The Lockout & the Raptors: Players approve CBA, Owners too! (1944)

[slaw]

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/feature...s=iref:nbahpt1

Aldridge does a fairly thorough job of breaking down who has made the playoffs and who hasn't since 1999.

[mcHAPPY]

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/feature...s=iref:nbahpt1

Aldridge does a fairly thorough job of breaking down who has made the playoffs and who hasn't since 1999.

Nice post, slaw.

For those interested, click the link and it is the third section down titled: Nobody Asked Me, But.....

[GarbageTime]

I challenge you guys to find me the last team who made the finals who didnt spend into luxury tax. In fact find me multiple examples so you prove it wasnt a fluke. I challenge you to find me an example of a perrenial playoff team who was not forced to spend over cap to maintain. It always comes back to money. Good management is vital and I have been agreeing with that from the onset BUT you put the best management in the league on a small market team who doesnt have money in the budget to ever go over cap and in that situation that team is gong to end up being mediocre in the long haul.

as Slaw pointed out Miami was not in the luxury this year. OKC and Chicago (the other 2 teams to play in the conference finals) had the 4th and 6th lowest salary in the league (55 and 58 mil respectively).

5 of the 16 playoff teams payed above luxury (LA, Dallas, Boston, Orlando, Portland) - thats total payroll and not necessarily paying tax.

2 teams above luxury cap didn't make the playoffs (Houston and Utah... although Utah could be chalked up to the Deron trade) - same as above

75% (22 of 30) of the teams spend between 54 - 70 mil. Only 1 is well below (Sacramento) it while 4 are well above it and three a few mil above (Portland, Utah, Houston).

>50% (16 of 30) - payed between 65-70 mil

So what does all this mean? Teams who have won a championship have spent money. But that does NOT mean that spending money means winning. Its about spending the money at the right time on the right players.

I'd also say that almost all small market teams have a big enough budget to compete (Sacramentio may be the exception). Small market teams have problems attracting players and keeping them. Which has alot more to do with factors other than budget.

If a team spends money wisely they will win games, which will bring in fans, which will make them profitable. But too many teams have been spending money poorly, which has been costing them wins, which has effected their profitability.

[Joey]

Great article on why 'Parity is IMPOSSIBLE' in the NBA.
Source

I love his point about how San Antonio somehow always gets left out of the conversation when talking about 'Small Market' teams.

There is only one LeBron James. Last offseason every team and their mother made an attempt to get him on their team. The team that got him made the finals. The teams that missed out on him were visibly upset.

In the lockout a lot has been said about parity. In the NBA, a few great teams rule the league with an iron fist. How are small market teams to compete (San Antonio is conviently left out when this point arises)? There will be a lot of talk about hard caps and contract set ups to ensure that the talent in the league is distributed so that one team can’t buy all the best players. I want to reiterate a point though: no matter what changes happen to the salary cap, no matter what changes happen to player contracts, and no matter what happens with revenue sharing…
•PARITY IS IMPOSSIBLE IN THE NBA

Here’s a breakdown of the top 30 players according to Wins Produced last season:

ADD Click the link if you want the list.

If somehow the top players were redistributed to every team in the NBA there would still be a major rift. The difference between LeBron James and Andre Miller is huge! Even using the dreaded PER or Wins Produced’s less attractive cousin Win Shares we see a similar problem. The difference between the best player in the league and the 30th best is gigantic.
•Wins Produced – Kevin Love (1) with 25.8 vs. Andre Miller (30) with 10.5
•Win shares – LeBron James (1) with 15.6 vs. Amare Stoudemire (30) with 8.0
•PER – LeBron James (1) with 27.3 vs. Paul Pierce (30) with 19.8

It was over five years ago in The Wages of Wins when Dave, Marty and Stacey used the term “Short Supply of Tall People” to explain the problem with parity in the NBA, and this idea is still important. There simply aren’t enough good players to go around in the league. This problem gets worse when some teams have the audacity to get more than one elite player (eg: Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami).

