The primary issue with this comparison is that Lebron James doesn't have to be the best player in basketball to command the highest salary. Court productivity i

The primary issue with this comparison is that Lebron James doesn't have to be the best player in basketball to command the highest salary. Court productivity is what the author is measuring, but the true measure is how much a player will effect a team's revenue. Lebron James puts people in seats, and those people buy jerseys and beer. Even after his skills start to dwindle, he still may command a much higher salary than equally productive players due to his ability to draw crowds. Another element lost in the analogy is how much someone like Lebron makes the others on his team more productive. Because of his presence, other players on his team (and on the floor with him) benefit from his abilities and their production is improved. He's some form of catalyst or multiplier. Of course measuring individual productivity and any individual's impact on team productivity is much more difficult in a business setting where statistics are not easily measured and external forces can impact the team's behaviors. A basketball court is a rather fixed and controlled environment - team size, rules, and even temperature are standard. A free throw line is always the same distance from the rim, and the rim is always the same height. Business and development environments have multiple factors that could make one person more or less productive than they would be at another shop.