The NBA has designed its collective bargaining agreement in a way that influences superstars to remain with their current teams, but as we have seen many times in the past it doesn’t always turn out that way. If you remember, some guy named LeBron took less money a couple years ago to take his talents to South Beach and won a championship recently because of it, so he is only regretting “The Decision” but not the decision. Deron Williams, however, chose to remain with the team that could pay him the most by staying in Brooklyn. But the money, he says, had nothing to do with it.
“Honestly, when I thought about my decision and talked to my agent, we never once talked about the extra money,” Williams told Sam Amick of SI.com. “I don’t think it’s as relevant as people think, because of the taxes and things like that. There’s no state tax in Texas, and you’ve got city tax in New York. So the money wasn’t that big of a difference in the four years to the five years. And I feel like barring any career-ending injury, that I’ll have a chance to make that up anyways. I’ll be 32. That wasn’t my concern. My concern was making a basketball decision as far as the players that I was going to be around.”
While most people will argue that all these guys think about is money, I tend to believe Deron. It’s not a coincidence that he was reportedly undecided until the Nets brought Joe Johnson aboard. We can also assume they reassured Williams that Dwight Howard is still a possibility, as Deron has been vocal about the fact that he wants to play with Dwight.
The Mavericks may have more talent at the moment, but they are not positioned to contend over the long haul. Jason Terry is about to sign with the Celtics and how long can Dirk Nowitzki last? Brooklyn was able to offer Deron a five-year deal with 7.5% raises whereas any other team could only offer four years and 4.5% raises, but between taxes and endorsements, superstars find plenty of ways to make up the difference. Almost all the signs point to Deron’s decision being mostly influenced by basketball.