What’s more, the good players tend to stay good. LeBron James and Dwight Howard have been MVP candidates for years now. Once a team has one or more elite players they can contend; the teams without these players cannot. The truth is that the owners know this; the owners don’t expect parity. Most owners can’t get a LeBron. But if the system is shaken up and a few star players are forced to change teams then there’s a chance, however small, that a star may head their way. So at the end of the lockout we may see some stars on new teams and we may see some new rules. But what we won’t see is parity, because as the NBA currently stands that’s impossible.

[Joey]

^^ Great post GarbageTime.

[mcHAPPY]

as Slaw pointed out Miami was not in the luxury this year. OKC and Chicago (the other 2 teams to play in the conference finals) had the 4th and 6th lowest salary in the league (55 and 58 mil respectively).

5 of the 16 playoff teams payed above luxury (LA, Dallas, Boston, Orlando, Portland) - thats total payroll and not necessarily paying tax.

2 teams above luxury cap didn't make the playoffs (Houston and Utah... although Utah could be chalked up to the Deron trade) - same as above

75% (22 of 30) of the teams spend between 54 - 70 mil. Only 1 is well below (Sacramento) it while 4 are well above it and three a few mil above (Portland, Utah, Houston).

>50% (16 of 30) - payed between 65-70 mil

So what does all this mean? Teams who have won a championship have spent money. But that does NOT mean that spending money means winning. Its about spending the money at the right time on the right players.

I'd also say that almost all small market teams have a big enough budget to compete (Sacramentio may be the exception). Small market teams have problems attracting players and keeping them. Which has alot more to do with factors other than budget.

If a team spends money wisely they will win games, which will bring in fans, which will make them profitable. But too many teams have been spending money poorly, which has been costing them wins, which has effected their profitability.

Good post, GT.

When looking at this last season, it is important to remember or realize a couple of things:

1) teams prepared for the end of the CBA by clearing cap space not knowing what the new rules would be but knowing salary would be down,

2) Miami cleared their roster to sign 3 guys to $48M. If the old CBA was kept, those three would be making $58M between them in 2 seasons and they would have had 2 years of MLE added as well. They most definitely would have been luxury payers in the very near future.

3) Chicago and OKC still have their star players on rookie deals. They will have significant higher payrolls starting next year with max deals kicking in. OKC might have 2 max deals in two years.

4) Sacramento have a low payroll now but in 2004/05 and 2003/04 when the salary cap was around $43M they were spending $60M.

Which brings up another point: the last deal was extremely good for players. The salary cap has gone from $43.87M to last seasons $58M over the course of the CBA.

[GarbageTime]

Good post, GT.

When looking at this last season, it is important to remember or realize a couple of things:

1) teams prepared for the end of the CBA by clearing cap space not knowing what the new rules would be but knowing salary would be down,

2) Miami cleared their roster to sign 3 guys to $48M. If the old CBA was kept, those three would be making $58M between them in 2 seasons and they would have had 2 years of MLE added as well. They most definitely would have been luxury payers in the very near future.

3) Chicago and OKC still have their star players on rookie deals. They will have significant higher payrolls starting next year with max deals kicking in. OKC might have 2 max deals in two years.

4) Sacramento have a low payroll now but in 2004/05 and 2003/04 when the salary cap was around $43M they were spending $60M.

Which brings up another point: the last deal was extremely good for players. The salary cap has gone from $43.87M to last seasons $58M over the course of the CBA.

Thanks.

I'll fully admit its a simplistic view at team spending, and that when you get into specifics there are exceptions, changes, special situations etc. (especially Miami which I think was collusion and that is definetely something the league needs to (and needed to) address). But I did want to say:

OKC and Chicago's situation will change... but its more that you can still be successful if a team is smart, opportunistic and shrewd. SA, as Joey mentioned, another example. Again its not so much a matter of spending or not spending, as it is spending smart money. You may not necessarily be the cream of the crop every year, but a team can be able to be good, competitve and profitable year after year if they don't waste their opportunities.

