“Today, players receive the rewards before they prove their worth” – Michael Jordan said NBA players are awarded huge contracts prematurely originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Michael Jordan never shied away from any sort of expectations. He lived under them, pushed through them, and in his eyes, earned every ounce of what came his way.
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But in his 2005 book “Driven from Within,” Jordan made it clear that he didn’t feel the same could be said for everyone. He saw the NBA shifting, and the way young players were being rewarded before doing much on the floor didn’t sit well with him.
“Today, players receive the rewards before they prove their worth,” Jordan wrote. “If you look around, you’ll see that it happens in a lot of places, not just sports.”
Jordan wasn’t ever the one to take aim at one player. He spoke to a broader trend that had started reshaping the league. Rookie contracts were getting bigger. Shoe deals were being handed out based on potential.
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Players became stars long before they played a meaningful game. While Jordan understood the business side of the league, he questioned what it meant for the competitive side.
The spotlight came too early
In Jordan’s mind, money and exposure should come after production, not before. He had entered the league with hype, but the endorsements didn’t define him. He let his game do the talking first. By the time the commercials and signature shoes followed, his reputation had already been built.
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What he saw in the 2000s felt like a reversal of that process.
“The big NBA contract comes with the big shoe contract,” Jordan wrote. “With those big contracts come national commercials. With that kind of notoriety comes expectations, some of which are bound to be out of proportion to the player’s experience and ability.”
To him, that imbalance created pressure that most players weren’t ready for. When the marketing ran ahead of the production, it set players up to be picked apart. Jordan believed the game should shape the spotlight, not the other way around.
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A different standard when MJ was in the NBA
The six-time champion had been through the grind. He had felt the weight of a franchise on his back before ever lifting a trophy. Remember what the Chicago Bulls were before Jordan?
No, because they were just that bad.
But he didn’t view that as a burden. He saw it as part of what made success mean something. And that’s what made him uneasy about the direction things were going.
He knew the league was evolving. He knew social media and branding were becoming part of the player package. Still, the core belief never changed for him.
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Earn it first. Build something. Then take on everything that comes with it.
To Jordan, nothing matched the satisfaction of proving yourself before being celebrated. That mindset defined his playing and shaped his view of every generation that followed.
And in many ways today, in 2025, much of what arguably the greatest athlete ever preached rings the dead solid truth.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 2, 2025, where it first appeared.