How would you change the NBA?

[planetmars]

Why would this lead to a lockout?

DeMar can want the max all he likes - if teams won't pay him the max, he won't get it.

Right now, with the artificially low maxes, player value far exceeds salary for superstars. So the lesser stars like DeMar get paid the same as the superstars - this is a problem. If you remove the artificial max, the value of contracts can be more in line with the value of players. And if a team wants to pay DeMar 70M, they will be mediocre, and that's what they get for overpaying a lesser star. There will always be mediocre teams. C'est la vie.

But far more likely is there will be greater stratification of star money. Some will get the new natural maximum, but very few. Others will earn an amount that will allow for better role players or other lesser stars to join them on their team. The difference in a no-max environment is that any salary inflation of lesser stars and high end role players is going to be based entirely on value distribution. While the current system can have the same flawed value distribution - but also has the artificial suppression of superstar salaries and redistribution of salary to lesser players.

You can't assume that only a few guys will get their "new natural maximum". With no max salaries player values would most likely still exceed salaries for super stars. I actually think this would happen more often not less.

A guy like DeMar may actually get more than the current max so that a team like Toronto can hold on to his all-star free agent. Just like a guy like Wall in Washington or Lillard in Portland. Or he can take less to play somewhere else if his demand is too high. But if that happens the small market team who have trouble retaining talent get in a perpetual rebuild cycle trying to hope their next draft pick actually sticks around for a fair market value.

And if a contract was a 4 or 5 year term at a very large rate.. the team is on the hook for that long. That's how owners get mad and lock outs begin. It's why we needed an amnesty clause the first time around. And if you have a hard cap like you recommended.. the team wouldn't be able to surround their guy with anyone really. They'd have no money left.

Some owners/gm's may be able to navigate their way through this type of system.. but not many would. And the pressures of a small market team to hold on to their prize kids can become really costly.

The lack of max salaries may derail some super star teams.. but I think it can create more problems than it can solve. I don't really believe it can help with parity. Super stars (and fake super stars) may be on their own in some markets.. but you will still see guys like KD who are so desperate for a ring.. that he would still give up $30-$40M to play with a winning team. A ring helps your legacy more than $$$. And that $$$ you lost by being the man in a small market team can be recouped via endorsements anyway.

[Primer]

So here's an example of this theoretical hard cap system.

Hard Cap of $100M
(makes the math easy)

Minimum Salary is raised to $3.5M
(that's a nice raise for every min player and some non-min players, should get enough votes to pass the Union)

Max Salary effectively becomes $54.5M
(that would be a team of 13 minimum players and 1 player paid everything left under the cap)
(quite a bit higher than the current max so all the star players will vote for it)

That's a very basic framework, I'd assume they Union would want to mess with the minimum a bit, having it scale based on years of experience like it does now.

[DanH]

You can't assume that only a few guys will get their "new natural maximum". With no max salaries player values would most likely still exceed salaries for super stars. I actually think this would happen more often not less.

A guy like DeMar may actually get more than the current max so that a team like Toronto can hold on to his all-star free agent. Just like a guy like Wall in Washington or Lillard in Portland. Or he can take less to play somewhere else if his demand is too high. But if that happens the small market team who have trouble retaining talent get in a perpetual rebuild cycle trying to hope their next draft pick actually sticks around for a fair market value.

And if a contract was a 4 or 5 year term at a very large rate.. the team is on the hook for that long. That's how owners get mad and lock outs begin. It's why we needed an amnesty clause the first time around. And if you have a hard cap like you recommended.. the team wouldn't be able to surround their guy with anyone really. They'd have no money left.

Some owners/gm's may be able to navigate their way through this type of system.. but not many would. And the pressures of a small market team to hold on to their prize kids can become really costly.

