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The Cap: How Larry Fleisher and David Stern Built the Modern NBA
A legal thriller, a close account of the tortuous 10-month negotiations, in the mid-1980s, for the big play that eventually put both the NBA's players and the owners in the win column. —David M. Shribman, Wall Street Journal 2020 Wall Street Journal Holiday Gift Books Selection
Today the salary cap is an NBA institution, something fans take for granted as part of the fabric of the league or an obstacle to their favorite team’s chances to win a championship. In the early 1980s, however, a salary cap was not only novel but nonexistent. The Cap tells the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of the deal between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association that created the salary cap in 1983, the first in all of sports, against the backdrop of a looming players’ strike on one side and threatened economic collapse on the other.
Joshua Mendelsohn illustrates how the salary cap was more than just professional basketball’s economic foundation—it was a grand bargain, a compromise meant to end the chaos that had gripped the sport since the early 1960s. The NBA had spent decades in a vulnerable position financially and legally, unique in professional sports. It entered the 1980s badly battered, something no one knew better than a few legendary NBA Larry Fleisher, general counsel and negotiator for the National Basketball Players Association; Larry O’Brien, the commissioner; and David Stern, who led negotiations for the NBA and would be named the commissioner a few months after the salary cap deal was reached.
As a result, in 1983 the NBA and its players made a novel settlement. The players gave up infinite pay increases, but they gained a guaranteed piece of the league’s revenue and free agency to play where they wished—a combination that did not exist before in professional sports but as a result became standard for the NBA, NFL, and NHL as well.
The Cap explores in detail not only the high-stakes negotiations in the early 1980s but all the twists and turns through the decades that led the parties to reach a salary cap compromise. It is a compelling story that involves notable players, colorful owners, visionary league and union officials, and a sport trying to solidify a bright future despite a turbulent past and present. This is a story missing from the landscape of basketball history.
Today the salary cap is an NBA institution, something fans take for granted as part of the fabric of the league or an obstacle to their favorite team’s chances to win a championship. In the early 1980s, however, a salary cap was not only novel but nonexistent. The Cap tells the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of the deal between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association that created the salary cap in 1983, the first in all of sports, against the backdrop of a looming players’ strike on one side and threatened economic collapse on the other.
Joshua Mendelsohn illustrates how the salary cap was more than just professional basketball’s economic foundation—it was a grand bargain, a compromise meant to end the chaos that had gripped the sport since the early 1960s. The NBA had spent decades in a vulnerable position financially and legally, unique in professional sports. It entered the 1980s badly battered, something no one knew better than a few legendary NBA Larry Fleisher, general counsel and negotiator for the National Basketball Players Association; Larry O’Brien, the commissioner; and David Stern, who led negotiations for the NBA and would be named the commissioner a few months after the salary cap deal was reached.
As a result, in 1983 the NBA and its players made a novel settlement. The players gave up infinite pay increases, but they gained a guaranteed piece of the league’s revenue and free agency to play where they wished—a combination that did not exist before in professional sports but as a result became standard for the NBA, NFL, and NHL as well.
The Cap explores in detail not only the high-stakes negotiations in the early 1980s but all the twists and turns through the decades that led the parties to reach a salary cap compromise. It is a compelling story that involves notable players, colorful owners, visionary league and union officials, and a sport trying to solidify a bright future despite a turbulent past and present. This is a story missing from the landscape of basketball history.
- GenresSportsBasketball
376 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2020
30 people are currently reading
215 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 16, 2021
I'll devour anything sports business/labor, so I was thrilled to find this when I stumbled into a new library branch. This was an eye-opening read about the history of NBA labor relations and the path that Larry Fleisher took the NBPA on in creating the first cap. This isn't the space for me to debate that choice, but reading in the context of baseball's current situation was fascinating.
My only disappointment was that the book's scope effectively ended in 1988, and I would love to see the book updated to cover the league's labor battles in 1990s and 2010s. Not enough to cost it a star, just something I would have wanted.
My only disappointment was that the book's scope effectively ended in 1988, and I would love to see the book updated to cover the league's labor battles in 1990s and 2010s. Not enough to cost it a star, just something I would have wanted.
