Precautionary Warning: LeBron Complaint. Stop now if you find the subject matter to be very upsetting.
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After going through the 2017 NFL free agency orgy where something called AJ Bouye is now 68 million dollars richer, Tom Brady is currently the 22nd highest paid quarterback in the league.
Tom Brady can be literally anywhere he wants on the salary rankings. He chose to be 22nd. Tom Brady could become a free agent at any time and command half of a team's entire salary cap meant for not two, but rather 53 players. Tom Brady could be paid $50+ million dollars a year, if he so chose. But, out of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, the most valuable player in league history chooses to be paid in the bottom third of his colleagues. As a direct and irrefutable result, the Patriots, led by a head coach whom even the Cleveland Browns deemed inadequate, are the biggest dynasty in men's sports (see: UConn women).
I'd like to transition to basketball. (Footnote: back out slowly. There's still time!) LeBron James, despite currently being a billionaire (footnote: that means he's worth one thousand—thousand—thousand dollars. One thousand million dollars. Billion with a capital "B" dollars) is paid 4 million *more* dollars (footnote: LeBron is paid 30 million annually, which is enough to buy 120 million gumballs at the mall) than anybody else in the entire NBA. Like Tom Brady, LeBron can name not only his salary, but he also had the opportunity very early on in his career to decide how many championships he would like to win. He answered those two questions in three consecutive sentences.
LeBron said, "I'm so egotistical that I want to be paid money I will never spend. And Michael Jordan can keep his six damn O'Briens. Team accomplishments are not my primary interest as a professional athlete."
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Let's recap. Tom Brady, despite being passed over 198 different times in the 2000 NFL draft [footnote: every single team in the league, all thirty-two of them—when explicitly asked "Yes, Tom?" or "No, Tom?"—eagerly proclaimed "No, Tom!" at least *six* times. Tom Brady was selected even after such strange objects as "Giovanni Carmazzi", "Mareno Philyaw", and "Anthony Midget". He was, Swear to God, selected even after a strange Scandinavian lumberjack named "Leif Olve Dolonen Larsen" (you can't make this **** up)] is considered the most valuable player among the hundreds of millions of Americans to ever play the sport.
LeBron James, despite being quite arguably the most gifted athlete alive (and, arguably, really, ever), will always be held in lower esteem in his own sport than at least one other player. I find the dichotomy to be very interesting.
I am pleased to have James back. Why he initially left, I understand not. But......*But*.......his pointless need to be paid pointless money has made the Cavs a far thinner team than they otherwise would be, and I am disappointed in what is ultimately a myopic, self-serving failure of leadership by a man who pretends to be something he's not. At 18 years old, before he had played a second in the NBA—hell, before he literally had even *graduated high school*, Nike paid LeBron James 93 million dollars.
LeBron has never thought that that 93 million dollar agreement was generous enough.
(Footnote: I recognize that the proper way to insert a footnote is not to write "footnote" as a footnote.)