Michael McCann and Player Autonomy

Sports attorney and law professor Michael McCann writes for the Sports Law Blog, a fascinating website devoted to “all things legal related to the sports world.” A graduate of the University of Virginia law school, a former visiting professor at Harvard, a member of Maurice Clarett’s legal counsel, and a current professor of law at Mississippi College, McCann is a distinguished young attorney and outspoken scholar of sports law, torts, and social psychology. His research is primarily concerned with the cognitive and social causes that influence popular beliefs about professional athletes. In the past, he's been most vocal about his support of players who jump from high school to the NBA.

Following a tip from Henry Abbott at True Hoop, I dug into McCann’s recent article, “The Reckless Pursuit of Dominion: A Situational Analysis of the NBA and Diminishing Player Autonomy,” published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law (Summer, 2006). Given that most bball junkies probably lack academic library access, and even more choose not to find their hoops buzz in scholarly journals, I thought I’d do the labor and offer my thoughts on McCann’s piece here.

McCann wants to argue that the last decade or so of NBA basketball has witnessed a steady erosion in player autonomy. McCann finds evidence for his argument in the 1995 implementation of a rookie wage scale, last year’s mandated dress code, the newly elevated minimum age for draft eligibility, and the Chicago Bulls decision to require that Eddy Curry undergo genetic testing (for heart disease) before signing him in the summer of 2005. All four measures, according to McCann, are indicative of the NBA’s insidious plan to control players and usurp their autonomy.

As far as I’m concerned, McCann’s article might be divided into two parts. The first part consists of his sophisticated analyses of the rookie wage scale, the dress code, and the minimum age for draft eligibility. The second part represents his use of these analyses to support an argument about limitations in player autonomy. Because I found the larger stakes of the article troubling—and I’ll discuss why toward the end—I want to tease out these separate parts, acknowledging the elements I believe praiseworthy while questioning those that came up short.

McCann is best when describing how the NBA manipulates the fans and sports media to support the policies the league implements. According to McCann, certain social “knowledge structures” and “cognitive biases” oversimplify complicated issues and lead to the production of inaccurate systems of belief. These belief systems ultimately make it easier for the NBA to usurp player autonomy by disguising the league’s policies as common sense.

For example, we tend to see the collective bargaining agreements of the Players Association—such as those that led to the rookie wage scale in 1995—as serving the best interests of all NBA players. Yet, for McCann, our faith in collectively-bargained rules represents an “attribution error,” or a failure to analyze the more nuanced and less-observable aspects of the negotiation process. McCann wisely points out that the players often affected most by these agreements are those without voice in the bargaining process—namely, the soon-to-be rookies themselves. Furthermore, because of the absence of viable alternative basketball leagues, McCann suggests, even those players represented in bargaining agreements are more likely to capitulate to league demands.

McCann also illuminates the subtle knowledge structures supporting the establishment of a dress code. The common association of hip-hop culture and delinquency helped to validate David Stern’s new dress code, first announced last summer. Hoping to cleanse the NBA of this thuggish appearance, Stern’s decision relied on simplified and erroneous assumptions about the morality of men in “street” clothes. Moreover, although the dress code emptied the players’ closets of hip-hop fashion, the league continues to approve of hip-hop-inspired halftime shows, videogames, and endorsement deals. The double standard went unrecognized in Stern’s announcements, not to mention his choir of yes-men in the media.

Similarly, the decision to raise the minimum age for draft eligibility depended on the unfounded belief that younger players are especially susceptible to nefarious activities. For the commish and many media commentators, college is necessary for teaching hardwood fundamentals, as well as for providing character-building life experience. To complicate this assertion, McCann not only proves that the most notorious NBA players (guys like Spree, Ruben Patterson, and “Mighty Mouse” Stoudamire) were in fact four-year college graduates, but also indicates how college athletes often fail to receive the education experience Stern believes is promised them.

By and large, I am impressed by McCann’s analysis of the underside to the rookie wage scale, the dress code, and the elevated minimum age. His reading of the implications in Curry’s mandated genetic testing is also very impressive, though too lengthy for me to detail here. Let it suffice to say that genetic testing raises a host of difficult ethical questions the NBA is not yet equipped to deliberate.

While I approve of McCann’s evidence, as well as the way he interprets it, I am bothered by his argument about the diminution of player autonomy. First, I'm forced to bang my academic gavel on the term around which his entire argument pivots—autonomy. McCann never defines what he means by autonomy yet gets considerable truck from the concept.

At times, McCann’s notion of autonomy seems synonymous with something like self-determination (admittedly, just as vague). At other moments, the word suggests more material freedoms, like personal expression and the right to work. However, these are all very different ways of imagining autonomy. For instance, the exercise of self-determination might actually result in a willful decision to undercut one’s autonomy. The defense of right-to-die legislation works with ideas of self-determination and autonomy in precisely this manner. In this light, the two are hardly synonymous.

Without a concept like autonomy clearly defined—though so crucial to his article—McCann’s argument is able to bend in a number of ludicrous positions. If freedom of expression and the right to work are all that’s at stake, I wonder why McCann stopped with the dress code and age requirement. When the Knicks go small and bench Curry, doesn’t that decision usurp his autonomy? What if they bring in Kelvin Cato only to foul Shaq? Would that constitute the erosion of Cato’s autonomy? More appropriately, is Coach Skiles’s prohibition on headbands a violation of Ben Wallace’s autonomy? It certainly violates his freedom of expression. What about alternate road jerseys if players prefer their standard away threads?

Second, McCann benefits from some statistical sleight-of-hand. At one point, for example, McCann writes, “objective data suggests that prep-to-pro players outperform other NBA players. In fact, they average more points, rebounds, and assists than does the average NBA player or the average player of any age group.” I think it’s fair to call this a dubious statistic, not only because McCann cites his own research to prove it. There has to be some way of adjusting these averages to account for sample size; otherwise, the disproportionately high number of players with some college experience dilutes the averages in question. Furthermore, McCann neglects to indicate whether his prep-to-pro numbers include the Ndubi Ebis and TajMcDavids of the world—high school blue-chippers who, after declaring for the draft, saw little to no time in the NBA. Similar trouble with statistical manipulation (either specious numbers or inappropriate contexts) runs throughout the article.

Lastly, I want to ask McCann what is gained by acknowledging the erosion of player autonomy, if such a thing can even be said to exist. How might the problem be amended? If he means merely to encourage a more nuanced recognition of the knowledge structures influencing league decisions, why bring in terms like autonomy and “labor harmony”? If higher salaries are an answer to autonomy usurpation, isn’t there something socially irresponsible at work in McCann’s argument?

Do corporate CEOs experience a loss in autonomy when whistle blowers uncover corruption? Was Martha Stewart’s autonomy violated by the outing of her insider deals? What, in other words, prevents the application of McCann’s argument to these more disturbing spaces and cases of high profile employment?

I do not mean that McCann advocates for law breakers and criminals. Instead, I want only to express why I find it off-putting to employ the discourse of labor rights in a conversation about multi-million dollar athletes. I prefer to save the efficacy of that language for underpaid blue-collar laborers, undocumented immigrants, and sex workers—just to name a few.

Although McCann successfully demonstrates the complexity of issues like the rookie wage scale, the dress code, and the minimum age requirement, he ends on terms I cannot endorse. Fortunately, the NBA and its players aren’t hurting for endorsements.