In an AP article I read earlier today, LeBron James talks about how he and many of the other top NBA Free Agents are going to sit down and discuss their future plans.
How does this not appear to be collusion, and thus illegal?
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-lebron-larrykinginterview
Why would it be illegal for them to collude? Unless I’m greatly mistaken, it wouldn’t even be against league rules – again, why would it be?
There’s also been a suggestion that the “summit” talk is overblown.
Well, let’s start with a definition of collusion. I’m borrowing this from Wikipedia:
All these players are doing - supposedly; I think the extend of their talks is being overhyped - is discussing what teams they may sign with. I have not seen any of them say or indicate that they plan to misrepresent anything, defraud any team, give any kickbacks, or divide the market. They can’t fix wages since the NBA has limits on contracts and there’s no market to divide.
There might be additional league rules that prevent teams from colluding but I don’t think they would apply to any free agents. Players lobby each other about coming to one team or another all the time. There’s no rule against that and I doubt there would be one just because both players are free agents.
The bottom line is this: most of these guys, and maybe all of them, are going to demand max contracts. That means it’s highly unlikely that more than two of them will wind up on the same team even with sign and trade deals.
How is this different from the thousands of times union members get together to discuss their future plans, including strikes, boycotts, requests for pay raises, etc.?
Only teams can be guilty of “collusion”; it doesn’t apply to players. In much the same way that, say, public schools aren’t allowed to ask students to pray but individuals are totally free to ask their own children to pray. As a general rule individuals are free to do whatever the fuck they want, while organizations are held to (much) higher standards of conduct in order to protect the rights of individuals.
Or another angle: The league and teams have anti-trust exemptions and thus are bound by the terms of that agreement, one of which is no collusion. Players have no such exemption and thus are not bound by such terms.
It ain’t going to happen