What “The Cap” teaches us about progress and the NBA’s new position

The NBA’s salary cap has been in the news lately because of the league’s unexpected and two-fold drop in revenue during the 2019-20 season. The first hit came after former Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s pro-Hong Kong tweet which cost the league access to the lucrative Chinese television market for most of the season. China eventually got back into it with a broadcast of Game 5 of the NBA Finals — but that was after the league had reportedly lost upwards of $300 million dollars.

The second more obvious blow came thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been mismanaged in America to a terrifying degree. (The President of the United States, despite having apparently caught and recovered from the…