Is it time to do away with individual salary limits?

[philr13]

I can not imagine either side of Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiators wanting this.

Keeping in mind that the NBA has a soft cap which teams can go over:

Management doesn't want small market teams to be at an disadvantage.

I think the Player's Association will be absolutely opposed to this. If it happened, the majority of veteran players would be settling for much smaller contracts or be shut out of the market entirely.

[nickagneta]

The limits are in place to:

A. Save smaller markets.
B. Maximize the earning power of the majority of NBA players who would vote for changes in the CBA. If the BRI split is such that it limits the total money going to the players, with no limit on max salaries teams would be playing the stars so much more that there would be so much less available to most of the players.
C. Save the owners from themselves because they have been shown to make really stupid contract signings over many, many years.

That is what the actual team salary cap is for.  If you still have the team salary cap, then it really won't affect the smaller markets as much.  So a team still either has to have the player on its team or have the cap space to sign them.  Now I do get the idea that if you pay Giannis what he is worth that is less money for the George Hill's of the world, but so what.  Giannis is worth far more than he can be paid, while Hill is paid far more than he is worth because of the way the current system works.  Balance that out, and I think you see a lot less top end player movement.

So you want the NBAPA to vote to give the massive minority of players almost unlimited earnings, so that the overall massive majority of players can take a massive pay cut so that player movement of the massive minority of players don't move around as much?

I don't think it would be as dramatic as you make it out to be.  The vast majority of the leagues salaries wouldn't change because they are on rookie contracts, veteran minimums, or MLE type deals.  It would affect some of the players that aren't MLE type players but not max level players, but I don't think there are all that many of those (at least not dramatically more than the max level players).  Frankly, I don't think a single Celtic would have had their contract affected by this change, other than Irving going up and perhaps Hayward or Horford actually going down (when there is no max then teams also aren't hamstrung by paying max to players that don't really deserve it).   

Of course, players on current contracts would not be affected. A new CBA, as you discussed, would be affecting all new contracts of veteran players, with superstars making the vast majority of the money and the rank and file suddenly being low balled. What you are discussing will affect those players paychecks....eventually, not right away.

It really is very simple logical math. If the players only get a certain percentage of the pie, if with new contracts the superstars are getting a larger piece there is a lot less available to give to all those other players.

There is now way LeBron and Chris Paul, players making ridiculous money, are going to convince the players it is in their best interest to allow superstars to make way more ridiculous money, when they would have to be giving up money to do so.

[Moranis]

The limits are in place to:

A. Save smaller markets.
B. Maximize the earning power of the majority of NBA players who would vote for changes in the CBA. If the BRI split is such that it limits the total money going to the players, with no limit on max salaries teams would be playing the stars so much more that there would be so much less available to most of the players.
C. Save the owners from themselves because they have been shown to make really stupid contract signings over many, many years.

That is what the actual team salary cap is for.  If you still have the team salary cap, then it really won't affect the smaller markets as much.  So a team still either has to have the player on its team or have the cap space to sign them.  Now I do get the idea that if you pay Giannis what he is worth that is less money for the George Hill's of the world, but so what.  Giannis is worth far more than he can be paid, while Hill is paid far more than he is worth because of the way the current system works.  Balance that out, and I think you see a lot less top end player movement.

So you want the NBAPA to vote to give the massive minority of players almost unlimited earnings, so that the overall massive majority of players can take a massive pay cut so that player movement of the massive minority of players don't move around as much?

I don't think it would be as dramatic as you make it out to be.  The vast majority of the leagues salaries wouldn't change because they are on rookie contracts, veteran minimums, or MLE type deals.  It would affect some of the players that aren't MLE type players but not max level players, but I don't think there are all that many of those (at least not dramatically more than the max level players).  Frankly, I don't think a single Celtic would have had their contract affected by this change, other than Irving going up and perhaps Hayward or Horford actually going down (when there is no max then teams also aren't hamstrung by paying max to players that don't really deserve it).   

Of course, players on current contracts would not be affected. A new CBA, as you discussed, would be affecting all new contracts of veteran players, with superstars making the vast majority of the money and the rank and file suddenly being low balled. What you are discussing will affect those players paychecks....eventually, not right away.

It really is very simple logical math. If the players only get a certain percentage of the pie, if with new contracts the superstars are getting a larger piece there is a lot less available to give to all those other players.

There is now way LeBron and Chris Paul, players making ridiculous money, are going to convince the players it is in their best interest to allow superstars to make way more ridiculous money, when they would have to be giving up money to do so.

No I meant if this rule was in effect already, I really don't think it would alter anyone's contract on the team, again except Irving being larger and perhaps Horford or Hayward being smaller (though if this was in effect either one might have just re-signed where they were since the money advantage the Hawks and Jazz could offer was bigger in theory).  Sure the Caldwell-Pope's of the world aren't getting these massive 1 year contracts if this change was in effect, but I'm having a hard time seeing why that is a bad thing.  I'd much rather have the Kevin Durant's of the world be paid what they are worth than artificially inflating the KCP's of the world and I think you could sell the players association on things like that.  And I do think it is a very small number of players that would be affected either way and frankly a lot of it will come from the "max" level players that shouldn't be paid the max, but get it because that is just what you do.  John Wall gets paid the supermax because that is what you do, but if John Wall had been properly compensated all along, maybe the supermax for the aging PG isn't on the table and both are ok with it.  With no upper limit, it doesn't just mean John Wall gets paid more when quite frankly he might have been paid less.  But under the current system, Wall would be slighted if not offered the supermax.