[mcHAPPY]

Thanks.

I'll fully admit its a simplistic view at team spending, and that when you get into specifics there are exceptions, changes, special situations etc. (especially Miami which I think was collusion and that is definetely something the league needs to (and needed to) address). But I did want to say:

OKC and Chicago's situation will change... but its more that you can still be successful if a team is smart, opportunistic and shrewd. SA, as Joey mentioned, another example. Again its not so much a matter of spending or not spending, as it is spending smart money. You may not necessarily be the cream of the crop every year, but a team can be able to be good, competitve and profitable year after year if they don't waste their opportunities.

No doubt Miami was determined at the 2008 Olympics and finalized at the 2010 ASG.

Each of OKC, SA, and CHI have made good decisions (and bad) but they have also had luck in being put in a position to draft a franchise talent.

Chicago went from 9 to 1 in the lottery and took Rose. The Boozer contract was a bad decision that will haunt them sooner than later, in my opinion.

SA had an All-Star C miss a season and then managed to get one of the best big men of all time - good timing for The Admiral to get injured. They also made a questionable decision trading for and then re-upping Richard Jefferson.

OKC went from 5 to 2 and had it not been for Oden would have been a #1 in that draft and many others. Had the league not raised the age limit of the draft, Oden or Durant could have ended up in Toronto (good luck for OKC/bad luck for Toronto). The hardest to take anything away from in the group is OKC though - they have made a number of great moves as a franchise.


*EDIT* BTW the point for raising the issue of the 'bad' decisions (Boozer, RJ) is not to knit pick over details. Rather it is to show how in the likely near future those contracts will be a hinderance to even teams that have been run very well (SA for over a decade, Chicago in the last five years).

[mcHAPPY]

SI.com: On Time Start to Seasons in Jeopardy

The NBA on Friday postponed training camps indefinitely and canceled 43 preseason games, scheduled for Oct. 9-15.

October starts next weekend, so this announcement was inevitable the moment the two sides walked out of Thursday’s labor meeting without resolution on the key issues holding up a new collective bargaining agreement. And this, so far, is not a huge loss.

Training camps (which had been set to open Oct. 3) and preseason games usually combine to last a month, and while they help teams work out the kinks and develop chemistry, you can squeeze all of that into the last two weeks of October and start the season on time without losing much in terms of team-building. But starting on time probably requires at least a handshake agreement on the economic parameters of a new deal by early next week, which would give the legal teams 10 days or so to hammer out a new CBA and set the stage for a nutty free-agent period. If there is no initial agreement in the range of Oct. 5-10, regular-season games will be lost.

It’s hard to tell how close the two sides really are on those general economic parameters. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reported that the league on Thursday offered to reduce its share of basketball-related income (BRI) from what it had initially proposed nearly a year ago. Under the old deal, players received 57 percent of BRI, which amounted to $2.176 billion from a total of $3.817 billion last season, according to the league’s numbers. The owners want to cut the player’s share substantially. (What goes into that pot is a complicated thing; it includes percentages of different streams of arena-generated revenue as well as money teams receive from local television deals. How that overall number gets calculated is itself a contentious issue, as players naturally want more money in there and owners want less — including the deduction of various expenses. Isn’t this fun?)

A source with immediate knowledge of the talks told SI.com 10 days ago that the owners made a similar informal concession on BRI last week. The source characterized the move as minor and said it would not give the players even close to a 50/50 split. It is unclear if the concession Berger is reporting represents another bit of progress from that one 10 days ago, though that seems likely. Even so: Berger today reports the league’s offer still guarantees the players less than (on average) 49 percent of the league’s annual revenue over the course of the 10-year CBA the league has proposed. The players have shown a willingness to come down to 53 or 52 percent over a six-year agreement, meaning the gap remains sizable even if it’s narrowing. As the dueling proposed percentage shares get closer, the size of the monetary gap shrinks, though the sides have also discussed how the players’ share of revenues should change over the course of a new CBA — a time in which the league expects revenues to jump.

