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

[mcHAPPY]

Via Twitter:

NBA_Labor NBA Labor
.@WojYahooNBA: According to tentative agreement, $3M mid-level exception can be used for contracts up to 3 years

NBA_Labor NBA Labor
.@WojYahooNBA: According to tentative agreement, max contracts 4 plyrs w/ < 6 yrs service are 25% of cap (30% if certain

[mcHAPPY]

Extend and Trades only for 3 years versus 5 years with original team

NBA_Labor NBA Labor
.@sheridanhoops: According to tentative agreement, extend and trades are for 3 seasons

From the horses mouth. Extend and trades are for only 3 seasons - two years less than players could get resigning with original team. That would be a sacrifice of $46M guaranteed.

[mcHAPPY]

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
People keep asking about draft age rule: Still needs to be negotiated, but several team executives believe it will remain the one-and-done.

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
You won't have front office executives and basketball personnel pushing their owners to fight for change on rule. Most are fine with it.

Woj is right more often than wrong. Hopefully he is right for at least 2012. I would like to see it changed for 2013 though.

[Bendit]

Source: SI.com

All teams, tax payers or not, will have a MLE. If the MLE takes you more than $4M over the luxury tax then you get the mini-MLE.

Via Twitter:





At first glance, I can live with this.

Now what are the rates on the luxury tax system?

It was looking like the owners really folded on the major issues of s&Ts and E&Ts but the 4 mill wrinkle makes for a compromise tthat should balance access to talent. We'll just have wait and see how it all plays out. But I still hate the concept of allowing players to force their way out of teams...grrrr

[mcHAPPY]

All via Twitter:

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski

Here's a rundown on tentative labor deal points, via memo that's already being circulated to teams, players and agents for ratification.

Contract lengths: 5 years (Bird rights), 4 years (non-Bird);

Escrow: 10% annual;

Rookie scale: No reduction.

Minimum salary: no reduction.

More deal points: Max salaries: only 1 level equal to 30% of cap.

Extend and trades: Still allowed. (Good news for Dwight Howard-Chris Paul)

new exception: $2.5M for teams below salary cap to go over the cap. Those teams can't use mid-level or bi-annual exceptions.

Mid-level exception: non-taxpaying teams can use a $5M MLE for up to 4 years. Taxpaying teams have a $3M mid-level for up to 4 years.

Teams now have three days to match offer sheets given to their own restricted free agents.

Minimum team salary increases to 85% in first two years of deal and 90% in years thereafter.

ZachLowe_SI Zach Lowe
BRI split: 49-51 band, with players getting 60.5% of BRI above revenue projections--enough, some say, to get them to/close to 51%

NBA_Labor NBA Labor
.@sheridanhoops: According to tentative agreement, extend and trades are for 3 seasons

[Joey]

What also strikes me as wonderful, is that on Christmas Day, Dallas will be playing Miami, at Dallas...

The day that Dallas will most certerainly be holding its rain ceremony.
Oh Happy Day.

[mcHAPPY]

An explanation of new MLE rules combined with Bird Rights

It was perhaps the thorniest “system” issue of all — the one the players were willing to go to war over: Should teams that pay the luxury tax have access to the full mid-level exception, worth $5 million per year over four seasons? The owners had proposed banning any tax team from using the full mid-level and instead allowing them to use a “mini” mid-level worth $3 million per year over three seasons. The players, knowing how many of them get their career-making contract via the mid-level and how many benefit from the leverage that comes when every team can offer it, wanted something better.

Here’s what they got, according to a source familiar with the deal:

• Every team can use the full mid-level exception, provided doing so does not take the team more than $4 million over the tax line.

• Sounds great for the players, right? Here’s the rub: If you use the full mid-level to get to or approach that barrier looming $4 million over the tax line, you cannot cross it by re-signing your own free agents via Larry Bird Rights. You can cross it to sign rookies or guys on veteran minimum contracts.

Let’s use a real world example: The Celtics have about $66 million in salary committed to seven players next season, putting them about $4 million under last year’s tax line of $70.3 million, which we’ll use as a projected tax level for the upcoming season. Using the full mid-level on, say, Jason Richardson, would take the Celtics’ payroll to $71 million–over the tax line. Under the owners’ old proposal, Boston would have thus been prohibited from using the full mid-level.

Under the current proposal — the one to which the two sides have tentatively agreed — Boston could offer the full mid-level to Richardson. But they would leave themselves only about $3 million of room with which to sign their own free agents — Glen Davis and Jeff Green being the headliners — using Larry Bird Rights. In other words: Using the full mid-level would likely mean losing both Green and Davis.

