Curry: Supermax Contract $201M

[JD_KaPow]

You're worth what somebody is willing to pay you. And owners are willing to pay them because people are willing to pay to see them. As much respect I have for our soldiers, they do not represent a skill set of the top 1% of people in the world in their field. So worth is relative. You can say pay military more money, but you don't have to because there are more people who have the ability to do that job at that level. It's the same argument against paying teachers more money. You have to stop equating their annual salary with their importance rather than equating their annual salary with their Elite skill sets. No one is paying a high school teacher $100,000 when there is an equally qualified teacher who can do the exact same job for half of that.

There's a big difference between public and private sectors here, with teaching being a good example. Sure, hiring the best dishwasher in the world isn't worth it, because you won't lose much if anything by getting some random kid to do it and paying minimum wage. But teaching isn't like that: they're not all the same. Hiring a great teacher gets you real, substantial gains over hiring a lousy teacher. There isn't a large, highly competitive pool of people entering the profession and fighting for jobs because teaching jobs don't pay well. And they don't pay well because salaries are constrained by government budgets. If we decided we wanted much better teachers, we could make more money available. That money would attract stronger candidates to the profession and get us better teachers. And those better teachers, replacing bad teachers, would make a real, tangible difference to the country. But we don't value teachers, so we don't make the money available.

 

[JoeKing]

Warriors won 2 of the past 3 championships and don't look to be slowing down any time soon. You're acting like it's Melo when he went to the Knicks.

What are you talking about? I didn't disrespects Curry's talent in any way. I'm just saying that the contract he just signed is not sustainable if more players want that kind of money.

 

[dogunwo]

There isn't a large, highly competitive pool of people entering the profession and fighting for jobs because teaching jobs don't pay well. And they don't pay well because salaries are constrained by government budgets.

But even if it paid well, the skillset that is required to be a top performing teacher is not restricted to the top 1 % of the World's population. Everyone values teachers. There is a much larger pool of people to pick from, even with me agreeing that there is room to hire more elite educators.

 

[joseephuss]

http://www.nba.com/article/2017/07/08/rockets-sign-harden-four-year-contract-extension

HOUSTON – The Houston Rockets have signed star guard James Harden to a four-year contract extension that's reportedly worth $228 million, the richest contract in NBA history.

With Harden under contract on his existing deal for another two seasons, the extension will not affect Houston's aggressive pursuit of free agents this summer as the Rockets try to make a run at the Golden State Warriors.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

What is ironic to me is that the NBA essentially killed the Lakers, Celtics, Detroit, Bulls super teams of the 80s and 90s but set up a system where by teams like Miami, Cleveland and Golden State can get around it. The way the NBA does things just make no sense to me. JMO

 

[Silver Surfer]

The players make this much money because there's this much money in the sport. Either the players get it or the owners keep it (and the owners are already keeping plenty of it). If you want the players (and owners) to make less and soldiers (and teachers, cops, etc.) to make more, there's one way to do that, and it's very simple: raise taxes.

Last I checked, nobody's putting a gun to somebody's head to make them buy the NBA's form of entertainment. When you start proposing raising taxes to fix every so-called societal problem, you're effectively taking power away from the common man and handing more of it over to the government.

Rather than have the government get involved in it (and screwing it up or otherwise adding some level of corruption to it), how about this way? Have the soldiers, teachers, cops and etc not give their money on the players and owners by buying tickets and NBA merchandise. They save their money which acts like a raise, and effectively give themself more money to do other things. That also puts downward pressure on the prices for those tickets and merchandise.

 

[Silver Surfer]

There's a big difference between public and private sectors here, with teaching being a good example. Sure, hiring the best dishwasher in the world isn't worth it, because you won't lose much if anything by getting some random kid to do it and paying minimum wage. But teaching isn't like that: they're not all the same. Hiring a great teacher gets you real, substantial gains over hiring a lousy teacher. There isn't a large, highly competitive pool of people entering the profession and fighting for jobs because teaching jobs don't pay well. And they don't pay well because salaries are constrained by government budgets. If we decided we wanted much better teachers, we could make more money available. That money would attract stronger candidates to the profession and get us better teachers. And those better teachers, replacing bad teachers, would make a real, tangible difference to the country. But we don't value teachers, so we don't make the money available.

Great theory. Try replacing underperforming teachers and see how the union responds. Secondly, exactly how do you determine who is underperforming?

I personally know several teachers right now with 20+ years of experience and they're counting the days until they can get out. Why? Because dealing with the kids, the parents and the administrators has become unbearable. Don't get me wrong. They love teaching, especially to kids who are interested in learning. They can't stand the disruptive, disrespectful and un-disciplinable (new word) students, disinterested or threatening parents and administrators who are more worried about covering their own butts rather than supporting their teachers.

I'm also not sure I buy this whole "teachers are the problem" notion. At this point in time, the internet has given our society access to more information than at any time in history.... basically for free. I haven't checked recently, but you used to be able to take college courses from some pretty respected universities online for free.

To me the question is, why aren't people interested in learning? It may very well be that the proliferation of information is causing people to either take it for granted (It's out there and I'll get around to learning about it sometime), or they don't know what to learn (what's important to know vs what's not), or they're just not interested.

I just spoke with one teacher nearing retirement yesterday who thinks teachers may be largely obsolete in 10 years. Her speculation is that the school systems will have their curriculum on video and the kids will just sit and watch. They may not even have to go to school. Just stay home. Watch and take standardized tests online. Nobody really cares if they learn or not. Just go through the process. Its more efficient and requires less resources (teachers, facilities, busses, etc)

This is way off topic so I'm gonna stop...