False:
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/tampa-ba...cash-earnings/
Tom Brady's Cash Earnings earlier this decade were $12 million, $13 million, $19 million, $13 million, $14 million, $15 million, $15 million and so on. He was a Super Bowl Winning QB during that time and was
most certainly taking a discount.
Major League's Player Association is the strongest union in all of sports and has been that way since the 70's and the advent of free agency. Good to great players are traded all the time in order for teams to pay certain superstar players because they don't receive any monetary relief by cutting players due to the fact that all contracts are guaranteed.
If the NBA didn't have a cap, why was Jordan paid $36 million while Pippen, the 2nd best player in the NBA, had to settle for $2 million? It wasn't because the owner couldn't pay him, it's because the owner chose not to pay him and the NBA's Player Association at that time had very little power.
He didn't have to take less money but he could have threatened Reinsdorf, just like he threatened and bullied everyone else around him.
He choose not to, plain and simple.