October 28, 2020
In 1983, the NBA was in a precarious financial situation. The monetary losses of several teams put them on the brink of ruin. A maverick owner was trading away draft picks for veteran players in questionable moves. Players were reaping the benefits of their newly acquired free agency. This led to two adversaries at the bargaining table to create the first salary cap in sports. The road to the NBA salary cap is captured in rich detail in this outstanding book by Joshua Mendelson.
The story of the salary actually began in 1964 when the fledgling NBA players' union, after discussions with their legal counsel Larry Fleisher, threatened to not play that year's NBA All-Star game unless the owners contributed to their pensions. That near-walkout, in which the players waited in the locker room until their concerns were addressed, was the when the resolve of players was tested and held. This was important in the evolution of a lawsuit filed by players, led by Oscar Robertson, that after six years from the initial filing, created free agency for the players.
Fleisher remained with union and was also the agent for several players and was their main person in collective bargaining agreement negotiations. But by 1982, the owners were determined to reverse the explosion in player salaries and stop the losses felt by many franchises. They communicated their demands to the executive vice president of business and legal affairs for the league, a young attorney named David Stern. While Stern and Fleisher were the main voices for their respective sides in the negotiations, it was a tense time as a strike deadline was set for April 2, 1983 if a new agreement was not reached. That was avoided – by one day as on April 1, the sides announced that the new agreement included a salary cap in which teams could not spend more than a certain amount for player salaries, but the players were guaranteed 53 percent of gross revenues collected by the teams.
The entire process, including good chapters on Fleisher and Stern, is well researched by Mendelson and the writing is crisp, easy to understand, and reads like a novel. Making text about the business side of sports intriguing is very difficult to do, but Mendelson does a fantastic job of doing so. While any reader who follows the game and the business would already know that the NBA has a salary cap, following Mendelson's account of the negotiations and the back and forth between sides is very entertaining as well as informative. It reads like a great novel with many plot twists and turns. The build-up to the April 2 strike date makes the reader feel like the end is near (if not already aware of the actual outcome) and with how much action was going on behind the scenes, this is a book about the business side of sports that will one that every sports fan should read.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
The story of the salary actually began in 1964 when the fledgling NBA players' union, after discussions with their legal counsel Larry Fleisher, threatened to not play that year's NBA All-Star game unless the owners contributed to their pensions. That near-walkout, in which the players waited in the locker room until their concerns were addressed, was the when the resolve of players was tested and held. This was important in the evolution of a lawsuit filed by players, led by Oscar Robertson, that after six years from the initial filing, created free agency for the players.
Fleisher remained with union and was also the agent for several players and was their main person in collective bargaining agreement negotiations. But by 1982, the owners were determined to reverse the explosion in player salaries and stop the losses felt by many franchises. They communicated their demands to the executive vice president of business and legal affairs for the league, a young attorney named David Stern. While Stern and Fleisher were the main voices for their respective sides in the negotiations, it was a tense time as a strike deadline was set for April 2, 1983 if a new agreement was not reached. That was avoided – by one day as on April 1, the sides announced that the new agreement included a salary cap in which teams could not spend more than a certain amount for player salaries, but the players were guaranteed 53 percent of gross revenues collected by the teams.
The entire process, including good chapters on Fleisher and Stern, is well researched by Mendelson and the writing is crisp, easy to understand, and reads like a novel. Making text about the business side of sports intriguing is very difficult to do, but Mendelson does a fantastic job of doing so. While any reader who follows the game and the business would already know that the NBA has a salary cap, following Mendelson's account of the negotiations and the back and forth between sides is very entertaining as well as informative. It reads like a great novel with many plot twists and turns. The build-up to the April 2 strike date makes the reader feel like the end is near (if not already aware of the actual outcome) and with how much action was going on behind the scenes, this is a book about the business side of sports that will one that every sports fan should read.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
June 3, 2021
The economics and finances of sport are odd things. We are used to discussions of a need for competitive equality – in that the appeal of sport includes the uncertainty of outcome – but most of us (at least in my scholarly world) don’t spend much time wondering about what that means in business or commercial terms – except when a new wealthy club or team owner goes on a spending spree. In relatively open league structures, such as British football or New Zealand rugby, with their promotion and relegation elements, this issue has the added intensity of the demands placed on newly promoted teams. In closed league structures such as those that dominate in US and Canadian professional sport or English netball, those leagues acquire design characteristics that build in some sense of equity.
