How much do you think Lebron James would be paid in a free market without collective bargaining?

In this hypothetical are you also removing the salary cap? If anything he'd probably get more because I suspect that replacement-level players would be willing to play for less than the mandated minimum salary of about 1 million dollars.

Probably the same, maybe less. Professional sports players get paid on merit. What they do on the court directly translates into what a team is will to pay them.

Actually he would get paid much more. The NBA CBA has a "max contract" capped at 25% of the salary cap[1]. There are numerous players playing on essentially the same deal, even though there is clearly a big gap in talent. If you look at the list of salaries for the 21-22 season[2], Steph Curry is the highest paid player at $45.6M, which is only about 15% higher than the 10th highest paid player despite being significantly better.

[1] there are some other contract terms that allow for up to 35%, but those require a bunch of other non performance conditions to be met. [2] http://www.espn.com/nba/salaries

I don't know, how much would he make if the NBA wasn't a monopoly?

Thats a good point, and I think in general I think using professional sports as an example either for or against unions is a bad faith argument because of the unique dynamics present.

> unique dynamics present

Maybe that's what makes it a great example. It shows labor unions are extremely flexible tools that should be configured for the work force they're representing.

Maybe its all these specific arguments against unions, like "seniority based promotions make for incompetent leaders" and "high performance workers are disincentivized", that are actually the examples given in bad faith.

If the parent comment to mine wanted to make a point, perhaps look toward movie stars. Although then I personally think the point falls apart.