The lack of max salaries may derail some super star teams.. but I think it can create more problems than it can solve. I don't really believe it can help with parity. Super stars (and fake super stars) may be on their own in some markets.. but you will still see guys like KD who are so desperate for a ring.. that he would still give up $30-$40M to play with a winning team. A ring helps your legacy more than $$$. And that $$$ you lost by being the man in a small market team can be recouped via endorsements anyway.

I don't see how the pitfalls of that system are any worse than this one. The main difference being that players have to give up 30-40M a year instead of 5-10M a year. Inherently making superteams far less likely to occur. There's no system that can fully stop players from teaming up - the only thing you can do is make it cost them.

We needed an amnesty clause the first time around because they had longer term deals then (they also didn't really need an amnesty clause). They've shortened the maximum terms already, and could do so again if the owners are really worried about that, but I don't think that would be necessary. Heck, teams are already screwed if they have a max contract turn to dead salary. This wouldn't change that.

[DanH]

So here's an example of this theoretical hard cap system.

Hard Cap of $100M
(makes the math easy)

Minimum Salary is raised to $3.5M
(that's a nice raise for every min player and some non-min players, should get enough votes to pass the Union)

Max Salary effectively becomes $54.5M
(that would be a team of 13 minimum players and 1 player paid everything left under the cap)
(quite a bit higher than the current max so all the star players will vote for it)

That's a very basic framework, I'd assume they Union would want to mess with the minimum a bit, having it scale based on years of experience like it does now.

And to note, the hard cap if we are trying to approximate the actual salaries from this summer for comparison, would be closer to 115M or so, meaning a max salary closer to 65-70M.

[Primer]

And to note, the hard cap if we are trying to approximate the actual salaries from this summer for comparison, would be closer to 115M or so, meaning a max salary closer to 65-70M.

So if 2 superstars want to play together and split the max they'd each be giving up $30-35M per year. I don't care how much they want a ring, no one is giving up that kind of money.

[JimiCliff]

So here's an example of this theoretical hard cap system.

Hard Cap of $100M
(makes the math easy)

Minimum Salary is raised to $3.5M
(that's a nice raise for every min player and some non-min players, should get enough votes to pass the Union)

Max Salary effectively becomes $54.5M
(that would be a team of 13 minimum players and 1 player paid everything left under the cap)
(quite a bit higher than the current max so all the star players will vote for it)

That's a very basic framework, I'd assume they Union would want to mess with the minimum a bit, having it scale based on years of experience like it does now.

And to note, the hard cap if we are trying to approximate the actual salaries from this summer for comparison, would be closer to 115M or so, meaning a max salary closer to 65-70M.

I haven't looked at the numbers super hard yet, but it seems to me that the unintended consequence of this will be now it becomes impossible for second and third tier players (borderline all-stars, above average glue guys) to actually get paid what they're worth, because there won't be enough money under the cap. Which means these players begin choosing based on rings, weather, friends, etc. These types now control the lack of parity, as opposed to the upper echelon players.

[KeonClark]

A lot of the problem these days is with the players themselves.

In the 90s and 2000s everybody wanted their own team, and nobody threatening their place at the top. Saw it with t mac, Shaq and kobe, Iverson etc. Nowadays it's trendy to hop on someone else's train and create like the avengers. Instantly worked for boston via trade so LeBron got slapped around by them for awhile then took the power in his own hands and created it in Miami. From there kd took it to a new shameless level. Now it's almost become a joke, cousins is just being petty and flipped everyone the bird

[DanH]

I haven't looked at the numbers super hard yet, but it seems to me that the unintended consequence of this will be now it becomes impossible for second and third tier players (borderline all-stars, above average glue guys) to actually get paid what they're worth, because there won't be enough money under the cap. Which means these players begin choosing based on rings, weather, friends, etc. These types now control the lack of parity, as opposed to the upper echelon players.

That's if you assume the 25th best player in the league gets 70M. I think we'll see way more stratification than that. Any team offering a player 70M is doing so in the hopes that that player can carry a roster of low end role players to a championship. While, a team that offered 60M would have 10M extra to chase better role players. And offering 50M could get a 20M player to pair with the star. Or a team could get two 35M players.

