Veteran players that have been in the league for a while and made good money should be "appraised" in the event they are bought out or waived. They should then not be permitted to sign for significantly less than their appraised value to just chase a ring.
Its a free market. The players got bought out or waived so they have been paid their money already. Why shouldn't they be able to decide to take a pro-rated minimum contract to play wherever they want? They are free agents. They can do and go wherever they please. The Celtics have benefitted from this in the past and probably will again in the future. I don't see an issue.
Let me stop you right there. It actually is not a "free market". If it were, LeBron James would be bringing in 100 million per season. There are hundreds of rules and regulations regarding salary and contracts.
When it comes to deciding where they want to play when free agents and how much they decide to take as compensation for that, in that regard, it is a free market,
This is borderline circular logic... You're stating basically that it is a free market, once the constraints of the market have been satisfied
It's a market where unrestricted free agents can sign to play wherever they please. Players are free to sacrifice dollars for location, a better chance at a ring, etc. Taking that choice away from veterans - who have already had their freedom restricted once by the draft and restricted free agency - is something the union will never go for.
Would it really shock you to see the CBA implement some sort of rule limiting teams to one bought out player signed per season? They have already tweaked one rule recently by not allowing players to go back to a team for a year (which came in to play with Bogut).
I do think the NBA has a problem with there being a 75-85% chance of the same two teams meeting in the finals again and there has to be some steps made to stop super teams from dominating the league and making entire fan bases lose interest.
The hard cap and luxury tax were put in place to stop teams from adding endless talented veterans to their rosters. Williams and Bogut at minimums after getting their money elsewhere is a loophole around this.
While people will try to argue this, it is bad for the league to have this dominant teams. Ratings are down across the league and you have some teams basically saying they are not going to give up future assets (hello celtics) when they wont make them as good as a super team that already exists. That hurts interests in many of the leagues franchises and regular season viewing (obviously the finals will be highly rated, but it is a max of 7 games). Look no further than tonight's schedule for a view into this. You have toronto playing washington in two of the top 4 teams in the league including a wizards team that is having their best season in what 2 decades?
But who really cares? Nobody thinks either of those teams has a shot at the finals and are left hoping for a competitive playoff series against the Juggernaut cavs. How much harder does that make it to get excited and watch this regular season game? Out west you have the Rockets and Clippers. Again the Rockets are the surprise team of the NBA this year and exceeding all expectations, but as evidenced in the thread literally today "maybe they can beat the warriors if Durant is injured." Who is going to get excited about what in years past would represent legit title contenders?