what is the purpose of the salary cap?

[Moranis]

The NFL has so many restrictions on player movement that it is laughable to use the phrase 'free market' in the same sentence -- and if a 'free market' involves teams colluding to keep contracts nearly equal, then it's a sham and a shell of the phrase.

You keep saying "the market will work itself out" but that seems to be a leap of faith, and I don't think it's reasonable to hang your hat on that sort of hypothetical sloganeering for the reasons I've already detailed.

We may be approaching the point of no return on this argument.

Possibly, but my leap of faith is based on economic theory that has been shown to work for thousands of years. 

And you keep talking about these rogue owners, but look how long the free spending lasted for Brooklyn, i.e. not that long.  They cut Williams just to save a few million dollars in salary, because that savings is three fold.  Owners won't just keep shelling out money hands over first especially with the increased penalties for repeat tax payers.  It will balance out because business always balances out.

[D.o.s.]

No, that's actually not true. Legitimately free markets are not nearly as inviolate as you seem to believe, but, again, this is drastically off topic. Not only would the ownership never allow the sort of system you're suggesting, there's no tangible basis for believing that it would succeed for the betterment of the NBA, only a prexisting notion of one economic method being "better" than another and subsequently given higher priority in all things because of that.

[bdm860]

I always thought a salary cap that used hard numbers should be replaced with one that used only percentages (and we're seeing why this offseason with the Jackson/Wall example, but also throughout the NBA history when Kukoc is making more than Pippen, etc.).

The current system seems to penalize players if the cap rises significantly mid-contract.

Instead of a max contract worth $15m or $20m or $25m, you can sign a player up to 30% of the cap (or more under Moranis's proposal).  Doesn't matter if the cap is $65m or $100m, that player will get 30% of it.

Instead of a mid-level exception, you can sign a player to 8% of your cap, or 5% if you're in the luxury tax or whatever, 3% vet minimum, etc.

Teams could still go over the cap using Bird rights, trades, etc. (or stay under if they wanted). Instead of having a $90m payroll with a $65m cap, teams would have a committed payroll of 138% of the cap.

Want to trade for a player making 18% of the cap?  You can trade a player making 12% and a couple of guys on rookie deals making a combined 6% (allowing +/- X percentage points difference).

Guys like Isaiah Thomas or Avery Bradley don't become bargains due to a rising cap, they'd continue to make 10-12% of the cap or whatever the equivalent they signed for is.

If they changed the system to % based, would it work?  Is there problems I'm not seeing?  I feel this would only help the players, but of course haven't really thought it out too much.

[D.o.s.]

That is exactly how the cap is set up now, actually.  the 'max' in a "max contract" refers to the maximum percentage of the salary cap a player's yearly salary can cost, with years and raises based on other factors (i.e. bird rights).

edit: oh, ok, so you're suggesting that instead of a yearly raise on a first year contract determined by percentages, players would be given a percentage of a salary cap that is redetermined every year? Seems fishy. Not only would it mean the books would have to be scrutinized by absolutely everyone all the time, but it would make bad contracts that much more unpalatable. Imagine a Derrick Rose type situation under your proposal.

[bdm860]

That is exactly how the cap is set up now, actually.  the 'max' in a "max contract" refers to the maximum percentage of the salary cap a player's yearly salary can cost, with years and raises based on other factors (i.e. bird rights).

Not exactly though.  It all goes off the base year only, right?  A player with enough years can sign for 30% of the cap today, with 7.5% increases (don't know if those are the actual numbers or not, just an example).

When the cap changes next year, those contracts don't increase with the cap.  Which is why people are talking about guys like Avery Bradley and Isaiah Thomas will be bargains under the new cap.  This is why players want the ability to opt out to get new contracts after the cap increases.  Why everyone thought Kevin Love would opt in on the final year of his deal, etc.

30% of the cap + max allowable increases in 2013 will  be much less than 30% of the cap in 2017.

Russell Westbrook and James Harden signed 5 year contracts for 25% of the cap in the '13 and '14 seasons (max they could get).  Those contracts will be worth closer to 15% of the cap in 2017.  That's the problem I think could be fixed.