It's also just a lot of money. 70M to a single player - even NBA owners will hesitate at that level of commitment.

[JimiCliff]

That's if you assume the 25th best player in the league gets 70M.

I don't think it's that straightforward. If I was still up north, I'd find a nice seat on the deck and crunch some of these numbers a little more hehe. But there's no doubt, getting rid of the current max makes things way, way more interesting. At minimum, it gets rid of the brain-dead GM move of 'Oh, this guy's an All-Star? MAX HIM'.

[slaw]

This is a player's league.. and the league wants to encourage player movement and free agency. I don't want to get rid of that.. Half the excitement of the NBA is free agency and trades. You add more rules like hard caps and those kinds of things diminish and the off season become boring.

A simple rule that I think can help with something I think most teams might actually favour:

Championship teams forgo ALL exceptions the following season. So if you win it all you cannot use your MLE, or BAE, or any TPE's etc. If you want to fill out your roster than you have to get guys that went undrafted in the 2nd round on minimum deals. If you want to ring chase, than sit out a year and then try again.

Warriors should not have been able to use their tax payer mid-level. Miami shouldn't have either the year they won. If you want a super star team and win that way.. cool. But the following year will be really tough to repeat.

I would go further and do away with all of the exceptions, period. If you want to go over the cap to sign your own guy, then knock yourself out but no new guys. You're never going to get parity in basketball but you can stop this ridiculous stacking action that goes on (or at least reduce it drastically).

[slaw]

A lot of the problem these days is with the players themselves.

In the 90s and 2000s everybody wanted their own team, and nobody threatening their place at the top. Saw it with t mac, Shaq and kobe, Iverson etc. Nowadays it's trendy to hop on someone else's train and create like the avengers. Instantly worked for boston via trade so LeBron got slapped around by them for awhile then took the power in his own hands and created it in Miami. From there kd took it to a new shameless level. Now it's almost become a joke, cousins is just being petty and flipped everyone the bird

I agree with this to some extent, in that, for example, the baseball PA would never allow it. They would blackball the agents and drive them out and the players involved would be ostracized.

To me, though, a big issue is that teams are incentivized to lose. You will always get more of what you incentivize. Cousins is a good example. There are lots of teams he could presumably help but got no offers? Why? Cause 10 or so teams, maybe more, are intentionally trying to suck. The tanking shit is just as bad for the game.

[007]

A lot of the problem these days is with the players themselves.

In the 90s and 2000s everybody wanted their own team, and nobody threatening their place at the top. Saw it with t mac, Shaq and kobe, Iverson etc. Nowadays it's trendy to hop on someone else's train and create like the avengers. Instantly worked for boston via trade so LeBron got slapped around by them for awhile then took the power in his own hands and created it in Miami. From there kd took it to a new shameless level. Now it's almost become a joke, cousins is just being petty and flipped everyone the bird

I think what's to blame for this is the "Look at mah ringz Chuck" mentality. If fans and media perpetuate the notion that all success is invalidated if it doesn't result in a title, and if players know they will be made fun of and discounted somehow if they don't get a ring, then this is what happens

[magoon]

High hard cap (like, double the soft cap now) + eliminate the draft entirely.

[psrs1]

100% agree. Allow teams to cut someone from roster at anytime if underperforming similar to NFL. If you dog it you could be cut. Knicks and Thunder would love that provision re Carmelo Anthony’s contact.

[Other Scott]

Mostly I'd go back in a time machine and prevent the cap spike from happening.

Otherwise the league isn't in that bad a place overall, once you get past Golden State ridiculousness. I'd probably kill the Tax-Payer MLE, and reduce tax paying teams to paying players minimum salaries to fill out their rosters, but I don't think that would stop the Cousins thing. We might just see him in Golden State on the minimum rather than 6M.