Now that some of the N.B.A.’s middling (or worse) players are among the richest athletes in professional team sports, the league should summon its inner Bernie Sanders and spare some comparative loose change for its most impoverished.

The owners and the players’ union should collectively bargain an agreement that would finally pay a fair working wage to players at the developmental level and, even better, enact much-needed cultural change by disavowing the practice of forcing high school graduates into the clutches of the exploitive N.C.A.A.

Dumbfounded or dismayed by the ballooning contracts handed out this summer? You shouldn’t be. The 30 franchises are obliged to pay 50 percent of designated basketball-related revenue to the league’s players. With $2.66 billion in television riches pouring into the league for each of the next nine years, would critics of these collectively bargained payouts prefer the money remain in the hands of the owners?

The cash infusion further enriched owners who had already benefited from wildly escalating franchise values after the league forced Donald Sterling to accept a $2 billion exit prize two years ago for the sale of his Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer.