If journeymen NBA players, like Chris Kaman, are getting paid $50 million, what should the National Teacher of the Year get?
When NBA players like Chris Kaman get paid $50 million, it makes me wonder about the society in which we live. Although it's still early in his career, Kaman can best be described as a journeyman player, with career averages of 9 points and 7 rebounds per game.
Yet, prior to the 2006-2007 NBA season, the Los Angeles Clippers surprisingly extended Kaman's contract five more years, at over $10 million per season.
Chris Kaman has responded with 10 points and 8 rebounds in 29 minutes per night for the underachieving Clippers.
Granted, Kaman's numbers increased to nearly 12 points and 10 boards in the Clippers' playoff season last year, but even these are quite pedestrian, when any comparison to the real world and relevant salaries is made.
Imagine a teacher, someone who impacts lives every day, making 10 mill per year. The stentorian cries of taxpayers nationwide would crumble the White House, if any lawmaker considered for a nanosecond paying an educator the type of salary NBA players like Kaman are getting.
Yet average NBA players, like Kaman, continue to get outrageous salaries. Of course, it's not Kaman's fault. We live in a capitalistic society, so there's certainly no harm in someone taking the money that ignorant, super-wealthy NBA team owners are willing to pay.
I have to wonder, though, when this gross misappropriation of funds will stop. Sure, NBA players are entertainers, and the nature of the business is that they get paid ludricous salaraies, but there's nothing wrong with a utopian vision that some day there will be equity in the pay of all professionals.
If NBA player Chris Kaman is worth $10 million, I want to know what National Teacher of the Year Kimberly Oliver should be paid. The disappointing truth is that she likely gets no more than $70,000.
Too bad, because in addition to being a wonderful educator, even she could probably get 9 points per game.
