Interesting question that simmons brought up:

If the NBA had a totally open market similar to baseball or soccer or whatever, how much would LeBron make per season?

Simmons says 75 million. I feel like it's obviously WAY above max but I have no idea how to judge how much above max.

prob like 80m

Yeah I mean obviously the number is huge. He's just worth SO much because he single handedly makes your team good. Just having him play on your team virtually guarantees selling out every game and having some shot at the title every year he's healthy.

In baseball you can sign one enormous FA and your team can still suck.

i would not be shocked to see someone offer him $100 mil. maybe 150. if that system was in place there would be russian/uae/saudi owners throwing money around before too long.

If we could retroactively go back to the summer of 2010 and LeBron was a free agent, with no salary cap and no luxury tax, I think Mikhail Prokhorov and the Nets offer him an absolutely ridiculous amount of money. Perfect storm, really. Prokhorov just bought the team, planning on moving it to Brooklyn in a brand new arena, want to be relevant immediately. Assuming no restriction on length of contract is a 10 year/ $1 billion contract + some ownership stake sound like too much?

wtf did I just watch

that delivered. in more ways than one.

lost it at "we're gonna have to give Marie an extra 3 or 4 dollars"

Cousin F***ing Sal

Those are adult men.

holy **** that was hilarious

lolololol that was great

hahahahaha that was so great

omg the ending, it just didnt stop

LOL

in terms of pure on-court value with the team salary caps in place i think lebron is probably worth maybe 45mil/yr? that's a fat chunk of the cap and you need some nba players to go with him

no cap restrictions who knows, if prok didn't give a **** he'd just create an unbeatable team so idk where you take that. too many variables to even guess, esp since most people here have a far better handle on his value as a player than as a brand

anyway grantland has turned out to be really awesome so props to bill. especially enjoying zach lowe's stuff and think it's awesome that hes getting more exposure, great communicator in print and in conversation (in that he writes very well for his audience). his interviews with the nba guys at all star weekend were good too, got them talking about interesting stuff that ties into subjects the bball nerd likes hearing about

Outtakes



Bonus Clip




Bonus Clip

lmao, i thought the first puking was rogged cuz the camera sort of was obscured by the bathroom door, but jesus christ the ending

OUTSTANDING

Man, that was too good. Love cousin sal, he's the reason I still listen to the BS report.

Simmons suspended from Twitter - http://deadspin.com/espn-suspends-bi...ium=socialflow

You know people really hate First Take when the guy who was about to cry is declared the winner in that exchange.