Alongside aspects such as the organisation of recruitment (in the draft), a big part of this equity is shaped by the very specific labour relations of professional sport and the short working life of the relatively small workforce. These factors, along with a sense that there is a good case for some sort of economic equity between league members, makes both the business and the labour relations of these closed leagues distinctive. The relatively closed character of the labour market adds to that distinctiveness, building a sense of closeness between workers (players) and bosses (owners) that we do not normally see in workplace relations.
In this exploration of those questions, Joshua Mendelsohn explores the distinctive arrangements in the NBA – culturally if not economically the USA’s ‘3rd’ sport after baseball and football. He does so by looking at the circumstances that led up to and development of the wage structure of the league based in a limited wages band that each team may spend (with both a minimum and maximum) based on a proportion of revenue. The decision to go down this path in the early 1980s seems at odds with player interests given that at the time they had a well-developed free agent option and incomes were rising rapidly, yet the Players Association justification was that imposing an upper limit of wages would help secure the existence of the NBA, and they did so through a form of limited owner/player partnership.
Mendelsohn draws on comparative assessments of the labour relations in baseball and football, where arguably the leagues are differently structured and the character of work for players quite different to make a case for the distinctiveness of the NBA. In this he is convincing, as he is in the back and forth of negotiations and the shifting relations that led up to the agreement. He is also a labour lawyer, so that process of getting to an agreement is the core of the analysis – it is not surprising as a lawyer that he focuses on the development of the contract.
He has dived deep in the records of the NBA and the NBPA (Players Assn), and drawn on their detailed record keeping of negotiations, including negotiation session minutes. This makes for a very detailed analysis that among other things draws out the differences between and personalities the owners, those who were most adversarial, those most likely to seek compromise, suggesting very clearly that the owners were notably more divided than the players. As intriguing as all this is, it is also quite limiting. I spent the first 20 years of my working life as a negotiator and lobbyist/advocate and while that cut and thrust, the minutiae of negotiations is fascinating to those of us in the ‘game’, for most of the rest of us it is pretty dull. Mendelsohn recognises this, to an extent, and sets up a series of narrative shifts, between the detail of negotiations on the one hand and contextual material on the other hand, notably developments in other sports and the tensions between the more limiting aspects of the proposal being considered and the existing terms of employment for players. As the negotiations shift he also draws on relevant contextual issues to give the talks more meaning. This is about the best that can be done with these kinds of legal and business histories, and Mendelsohn managers the problem quite well.
He is less successful with other risks this kind of analysis, especially the danger of reducing everything to the ‘brilliance’ of individuals, and less so the problem of context. Mendelsohn does well to maintain a balance between the three sets of interest at the table – the players, the teams and the league: that is, he notes that the teams have individual interests as well as collective interests. As valuable and important as this is in shaping the events, it also falls into the trap of treating the league as if it were hermetically sealed. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s were also a time of economic turmoil, both globally and in the USA yet we get very little of this as part of the analysis (the sources are almost entirely internal to the NBA, while the secondary sources are limited to basketball and baseball only). While the comparative discussions of baseball and football are useful, they tend to reduce to discussions of tactics and not economic context.
The second problem is more profound however. Early in the text Mendelsohn professes his admiration of both David Stern (the NBA’s lawyer and eventually Commissioner) and Larry Fleisher (the players’ advocate and lawyer). When added to the ‘great man’ tone of the discussion, this admiration risks slipping into praise singing – so Stern looks heroic on the bosses side, while then Commissioner Larry O’Brien comes across as often out of his depth. That may have been correct, but the hagiographic undertones make the conclusion less credible. Similarly, he makes much of the players’ trust in Fleisher, while also mentioning the way the player reps in each team work their dressing rooms to keep players informed and provide feedback: it may be an effect of access to evidence, but there is little more than these occasional references, yet this kind of the on the ground organising makes and breaks disputes and deserves more attention. This gap becomes more clear when we consider the details of employer actions (again, perhaps an effect of evidence and the archive).
So, I have mixed feelings – much as the material and issues appeal to me as a one-time advocate and negotiator with an interest in conditions of work in sport, the narrowness of the focus and the tendency to valorise Fleisher and Stern at the expense of some of the more ‘mundane’ but fundamental ‘shop floor’ organising makes the case too limiting. No doubt, there are many who will enjoy this detailed discussion, and I can see students and others drawing on the material here for evidence in other analyses. From an historical perspective, I suspect that’s where the value of this book lies.
