Kate Fagan's solution is "quit paying mediocre players as much as Taurasi." She says 36 players make roughly the $107K league maximum. So some quick math: if 25 of those 36 players are considered "mediocre" and got a $50,000 pay cut, that pay cut would fund $1.25 million of increases for the remaining 11 "elite" players, or an average increase of $114K each. For some this might be enough to keep them playing in the summer. How many?
But then the 25 really good players who got the pay cuts would be more inclined to forego the NBA. So keep them happy by giving the $75,000 players a $25,000 pay cut. Etc, etc. It just doesn't work. The problem is there isn't enough revenue, meaning there aren't enough fans. The solution has to be to somehow make the game more appealing to mainstream sports fans.