In any case, the BRI split is linked inextricably to the structure of the salary cap and the league’s plans for increased revenue sharing — plans it has not shared with the union and do not consider part of the collective bargaining process. The key cap level, whether it’s hard or soft, is based on revenue projections and designed to make sure player salaries match up as closely as possible with the percentage of revenue they are guaranteed.

The structure of the cap matters to players, who view a hard cap as the death knell for long-term guaranteed contracts. It matters to owners, who want cost certainty and say that a hard cap will increase competitive balance among the league’s 30 teams. But the owners are not a monolithic group, and David Stern has said every issue — including the hard cap — is negotiable.

The nature of the cap and floor (the minimum each team must spend) will also affect what sort of revenue-sharing structure various owners want. In other words, there is still a ton of work to do, even if they are creeping toward a fair split of dollars. The work could move much faster once they settle on that split, but Friday’s announcement is a reminder that the first step has to happen soon.

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011...sct=nba_t11_a0

[mcHAPPY]

Decertification

Via HoopsHype.com:

Zach Lowe: Source tells SI.com NY branch of NLRB will deliver its recommendation to DC higher-ups "early next week" in NBPA's case.

This might get some movement from the two sides.

If the case is dismissed, the players will either kneel to the owners or decertify.

If the case is ruled in favour of players, then the owners will have some 'splaining to do.

Before the NBAPA decertifies there are some issues they would have to consider that are non-economic related. From SI.com:

But it’s worth noting why and how that controversy started in the NFL. The NFL players’ union, as you probably know, chose to decertify very early in its collective bargaining dispute with the league, in part because it faced a deadline by which it had to do so. Decertification is the most aggressive — and perhaps the most risky — tool in a sports union’s tool box. The union essentially breaks up, forfeiting its right to bargain on behalf of the players, and the players in turn can file a broad antitrust suit against the league. That suit can challenge the foundational rules of the league — the draft, free agency, salary limits — as anti-competitive and thus in violation of federal antitrust rules. The plaintiffs can ask for triple damages, which could amount to billions of dollars.

This is the very strategy a group of hard-line agents reportedly want Billy Hunter and the National Basketball Players’ Association to take, arguing decertification might frighten the owners into offering a friendlier deal. (It should be noted that one of those alleged hard-liners, Mark Bartelstein, told SI.com’s Sam Amick recently that the notion of an agent rebellion against Hunter is a bit overblown.) Hunter has been reluctant to go that direction, choosing instead to await the outcome of a separate proceeding at the National Labor Relations Board.

But here’s the thing about decertification, the resulting lawsuit and the path of the NFLPA: The settlement of that lawsuit in the NFL’s case included the meat of the league’s new collective bargaining agreement — all the major economic rules, the terms of free agency and all the other stuff governing the business of the sport as it relates to the players. It did not include a full anti-drug policy, because antitrust cases are generally not allowed to include such “non-economic” issues, according to several labor law experts. Only a union can bargain for those sorts of things, and the union does not exist once it decertifies, says Gabe Feldman, a law professor at Tulane and an expert on sports and labor law.

That left at least two major issues open: the league’s player conduct policy and the methods through which the league could test for human growth hormone. Both sides wanted to start the season on time, but the NFL demanded that the union reform and that the two sides hammer out an agreement on these issues before the season began, Feldman said. The result was a rushed process in which the league generally came out on top and implemented something close to what it wanted, according to Feldman and Michael McCann, a professor at Vermont Law School and an SI.com contributor.