Alongside aspects such as the organisation of recruitment (in the draft), a big part of this equity is shaped by the very specific labour relations of professional sport and the short working life of the relatively small workforce. These factors, along with a sense that there is a good case for some sort of economic equity between league members, makes both the business and the labour relations of these closed leagues distinctive. The relatively closed character of the labour market adds to that distinctiveness, building a sense of closeness between workers (players) and bosses (owners) that we do not normally see in workplace relations.
In this exploration of those questions, Joshua Mendelsohn explores the distinctive arrangements in the NBA – culturally if not economically the USA’s ‘3rd’ sport after baseball and football. He does so by looking at the circumstances that led up to and development of the wage structure of the league based in a limited wages band that each team may spend (with both a minimum and maximum) based on a proportion of revenue. The decision to go down this path in the early 1980s seems at odds with player interests given that at the time they had a well-developed free agent option and incomes were rising rapidly, yet the Players Association justification was that imposing an upper limit of wages would help secure the existence of the NBA, and they did so through a form of limited owner/player partnership.
Mendelsohn draws on comparative assessments of the labour relations in baseball and football, where arguably the leagues are differently structured and the character of work for players quite different to make a case for the distinctiveness of the NBA. In this he is convincing, as he is in the back and forth of negotiations and the shifting relations that led up to the agreement. He is also a labour lawyer, so that process of getting to an agreement is the core of the analysis – it is not surprising as a lawyer that he focuses on the development of the contract.
He has dived deep in the records of the NBA and the NBPA (Players Assn), and drawn on their detailed record keeping of negotiations, including negotiation session minutes. This makes for a very detailed analysis that among other things draws out the differences between and personalities the owners, those who were most adversarial, those most likely to seek compromise, suggesting very clearly that the owners were notably more divided than the players. As intriguing as all this is, it is also quite limiting. I spent the first 20 years of my working life as a negotiator and lobbyist/advocate and while that cut and thrust, the minutiae of negotiations is fascinating to those of us in the ‘game’, for most of the rest of us it is pretty dull. Mendelsohn recognises this, to an extent, and sets up a series of narrative shifts, between the detail of negotiations on the one hand and contextual material on the other hand, notably developments in other sports and the tensions between the more limiting aspects of the proposal being considered and the existing terms of employment for players. As the negotiations shift he also draws on relevant contextual issues to give the talks more meaning. This is about the best that can be done with these kinds of legal and business histories, and Mendelsohn managers the problem quite well.
He is less successful with other risks this kind of analysis, especially the danger of reducing everything to the ‘brilliance’ of individuals, and less so the problem of context. Mendelsohn does well to maintain a balance between the three sets of interest at the table – the players, the teams and the league: that is, he notes that the teams have individual interests as well as collective interests. As valuable and important as this is in shaping the events, it also falls into the trap of treating the league as if it were hermetically sealed. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s were also a time of economic turmoil, both globally and in the USA yet we get very little of this as part of the analysis (the sources are almost entirely internal to the NBA, while the secondary sources are limited to basketball and baseball only). While the comparative discussions of baseball and football are useful, they tend to reduce to discussions of tactics and not economic context.
The second problem is more profound however. Early in the text Mendelsohn professes his admiration of both David Stern (the NBA’s lawyer and eventually Commissioner) and Larry Fleisher (the players’ advocate and lawyer). When added to the ‘great man’ tone of the discussion, this admiration risks slipping into praise singing – so Stern looks heroic on the bosses side, while then Commissioner Larry O’Brien comes across as often out of his depth. That may have been correct, but the hagiographic undertones make the conclusion less credible. Similarly, he makes much of the players’ trust in Fleisher, while also mentioning the way the player reps in each team work their dressing rooms to keep players informed and provide feedback: it may be an effect of access to evidence, but there is little more than these occasional references, yet this kind of the on the ground organising makes and breaks disputes and deserves more attention. This gap becomes more clear when we consider the details of employer actions (again, perhaps an effect of evidence and the archive).
