Editorial: Talented Adams worth the millions

John Maslin

THE MONEY paid to professional sportsmen and women nowadays can sometimes reach numbers that are frankly beyond belief.

The latest to join the ranks of the stellar earners is 23-year-old basketballer Steven Adams. This down-to-earth and hugely likeable young Rotorua man has just signed a four-year contract with the Oklahoma Thunder basketball ball team in the NBA worth $142 million.

Let's crunch those numbers. That equates to $35.5m a year (in Kiwi dollars) which is $683,000 a week (before tax). We won't drill further to estimate how much he gets for the time he's actually on court.

Some will look at Adams' salary and wonder how it is that a sportsperson can be paid so much; in other words is he worth it?

Let's consider a few things. If he remains fully fit Adams could play upward of 80 games each season. That's not counting pre-season games and All-Star events (if selected). In fact he could get through 100 games and that's excluding the constant practices and the demands his club will make in terms of his off-court connection with fans and sponsors.

And speaking of sponsors, the 2.13m centre has already locked in a lucrative sponsorship deal with adidas.

But like all sportspeople there is always the threat of injury, some so serious that a career is finished in an instant. Basketball can be brutally cruel and the NBA is littered with brilliant careers snuffed out by injury.

Professional basketball demands its players maintain peak fitness and conditioning throughout a gruelling season. Hand in hand with that are form slumps that can see players lose favour and get dropped from teams. So Adams has embarked on a career with a very small earning window compared to what most of us regard as "normal" employment.

For those not familiar with pro sport, it seems to be an obscenely huge amount of money. But Adams has exceptional talent and is a marquee player. And marquee players draw crowds and advertisers and money.

He's well paid for doing his bit, but rest assured many others are making much more off his talents, because pro sport is a business not a pastime.