-Ed.
http://www.edthesportsfan.com

There’s no question that all these players would play for nothing, and in the hockey playoffs, where it’s much bigger grind, that’s pretty much what they play for. They also have alot of international tournaments, and again, players play for nothing and they go all out.

I think the NBA players (Americans anyway) fall short on considering that part glory.

I would also like to point out that if the playoff bonus is evenly distributed among players, then there is no financial incentive (save playing for contracts) for an individual to perform at a higher level… if your 3rd string 1.5PPG buddy off the bench makes as much as you do for winning a series, why work so hard?

Of course, that’s purely theoretical – there’s social and psychological reasons for playing hard as well as the satisfaction one gets for winning a championship. But, I still think it’s interesting to look at the playoffs in this way.

1) i know that in football and baseball, many of the top players have playoff performance based incentives. i don’t seem to hear about that much in basketball however, so your argument may still hold true if this is a less common practice in the NBA. however, it seems unlikely that at least the very top superstars don’t have these things in their contract.

2) i’m not entirely convinced that players have no monetary incentive to play hard and win in the playoffs. as dwyane wade can tell you, playoff performances can put you on the map. i doubt sincerely that he would be doing lame t-mobile commercials had miami not won the title last year. there is also the question of future contract, and you can look tim thomas’ parlaying his performance in last year’s playoff into a contract that we now know was way above his actual value to a team.

i’m not saying that these players don’t play with a little extra drive in the playoffs, because they most certainly do, but the assertion that money has no real motivating effect seems a bit of a reach in the post-jordan marketing era.