations with Michael Jordan.
It all seems so routine.
But is it?
Clearly, Jordan is the best player in the NBA and deserves to be paid the most money.
That would be about $17 million, which is just more than Patrick Ewing makes in his new deal.
So why not pay Jordan $20 million, or $25 million?
Why $30 million? Or the $36 million he has let the Bulls know he’d accept? Or the $40 million he’s planning to ask for?
There’s no bidding anymore for Jordan.
No other team that’s even close to being a contender is below the salary cap. So none could offer Jordan more than the $250,000 minimum salary.
And by paying Jordan $30 million last season, the Bulls clearly made up for the years he was underpaid under a long-term contract he had insisted upon. One might also remember the $8 million the Bulls paid Jordan when he was playing baseball and they weren’t obligated to pay him anything.
Should the employee make more than the employer?
Jordan certainly would out-earn the Bulls with another blockbuster contract.
But is that all Jordan is about?
When he pleaded after the Finals in June for the chance to win another title, he talked about retaining Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson and probably Dennis Rodman.
He also talked about paying Jackson and Pippen.
Never himself.
The Bulls have done–or are prepared to do–all of that.
Jackson got the biggest coaching-only deal in NBA history, about $5.7 million, which more than doubled the salary he sought last year.
So why not simply start over with Jordan and make him the highest-paid player in the league at, say, $20 million?
Can Jordan refuse that?
He cannot make more than the minimum from any other serious contender. And again, is he about winning or about money?
A $20 million contract for one year hardly would seem an insult.
Remember, it includes a per diem when he’s on the road.
To refuse to be the highest-paid player in the league after the Bulls re-signed Jackson and didn’t trade Pippen despite receiving an offer (four first-round draft choices) that they had said would be sufficient . . . that would suggest Jordan is in it only for the money.
Jordan has proved to be a Teflon figure when it comes to controversy, but can he afford to be perceived as more interested in money than in winning titles and being loyal?
Yet, can Reinsdorf afford to alienate Jordan, especially after the huge media and fan backlash over the trades Reinsdorf’s White Sox recently made? Can he afford to watch the greatest player ever go somewhere else out of spite? Can he break up the Bulls’ dynasty over mere money and show disloyalty to the player responsible for millions in profits and a new arena for the team?
And what would the Bulls be without Jordan? Would the franchise be worth anywhere near what it is now? Would the Bulls remain the hottest ticket in all of sports, with almost anything the organization sells becoming a virtual collectors’ item immediately?
Can he afford to see Jordan go to a hated rival like New York or Miami or Orlando and maybe win a title there, with the promise of a big payback in future years, which those franchises can certainly afford?
If Reinsdorf thought he needed more security when he was thinking of trading Scottie Pippen, what would happen if Michael Jordan left?
As always, it’s more complicated than it would seem. Especially when the battle is over not only dollars, but egos.