So, I have mixed feelings – much as the material and issues appeal to me as a one-time advocate and negotiator with an interest in conditions of work in sport, the narrowness of the focus and the tendency to valorise Fleisher and Stern at the expense of some of the more ‘mundane’ but fundamental ‘shop floor’ organising makes the case too limiting. No doubt, there are many who will enjoy this detailed discussion, and I can see students and others drawing on the material here for evidence in other analyses. From an historical perspective, I suspect that’s where the value of this book lies.
January 21, 2021
Really enjoyed this one. Amazing research and excellent job making the complex negotiations understandable.
Coupled with Pete Croatto's book "From Hangtime to Primetime" would give NBA fans an amazing inside look at the business of the league in the late seventies and early eighties.
Coupled with Pete Croatto's book "From Hangtime to Primetime" would give NBA fans an amazing inside look at the business of the league in the late seventies and early eighties.
January 9, 2021
A fascinating read if you’re a sports fan tormented by the labor wars of the 70’s and 80’s. This book makes a compelling case that the current state of the NBA, MLB, and NFL are a direct result of the leaders of the sport’s labor unions during that time. The NBA’s Larry Fleisher is the center piece here - the book shows the twists and turns of how he and David Stern ended up with a salary cap tied to league revenue - a ‘win win’ arrangement that’s enabled the league to explode since. In contrast, the much more heralded baseball union chief Marvin Miller was just a steel worker labor boss who only knew how to fight for his side - state of the industry be damned. We see the decline of baseball and associated labor-management disastrous relationships to this day. The NFL players have been so incompetently led that while the league has been strong, it’s the worst league for the players. A niche topic indeed, but well executed.
November 26, 2020
If you're an NBA fan and are truely interested in learning about the history of the league I highly recommend this book. Loved every word
February 4, 2022
I've heard of David Stern before and how a single man changed whole NBA for better on his watch. Many NBA stars payed tribute after his sudden death and it sounded sincere to me. He was, of course, actually a league changer, the real MVP. But there were more people no one is talking about that were also making big and I'd say tough decisions. Before reading this book I knew the main rules (and the cap) in the NBA. But now I know every single aspect of these rules coming to the light, the controversies, terms and conditions, etc. I don't know what I'm going to do with this info, though. Someone should write a book of 5 pages about Jordi Bertomeu managing the Euroleague. :)
July 5, 2025
Ugh... you really have to be a hard-core NBA fan, or a legal scholar who specializes in contract negotiations with collective bargaining agreements, to appreciate this book. The book could use some refined editing to correct errors and content flow. It is informative (somewhat overly so, in that many points of the story are made numerous times throughout the book, causing me to wonder why the repeat?), and you will learn a lot about the famous NBA/Player's agreement made in 1983 that introduced revenue sharing and a salary cap to professional sports.
November 15, 2021
Excellent book. This seemed to be marketed more in the sports history/business categories, but I would suggest that this ought to be essential reading for those interested in unions and collective bargaining, as well. Could easily sit alongside books by Jane McAlevey, Kate Bronfenbrenner, etc. Reads like a high-stakes business thriller in many parts, with many strategic and organizing lessons to be extracted along the way. Really well done.
February 25, 2024
This is a great read if you're interested in the business and off-the-court dealings of the NBA, or if you're a fan of the teams of the 1980s. However, it gets pretty tedious with all the details of labor contract negotiations. The author is a lawyer and this reads like a court document (i.e. boring) at times. But there's a lot of good, interesting info in there.
February 21, 2021
This book is ridiculously good. I cannot believe how quickly I devoured this fascinating and gripping history of the NBA salary cap. I highly recommend this book, both to sportz fanatics, and to those interested in the history of labor negotiations in this company. 5 stars!
February 4, 2021
Absolutely phenomenal overview of the formation of the NBA cap
February 18, 2021
Way more Jews than I expected
Read
March 26, 2021Great account of the negotiations between the NBA and NBPA.
September 25, 2021
Excellent book. Loved it!
February 18, 2023
An excellent book on the history of labor relations in the NBA. I thought it was interesting how Mendelsohn compared and contrasted the NBA's labor situation to the NFL and MLB.
May 3, 2025
Insightful book from start to finish. The story not only reflects on the era of sports in America but like sports in general it touches on the ways it is a microcosm of out society
August 4, 2025
With the crossover stories into baseball and football this book actually proved to be an interesting account of the labor movement in sports.
September 11, 2023
Excellent read on the creation of the modern
NBA.
NBA.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews