Owners Want to Eliminate Sign-and-Trades

[the_Bird]

I'm in favor of greatly simplifying the system - cutting Larry Coon's FAQ down to about twelve items.

* Hard cap - some figure between the current "cap" and the luxury tax threshold.  What's the average team payroll?  Somewhere around $55M?  Make the hard cap a little bigger, maybe $60M-$65M.  Also impose a salary minimum of $35M-$40M, so teams can't chintz out on putting together a competitive squad.

* Contracts limited to three years, except max contracts allowed to be four.

* Two max contracts allowed per team.  Max contracts equal to ~25% of the hard cap.  As with Who's proposal, no salary increases built into the contracts.  Might define "max contracts" as a percentage of the cap rather than a specific dollar amount; a max player could then earn "raises" if the salary cap was increases.  25% might also be too high - maybe closer to 20%?

* Rookie contracts stay more-or-less the same - slotted based on draft position, with two guaranteed years.  Two team-option years.  Given that high school players are no longer draft-eligible, I'd be open to letting players become free agents after three years (just one team option) instead of four.

* 2nd round picks - same basic structure as 1st rounders.  

* All players are free agents after their fourth season.  

* No more "MLE" and "LLE."  

* Veteran minimum salary structure similar to what is in place today (more $$ for older vets), but all vet-minimum contracts count the same towards the cap.  A five-year vet on a minimum contract might earn $1M, while Shaq earns $2M; both count as $1M for hard-cap accounting purposes.  Don't want to discourage teams from signing older veterans.

* Teams that are hard-capped out but have experienced major injuries are allowed to petition to sign additional players at the minimum, but the injured players must be removed from the roster for a period of time (maybe the remainder of the season).  

* As with the current system, cap holds of ~$1M for every roster spot (up to 12) that's unfilled.

* 16 roster spots - encourage teams to develop some prospects in the D-League.  12 active players.

* All players eligible to play in the D-League, with the player's consent (let injured guys rehab in D-League, like MLB players going to AAA).  Good for the rehabbing players, good for the D-League to get some "names" playing.

...  just some thoughts on what would make sense to me.  

[Roy H.]

I'm in favor of greatly simplifying the system - cutting Larry Coon's FAQ down to about twelve items.=

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How will the lawyers and salary cap experts earn their living?

[LooseCannon]

But my point is, if there is a hard cap anyways, they don't need sign and trades, and I think that is really where this comes from.  

I like eliminating S&Ts without having a hard cap.  Also, I wanted to take a shot at people proposing stupid S&T ideas in the forum.

I have a whole host of ideas that involve keeping a soft cap.  Capping the years on an MLE contract is one I've said before.  I would like a luxury tax on future salary commitments.  Maybe a super luxury tax above a certain threshold that is more than dollar-for-dollar.

Who, after seeing so many stories of players who don't take care of their money, I think it is absolutely in the players' best interest to have a safety net where they accept less in salary in favor of a pension plan.  A pension isn't some crazy gift that enables slackers, it is a reasonable form of non-salary compensation. 

[Jon]

I was thinking about this today, actually.  (Yes, this is what I do with my free time). 

Eliminating sign-and-trades could help teams keep their own free agents, assuming that teams could still offer their free agents more than outside teams can offer.  Right now, sign-and-trades are used to circumvent that.

At the same time, this hurts teams that lose free agents.  Currently, when a team loses a free agent, they can at least trade him for a trade exception and draft picks.  Those trade exceptions can prove valuable when trying to bring in new talent.  Eliminating that potentially makes it harder for teams to recover.

Of course, with a hard cap, the necessity of sign-and-trades almost disappears, as teams with cap space can sign guys, and teams without space can't. 

True.  It might be interesting to see the NBA at least go to some sort of system like baseball where teams sacrifice draft picks when they sign other team's free agents. 

Unfortunately, the only issue is that most teams don't want late first round picks or second round picks all that much. 

[get_banners]

S&Ts make little sense if there is a hard cap. Re: salary rollbacks (for contracts signed in the past year), there's no way that should happen. Teams that are foolish should have to deal with it. They all knew there was uncertainty about the CBA, and most everyone had some sort of idea of the kind of changes that would be brought up. So...the crazy spending last summer should not be voided in any way.

[Finkelskyhook]

I hope both sides push for refs that don't suck.

The refs don't suck.  They're doing exactly what management wants them to do.