This is the potential danger of decertification — losing on these non-economic issues. Maybe the NBA and the players don’t really care about them. Perhaps both sides would be satisfied with just cutting and pasting the old anti-drug language into the new agreement. There don’t appear to be any simmering player conduct issues beyond the drug issue, which isn’t simmering. The players have long since accepted the dress code, and no other controversy like it seems forthcoming.

But you never now, and it’s something to at least consider before blowing up the union.

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011...sct=nba_bf1_a3

[GarbageTime]

No doubt Miami was determined at the 2008 Olympics and finalized at the 2010 ASG.

Each of OKC, SA, and CHI have made good decisions (and bad) but they have also had luck in being put in a position to draft a franchise talent.

Chicago went from 9 to 1 in the lottery and took Rose. The Boozer contract was a bad decision that will haunt them sooner than later, in my opinion.

SA had an All-Star C miss a season and then managed to get one of the best big men of all time - good timing for The Admiral to get injured. They also made a questionable decision trading for and then re-upping Richard Jefferson.

OKC went from 5 to 2 and had it not been for Oden would have been a #1 in that draft and many others. Had the league not raised the age limit of the draft, Oden or Durant could have ended up in Toronto (good luck for OKC/bad luck for Toronto). The hardest to take anything away from in the group is OKC though - they have made a number of great moves as a franchise.


*EDIT* BTW the point for raising the issue of the 'bad' decisions (Boozer, RJ) is not to knit pick over details. Rather it is to show how in the likely near future those contracts will be a hinderance to even teams that have been run very well (SA for over a decade, Chicago in the last five years).

There is no doubt an inescapable level of luck involved with any team. But that can also apply to any business for that matter. One can look and say Apple was lucky to hire the advertising agency, who had the individual on staff, who came up with the great marketing campaign (the nerdy PC and the 'cool' Apple characters) and turned the company around.

I guess in some sense what really shows a organizations skill is how they use that luck. Like SA turning it into a dynasty vs Cleveland going out and signing/trading for overpriced players and throwing them in beside Lebron.

[Apollo]

Aldridge makes an interesting case but I still have to disagree. How a Raptors fan, after seeing all that we've seen, could argue against a system where the L.A. Lakers or Dallas Mavericks can't spend any more money than the Toronto Raptors is beyond me. The Maverick wouldn't have come close to the finals without Cubans deep pockets, let alone won the title.

In a hard cap system there is an increased emphasis on scouting and player development, two things Bryan Colangelo is better than most of the league at doing. In a hard cap system the emphasis on free agency is greatly diminished. This is important because it allows teams to more easily hold onto players who are in their long term plans.

The Raptors, for the most part, have been growing their team through prospects in recent years. This is the kind of system that works in a hard cap. Imagine, being rewarded solely based on decision making and not on decision making and how deep your pockets are. Crazy concept, I know.

[GarbageTime]

Aldridge makes an interesting case but I still have to disagree. How a Raptors fan, after seeing all that we've seen, could argue against a system where the L.A. Lakers or Dallas Mavericks can't spend any more money than the Toronto Raptors is beyond me. The Maverick wouldn't have come close to the finals without Cubans deep pockets, let alone won the title.

In a hard cap system there is an increased emphasis on scouting and player development, two things Bryan Colangelo is better than most of the league at doing. In a hard cap system the emphasis on free agency is greatly diminished. This is important because it allows teams to more easily hold onto players who are in their long term plans.
The Raptors, for the most part, have been growing their team through prospects in recent years. This is the kind of system that works in a hard cap. Imagine, being rewarded solely based on decision making and not on decision making and how deep your pockets are. Crazy concept, I know.

the problem here is this assumes that:

1) FA decisions are based solely on their salary... which Bosh and Vince have both shown to be untrue. Lebron, Karl Malone, Trevor Ariza alot of players have made contract decisions outside of just salary. Location (whether its due to environment, family, winning, taxation) still has an enourmous impact which a salary cap does nothing to address. While the 'average' team MAY benifit from the possibility of being more competitive, the teams that have unaverage situations will benifit less.... if not even get hurt by not having the option of 'overpaying' for players to compensate for what they lack.

and

2) The team with said player will be able to offer more than every other team.... which will be completely situational. On top of that teams have already shown a willingness to sacrific years in advance in order for the opportunity to chase FAs (specifically the best ones).


