Token Sign and Trade Deals, why not change the rule?

[Vermont Green]

You know, I was thinking about this whole sign and trade thing.  It is almost standard now that when a team loses a FA of any value, that the teams kind of skirt the cap rules by doing what is really a manufactured sign and trade.  Sometimes there are actually players coming back (as would have been the case with Indy) but very often it is more like the Charlotte discussion where it is somewhat immaterial to the transaction getting done.

Why not just make this a rule.  If a team loses a FA, they get a trade exception, or 80% of the contract or something.  There could be other boundaries that it has to have been a player in the league for a certain number of years or some other practical restrictions but this would be a good thing for league balance to help out teams that lose FAs to larger market teams (which is often the case). 

The TPE then create more player movement on the other end which is good for other teams to get out of bad contracts.  I think it would be good for overall player contracts.  Teams may be more willing to sign bigger contracts if they know there is an after market for trading big contracts with more TPEs out there.

[Csfan1984]

I'd think having more TPEs would invite more spending and reduce competition from smaller market teams. What I feel is more meaningful for player movement is reducing the match salary amount.

[Who]

How about we just switch to a hard cap and get rid of this dumb soft cap - then teams can actually respond well and deal with things when they lose free agents.

[Csfan1984]

How about we just switch to a hard cap and get rid of this dumb soft cap - then teams can actually respond well and deal with things when they lose free agents.

If they had compensation picks again I'd like the idea of a hard cap. Maybe do it like the NFL where depending on what a player signs for you get a pick and signing team gives up pick in awarded round.

[jambr380]

I totally agree with you OP and have thought this for a while. If you trade a player, you get a TPE; if you lose a player in FA, you get nothing. You get penalized for something totally outside of your control. And I agree that certain rules should remain in place, like needing to let your TPE/cap holds go if trying to get under the cap to sign another player. Maybe they could have a maximum number of TPEs you are allowed to have at any one time, as well.

I understand the small market/big market thing, but the luxury tax penalties are already extremely harsh - you just don't see teams doing what GSW is doing this year with Oubre very often. The more we see this done, the more of a discussion this might be in the next CBA.

[Moranis]

I've thought for years that they should just remove the player dollar caps (I think I'm ok with 5 years max for length, just not dollars).  If a team has 50 million in cap space and wants to spend it all on Giannis, they should be able to.   If the Bucks want to pay Giannis 70 million a year, they should be able to.  Why artificially cap what a great player makes?  You still keep all of the team rules so a team over the cap can't just sign someone to whatever contract they want, but if you really want to curb great players from leaving, let the "home" team sign them to whatever they want.  You double up the money it makes it much less likely a player leaves.