Joshua Mendelsohn - The Cap: How Larry Fleisher and David Stern Built the Modern NBA

To follow the NBA one must follow the money. To follow the money and to understand how and why players earn the staggering sums they do, intricate knowledge of the leagues labyrinthian salary cap is required. In The Cap Joshua Mendelsohn delivers a most comprehensive and well-written history and breakdown of the NBA s economic bylaws and, in effect, a compelling evolutionary tale of the professional game, its principal characters, and the guiding fiscal policies behind its explosive global growth.

Harvey Araton, author of When the Garden Was Eden

In The Cap we get a blow-by-blow description of the maneuvering, threatening, striking, chaos, and even outright war that forged todays relationship between the league and its players. Most important, we learn the stories of the people who made it happen, including Bob Cousy, David Stern, Oscar Robertson, Larry OBrien, Bob Lanier, and Larry Fleisherthe first capologist. Its a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of the NBA and anyone interested in its Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Larry Coon, NBA salary cap expert and writer for ESPN .com

The salary cap is a fixture in todays pro sports. The Cap chronicles the story of how Larry Fleisher and David Sterntwo men locked in a bitter NBA labor disputeforged a partnership that shaped the future of pro basketball and other sports leagues for years to come. This lively and authoritative account of that battle fought decades ago is a must-read for any true sports junkie interested in sports history. It is all true. I know. I was there.

Jim Quinn, union lawyer for the NBPA , NFLPA , NHLPA , and MLBPA and author of Dont Be Afraid to Win: How Free Agency Changed the Business of Pro Sports

Joshua Mendelsohn

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2020 by Joshua Mendelsohn

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image AP Photo / Peter Morgan.

Author photo A Thousand Words Photography.

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mendelsohn, Joshua, author.

Title: The cap: how Larry Fleisher and David Stern built the modern NBA / Joshua Mendelsohn.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015427

ISBN 9781496218780 (hardback)

ISBN 9781496223845 (epub)

ISBN 9781496223852 (mobi)

ISBN 9781496223869 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : National Basketball AssociationManagement. | National Basketball AssociationHistory. | BasketballEconomic aspectsUnited States.

Classification: LCC GV 885.513 . M 45 2020 | DDC 796.323/6406dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015427

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Jen

In this business, only your work sustains you.

Larry Fleisher

The first seed of this book was planted randomly. In the summer of 2012, Chicago Bulls Center Omer Asik, a free agent, signed a deal with the Houston Rockets. Under the collective bargaining agreement, Asiks old team, the Chicago Bulls, had a right to match the Rockets offer. The Rockets, however, had structured the deal with Asik in such a way that made it nearly impossible for the Bulls to do so. Daryl Morey, the Rockets brilliant general manager, was praised for being innovative in masterminding the deal to get his guy. I, as someone who followed these things, was deeply impressed with Moreys maneuvering. After the deal was announced, Bob Ryan, once described as the NBA s ombudsman was on ESPN talking about the Asik deal. Ryan said Moreys maneuver was neither new nor innovative. Ryan said center Moses Malone had poison pills in his free agent deal with the Philadelphia 76ers thirty years earlier that were more creative than Asiks. My ears perked up. I had absolutely no idea what Ryan was talking about. Despite being a die-hard NBA fan, armchair salary-cap nerd, labor lawyer, and NBA season ticket holder, I realized I knew almost nothing about the NBA s history.

I set out to find a book about it. I couldnt. Baseball history? Everywhere. You could read a straight line of history from 1890 to today from any angle. From Marvin Miller to Curt Flood to George Steinbrenner to collusion to the 1994 strike to Moneyball (in whichever form you enjoyed it) to Theo Epstein, the mining of the history of the sport was so directly entrenched with labor history and economics as to make it one story. The books and articles were endless and fantastic.

Basketball, however, was different. There was very little. There were the two phenomenal David Halberstam booksThe Breaks of the Game and Playing for Keeps, which dealt with some of these issues. Harvey Araton, Bob Ryan, Bill Simmons, and, more recently, Jonathan Abrams had all written exceptional books about the history of the NBA . Of course, Terry Plutos Loose Balls about the ABA is required reading. But, there was little else. There was a lot about gamesthere was less about the business. There was a lot about now. There was almost nothing about then. There was some about David Stern. There was much less about Larry Fleisher.

I did not know much about Fleisher when I started writing this book. My knowledge was limited to what was written in books about other sports. Much of it dismissed or limited Fleishers import. I knew he was the head of the union and an agent at the same time, which felt sketchy. I knew his was the first union to agree to a salary cap. I had read the few lines in Lords of the Realm, the phenomenal history of the baseball business, which said that after agreeing to the cap, [Major League Baseball Players Association chief] Marvin Miller was privately contemptuous of NBA Players Association chief Larry Fleisher. If the great Marvin Miller was contemptuous, who was I to think differently?

I was wrong. The more I read about Fleisher, the more I came to a clear conclusion: Larry Fleisher is one of the most influential people in sports history. He was brilliant, decent, creative, effective, and worthy of admiration. He was ahead of his time. He was Millers equaljust different. Some of his perspective and approachthe creativity, the risk taking, the ingenuitycould help players in all sports today.

I obviously knew more about Stern than Fleisher entering into this project. I grew up watching David Stern. In writing this book, I found my research confirmed a lot of what I knew, liked, and admired about Stern, but looking at this time period allowed me to see a different side. In the time described in this book, Stern is not yet commissioner. He is putting the pieces togetherbuilding the business that would become the one we all love. He was smart, strategic, and visionary.

In many ways, the NBA in 2020 is the same business it was in the early 1980s. These men who built the sport in the early 1980sFleisher and Sternhad tremendous vision and foresight. They were both fantastic negotiators. The structure they built was also born of facts that are beyond Stern and Fleishercourt decisions, television deals, labor strife in other sports, and characters on both sides influencing decisions and actions. I tried to make what, to some, may feel like ancient history relevant to the modern game in very modern ways. Because, it very much is, and because this history has a tremendous amount to teach us. The league as it currently exists embodies the potential they both hoped for the NBA many years ago.