I'm surprised how many times I see players who've proven to make an impact in the league making only $1.2-2.5m/year. Sounds like if Lebron has his way, the superstars will continue to be flooded with cash at the expense of the laymen. I don't see the players' association successfully advancing the players' position unless the minimums are increased significantly.
I can see where Lebron is coming from though. Any team he has been a part of, he is the team. He took to play in Miami, and he was still shouldering the majority of the load, especially when it counted. Why shouldn't he be shouldering the majority of the salary cap? Everyone loves to bring up how Tim Duncan took a pay cut to keep his team, and it is commendable for him to do that, but he was making $20+ million a year before that. When he was in his prime, shouldering a good portion of that team, he was making a lot more. He has since stepped to the side and taken less of an overall role, and so he takes a pay cut. When Lebron is 36 and someone else is scoring all the points and defending the best players on the other team, he will take a pay cut as well.
Even with that, wasn't Lebron upfront about only taking shorter team contracts anyway? I thought him (or his agent) said he was only going to be signing max of like 2 years.