The Celtics could continue spending beyond that $4 million barrier provided they do so via non-Bird deals — veteran minimum contracts, for instance. It is unlikely the Celtics could ink either Davis or Green — young guys seeking a payday — with minimum contracts. They might be able to persuade a ring-chasing veteran for that amount, though.

In effect, the compromise here is that teams just under the tax level must choose between using the full mid-level or re-signing their own free agents to fair-market deals. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It is unclear how many teams this would impact each season. In order to be impact, teams would have to be:

1) near the tax line;

2) interested in using the mid-level;

3) interested in re-signing a key free agent or two.

As an important aside, the same threshold — $4 million over the tax — applies to sign-and-trade transactions, those much-loathed combination deals in which teams re-sign their own free agents to Bird-level deals and then trade them. The owners initially wanted to prohibit such deals, but have decided to allow them, provided they don’t take either team involved more than $4 million over the tax line. (Teams already spending more than that amount would be prohibited from using sign-and-trades that beef up their payroll, it appears).

We’ll be learning more and more about all of this over the next few days.

Source: SI.com

All teams, tax payers or not, will have a MLE. If the MLE takes you more than $4M over the luxury tax then you get the mini-MLE.

Via Twitter:

ZachLowe_SI Zach Lowe
Just a reminder: Tax teams, all teams, will have the mini mid-level--3 years, $3M annually.

ZachLowe_SI Zach Lowe
Now I have confused people. You only get ONE mid-level--the mini or the full.

At first glance, I can live with this.

Now what are the rates on the luxury tax system?

[mcHAPPY]

Yes, but that is the essense of concessionary Bargaining. They were never trying to GET anything.
But simply protect and maintain what they already had. Which they managed to do quite well, when looking at what could have been the Outcome.

Considering what the owners were initially pushing and the current state of the world economy, the players should feel very good about this CBA in my opinion.

[Joey]

This was from Matt in post #1863:
"The players kept:
guaranteed deals
no hard cap
no rollbacks for current contracts
no rollbacks for future minimum and rookie contracts"

So in essence the players did not get squat in this contract. Nothing but take aways.

But yes, they are millionaires, and they will continue to make millions playing a game that most people play for fun.

Yes, but that is the essense of concessionary Bargaining. They were never trying to GET anything.
But simply protect and maintain what they already had. Which they managed to do quite well, when looking at what could have been the Outcome.

[stretch]

I wouldn't say "Clear" winners at all.
They got their money. And a few notches tighter on the belt.

I'd say this boxing match came down to the judges, and it was ruled a Draw.

(Which means some pretty good negotiating was done on both sides... I think.)

This was from Matt in post #1863:
"The players kept:
guaranteed deals
no hard cap
no rollbacks for current contracts
no rollbacks for future minimum and rookie contracts"

So in essence the players did not get squat in this contract. Nothing but take aways.

But yes, they are millionaires, and they will continue to make millions playing a game that most people play for fun.

[Joey]

The extend and trade was the dumbest rule that really only helped a couple of mega star players. I'm not sure why the league would give that one to the players. I'm guessing the league really wants the best players in the best markets.

Why wouldn't the league want that?

You think the NBA was happy with the New York Knicks as a JOKE?

They need big markets to be BIG teams.
Thats where the real money comes from.

Even if Milwaukee is super popular and has a great team, that exact same team would bring in 10x more money in New York.

[mcHAPPY]

Most likely the concessions only ensures another lockout in 2018.

[planetmars]

The extend and trade was the dumbest rule that really only helped a couple of mega star players. I'm not sure why the league would give that one to the players. I'm guessing the league really wants the best players in the best markets.

[Joey]

The owners were the clear winners but with the few concessions the players achieved on Friday, the NBAPA got the best deal they could salvage for their membership and thus the nuclear winter (great phrase) was avoided.

I wonder whose in shape and whose not????

I wouldn't say "Clear" winners at all.
They got their money. And a few notches tighter on the belt.

I'd say this boxing match came down to the judges, and it was ruled a Draw.

(Which means some pretty good negotiating was done on both sides... I think.)

[stretch]

The owners were the clear winners but with the few concessions the players achieved on Friday, the NBAPA got the best deal they could salvage for their membership and thus the nuclear winter (great phrase) was avoided.

I wonder whose in shape and whose not????