The only owner I've seen openly lobby for officiating by the rulebook and not by player status was Mark Cuban.

He got fined $500,000 for it.

[Finkelskyhook]

Owners Want to Eliminate Sign-and-Trades

Owners probably have a new way to curcumvent whatever scenario they agree on anyway.

[LooseCannon]

True.  It might be interesting to see the NBA at least go to some sort of system like baseball where teams sacrifice draft picks when they sign other team's free agents. 

Unfortunately, the only issue is that most teams don't want late first round picks or second round picks all that much. 

You can't really do things in the NBA the way you do in the NFL or MLB because the rosters involved are much smaller.  People are making a huge mistake if they look to other sports for inspiration without taking that into account.

[Finkelskyhook]

I'm in favor of greatly simplifying the system - cutting Larry Coon's FAQ down to about twelve items.=

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How will the lawyers and salary cap experts earn their living?

I was thinking the same thing....

It seems as though after listening to Coach Hobbs and Chris try to explain some of the trade and cap scenarios....That the same people who draw up the IRS tax code drew up the last CBA.

[PosImpos]

Maybe put an end to trades where the salaries have to match up so you don't have a situation like Memphis giving away Gasol again. I guess they could just judge trades based on 2k ratings rather than cash, the total trade has to be within 5 points of one another. 

But you need to take "Potential" rating into account!

[MMacOH]

The NBA is about to completely revamp itself like the NHL did a few years back.  The majority of franchises are losing money and this new movement to have superstars 'team up' is only going to widen the revenue gap between teams.  The owners won;t put up with it.  Look for a system with significantly smaller salaries and easier ways to keep the superstars spread out. 

I really don't think there will be any basketball played next year.  I have a feeling the league is going to be locked out for at least a year

[Chris]

Who, after seeing so many stories of players who don't take care of their money, I think it is absolutely in the players' best interest to have a safety net where they accept less in salary in favor of a pension plan.  A pension isn't some crazy gift that enables slackers, it is a reasonable form of non-salary compensation. 

While I understand the motivation for this, I can't see the players being for it.

It punishes the guys who take care of the money, because they are losing money out of their pockets that they could probably invest themselves and get a greater return on, and for the players it would actually help, they probably would be even more mad, because they obviously don't understand that they are going to be broke.

I just hate the idea that they need to protect these guys from themselves.  They can all afford to hire financial managers, and it is their choice whether they want to do that or not.  The guys who are actually responsible about their money should be furious if they have to pay for these other guys, just because they can't help spending every dime they have.

[Roy H.]

The NBA is about to completely revamp itself like the NHL did a few years back.  The majority of franchises are losing money and this new movement to have superstars 'team up' is only going to widen the revenue gap between teams.  The owners won;t put up with it.  Look for a system with significantly smaller salaries and easier ways to keep the superstars spread out. 

I really don't think there will be any basketball played next year.  I have a feeling the league is going to be locked out for at least a year

A lot is going to have to do with how the courts view things.  If the 8th Circuit rules in favor of the NFL, it gives the owners a ton of leverage.  If the ruling goes for the NFL players, that makes it very hard for the league, as the NBAPA would just decertify.

[Chris]

In the spirit of the OP, another thing I would love to see in the new CBA, in order to eliminate an ongoing theme on message boards is a rule against the whole trade/buy-out/resign scenario. 

I am sure this would no longer happen if there is a hard cap (because it would mean no more contract matching in trades), but even without a hard cap, I hope they get rid of that.  I just hate the fact that it is considered business as usual to trade a productive player for an even better player, knowing that in 30 days, the guy you just traded will be coming back to join you.

[Moranis]

Of course, with a hard cap, the necessity of sign-and-trades almost disappears, as teams with cap space can sign guys, and teams without space can't. 

You are correct that by eliminating sign and trades teams with cap space will be able to sign guys and those that don't  have it won't, but I don't think that is a good thing at all.  Even with a hard cap, if you kept in the sign and trade possibility then a team that is near the cap could still be active in free agency by sending dollars back to the team that might lose the player.  So if Boston is just 2 million under the cap, it can't sign someone, but if Boston is 2 million under the cap and can sign and trade for someone, then they could be active in free agency. 

I would assume the goal of the policy is to balance out the league i.e. the high payrolls can't just add talent, forcing free agents to either stay put (assuming their own team is below the hard cap) or go to a team with a lot of cap room.  I just don't think that is good for the league.