A hard cap unquestionably makes it more difficult for a few teams (ie. those who are able and willing to spend to a unknown limit... Dallas, LA etc) to get FAs and players, but it will also make it more difficult for every team to keep FAs and players (said team doesn't have the option to spend what may be necessary in order to keep a FA) as they will be restricted by a cap. (what I mean here is a team will generally need to be below the cap to the value of said FA, which will mean sacrificing other players (whether through trades or not signing/resigning) along the way)

I don't think the emphasis on FA will be any less under a hard cap, in fact I think it will be greater, but you are right that decision making will very much be at a premium.

Imagine if Toronto's draft picks turn out amazing. Demar becomes a stud, Davis becomes Bosh with shot blocking, JV is becomes a Dwight Howard like C, and their next pick is an All-star SF. They all like Toronto, they want a winning situation and they all want their fair value. With hard cap restrictions will Toronto be able to pay them all while still maintaining a good enough supporting cast? Will they be forced to sacrifice one or two of these guys in order to stay within the cap instead of maintaining a potential championship or dynasty team?

I think what you are going to find is a lot of 'boom and bust' seasons for teams... where they will want the young promising players (who always offer the most value due to salary restrictions) but won't be able to keep them for long because they won't be able to afford them. There will be alot of roster turnover as teams will continually have to adjust short term situations to deal with long term plans. There will be alot more unpredictability in any given year (for better or worse), but it will make it alot more difficult for teams to stick to long term plans (thereby making them shorter). A single injury becomes alot more pronounced as teams will have less means of hedging or compensating for it. Bad contracts will become a bigger burden to a team than ever before.


I understand the idea of what a hard cap can do, but I don't think its something fans will necessarily enjoy over the long run. It is more of a concept that helps preserve owner income (as a whole) than it does to provide better basketball. It will shorten windows of opportunity for teams. If a hard cap goes into place its going to need to be a high hard cap, that is, around or above what teams spend on average right now, but well below what the top spenders spend (or include exceptions of some sort, whether Franchise Tag or mid level exception etc). Ofcourse then that won't offer financial savings (or profitability) the owners are looking for which I think is their real reason for a cap.

I will say though, if a hard cap is put into place and a team can maintain some level of 'dynasty' that GM is either the luckiest GM to walk the earth, or the greatest in the history of basketball.

[Joey]

^^ I approve of this message.

[Bendit]

Disclaimer: I am not up on the rules of the cap.

I have noticed multiple references to the Miami Heat being back-slapped for being under the cap/luxury tax non-payment and yet doing well. Apart from that league-destroying act of signing 3 of the best players in the league and creating a new class of team (super haves with a bunch of serfs relatively speaking) this fiscal discipline was not entirely self imposed.

Is this not because of their gutting of their team the previous year which made it impossible under the cap system to go over the cap? I had read this somewhere and someone here may be better able to verify/explain this.

If true, the Heat would have in all probability gone over and not resorted to deficiencies at centre and the point on that team.

Personally I could care less about the division of the spoils (money). It's the system that in the absence of proper revenue sharing which allows teams in smaller markets and less wealthy demographics to lose their star players. The time it takes to recover from such departure is just too onerous and at some point will reach critical mass leading to the dilution and viewing of the product except in the very few super team cities.

And for those who provide the rationale that this is a business like any other or the league is able to sell its franchises at ever increasing prices have a read here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...ts-nba-lockout

Coincidentally I had reason to post this link on the main page this morning. It has an interesting take.