“If we’re talking about sports let’s talk about money because that’s really what it’s about. You look at the NBA and the reality is the top players make more money off the court than they do on the court, so they can be more frank, they can be more straightforward in terms of the decisions they make and what decisions they make off the court. Especially in basketball, the players have more of an influence because they make more money.

“Someone like LeBron James signs a half a billion or billion-dollar deal with Nike and he’s only getting paid $30 million from his basketball team, so it’s hard to control somebody like that because the reality is he really doesn’t need the paycheque from his basketball team. He’s set for life and that’s not just in his case. That’s in a lot of the players’ cases in the NBA, so the influence is different whereas in hockey that’s not the case at all.”

-P.K. Subban of the Nasville Predators on why NBA players speak out more. Sportsnet has more.