On Playoff Money

• Also see: The Painted Area's 2009-10 NBA Awards

A couple days ago, both TrueHoop and FanHouse posted breakdowns on the "playoff pool" money which teams earn based on how far they advance in the playoffs and where they finish in the regular-season standings.

I am currently re-reading Go Up For Glory, the classic 1966 Bill Russell autobiography, and I had to chuckle when I came across this passage the other night, in which Russell explains the grind of the NBA season thusly:

Seven months of hotel rooms and plane rides and violence and more hotel rooms and chicanery and confusion and card games and card-sharks and more hotels and more airplanes and more of the violence of two hundred pound men slashing away at each other for a valued prize - the money that only goes to the champion.

Considering that Russell is widely considered to be the greatest winner in the history of American sports, I found it funny to read his phrasing of the ultimate goal: "the money that only goes to the champion."

Considering that Russell made $19,500 in 1956-57, his first season, it's understandable. While it was a Don Draper-worthy salary in those days, every penny of playoff money counted to the players back then in a way that it does not now.