A max contract out of high school. According to Grantland’s Zach Lowe, multiple NBA executives have said they would be willing to sign Andrew Wiggins to just that. Essentially, this means more than one NBA team would be willing to agree to pay an 18-year-old nearly $15 million every year for at least the next four years. If that money, or any NBA money, were available to Wiggins, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to have seen him enter the 2013 draft immediately following the end of his high school career. But it’s not available to him. He’ll become eligible to be drafted in the 2014 draft should he decide to be an “early entry” player after he completes one year at Kansas (spoiler alert: he will).
The willingness of NBA executives does affirm one thing though: Andrew Wiggins is a special player. A player worth a huge risk, especially given the NBA’s restrictive collective bargaining agreement. Millions of dollars that could technically be available to Wiggins right now is shoe-contract money. For many young NBA players, the money they receive from shoe companies as rookies is not newsworthy. For example, when O.J. Mayo entered the league, he signed a contract that paid him somewhere in the realm of $400,000 a year. Blake Griffin signed a similar deal. And in 2003, Dwyane Wade signed a $400,000 a year deal with Converse for six seasons. Derrick Rose garnered one million dollars a year from Adidas after he was the first pick in the 2008 draft.
To the average person, that would be an amazing salary. Get paid $400,000 a year to wear Nike gear for free? Sign me up. Only now, Rose has upped his Adidas deal and is signed for 14 years for a reported $250 million. And Wade, he eventually left Converse and got a deal with Jordan brand for approximately $10 million per year. But he’s left that now too, in favor of the Chinese brand Li-Ning. Contract details were not disclosed, but it is suspected that Wade makes a similar yearly figure to what he did with Jordan, only he also received a stake in the company that could one day offer him huge dividends.
Long story short, there is huge money in the world of shoe contracts. This type of money, however, is usually reserved for NBA veterans – second contract guys. Players who companies know they can sell. Players that will provide the company with the opportunity for massive revenues. Usually.
In 2003, prior to being drafted, LeBron James was the prize in a war between shoe companies. Reebok reportedly offered the 18-year-old a seven-year deal worth $94 million. Reebok eventually lost out to Nike, as they so often do, and James signed a seven-year, $93 million deal with the swoosh. Carmelo Anthony, fresh off a National Championship at Syracuse, also signed with Nike prior to the 2003 draft. His deal paid him approximately $3.5 million per for six seasons. Kevin Durant was another teenager made rich by Nike before playing an NBA game. He signed with the company for seven-years, $60 million with a $10 million signing bonus. Reportedly turning down the same contract from Adidas in the process, only with a $12 million signing bonus. John Wall signed with Reebok before ever playing an NBA game: five years, $25 million and a guarantee for two signature shoes. Their performance basketball division has since folded. And then there’s Ricky Rubio. The Spanish guard unfortunately tore his ACL during his rookie season. During his rehabilitation, Adidas signed him to a ten-year deal for something close to $100 million. Shoe companies are willing to take a risk on someone they believe has great earning potential. Even John Wall, who wasn’t quite the can’t-miss prospect that James, Anthony and Durant were, was able to secure a large contract before ever playing an NBA game.
Among NBA heads, there seems to be a consensus that as a prospect, Wiggins is more in a category with James and Durant than with Wall. He chose to attend college, meaning shoe companies won’t get a crack at him until next summer, but what if he didn’t? College is not a necessary step on the path to the NBA. Wiggins chose to take it, but any other international professional league would have been another option, as would have been the NBA’s D-league. Endorsements are legal in all those options.
Consider Brandon Jennings. He decided to forego the college option and opted to spend a season playing professionally in Italy. Because he did so, he was able to sign a contract with Under Armour that earned him approximately $2 million. Instead of college recruiters, 18-year-old LeBron James was hearing pitches from Nike, Reebok and Adidas. Soon, some players may hear both. Adidas pails in comparison to Nike in the world of NBA shoe deals. The exact number is hard to pin down, but Nike controls somewhere in the realm of 95 percent of the market for basketball shoes. This is largely due to their esteemed list of brand ambassadors: LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. What Nike wants, Nike tends to get.
Adidas could make a splash though. The three stripes could have approached Andrew Wiggins prior to college and offered him a contract he couldn’t turn down: something like a Durant or James contract with a large amount of money up front, stability for years to come and a guaranteed signature shoe. Wiggins, the prime example of today, could then have spent this year playing professionally overseas, in his native Canada or tearing up the ranks of the D-league.
Dante Exum is another player approaching can’t-miss prospect status. The young Australian would be eligible to enter college in December and join a team mid-season due to his graduation date in Australia; however, he intends to either enter the 2014 draft or play a full season of college basketball in 2014-15. Exum represents a separate market from the United States. Like Rubio in Spain, Exum can appeal to consumers in Australia in a different way than American-born superstars. While he does not present the best example, because he could choose to skip college altogether due to his age and international status, his situation displays another example of how a company could insert itself into the college decision. Shoe companies could be contacting him right now, urging him to enter the 2014 draft and sign a contract with them today.
Most young NBA prospects would not be worth this sort of gamble. There would have been no point in trying to dissuade O.J. Mayo from USC with a $400,000 per year contract. While he may have been inclined to listen to such a deal, there is no incentive to sign him early. His future was uncertain and with it, his earning potential. But when a special kind of player comes around, the type of player worthy of millions of dollars and guarantees from shoe companies, signing them early could be worth it. Whether they spend a year playing professionally somewhere else, or training with NBA level coaches, they’re likely going to remain a megastar and a can’t-miss prospect.
Andrew Wiggins would be drafted number one in the 2014 draft whether he played at Kansas or dominated the National Basketball League of Canada. Everyone is chasing Nike. The only way any other company can hope to even come close to them is by signing the next huge star. If James was signed to Adidas, the shoe market would look different. This is why Adidas has thrown huge amounts of money at Rose and Rubio and Li-Ning has provided Wade with a stake in their company. Faces sell and signature shoes provide the greatest earning potential.
Signing a high school player to a massive contract so that he can play in the D-league for a year is a risk. However, with certain prospects, it is a calculated risk. James would have been worth it, as evidenced by the $300 million in retail sales for LeBron’s Nike signature line in 2012. He wasn’t earning this directly out of high school, but the contract placed him in Nike’s camp from the get-go, allowing them the opportunity to capitalize later. James was a high school player who jumped straight to the NBA with a $90 million-plus contract already in hand.
The NBA can continue to prevent future high school players from making the NBA leap. Nike and its competitors, however, are not encompassed by the NBA umbrella. And they can choose to act as they see fit with their millions. The moral dilemma will remain present, but will we ever see a massive contract keep a kid out of college? Only time will tell.
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