Owners Want to Eliminate Sign-and-Trades

[Q_FBE]

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.

Further to that argument, I would propose that David Stern would step down and have Mark Cuban step up and be the commisionner. I trust a businessman for more than a lawyer.

[guava_wrench]

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.

S&T still make sense with a hard cap for max players. They need to get rid of the stupid rule where the old team can offer more money. I see no reason why a team should have an advantage in retaining a player just because of the draft.

If you remove the work-arounds for retaining players, maybe teams will take less risks on 'potential' and instead give money to players who deserve it if they know they have a lesser chance of retaining a prospect.

[the_Bird]

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. 
[/quote]

I don't see why a quasi-S&T wouldn't still be viable, just done as separate transactions.  The salary you need to shed in order to free up cap space, you trade to any other team with cap space (could be the team losing the free agent, could be any team).  If the C's are $2M under the cap and want to sign Sam Dalemebert to a $7M contract, we trade $5M of salaries to any other team, for a draft pick or something.  

[guava_wrench]

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.

I hear people talk about this but they I regularly hear others complaining when non-stars are getting 'star calls'. I can't help but wonder how much of this is in the imaginations of fans.

I mean, Maggette is in no way a star, but the guy lives at the line. It is a product of a skill he has.

[guava_wrench]

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. 

I am against rules that help clubs keep their free agents because the flip side is that these are rules that hinder other clubs from signing free agents. This is an anti-parity rule.

Get rid of RFAs too. If you want to keep a guy, pay him. If this is supposed to be a reward for past investment, than lower the rookie scale. Why restrict a player's ability to get market value by playing games with their livelihood. If they want to keep the guy, sign him to an extension ahead of time instead of letting him become an RFA.

[PosImpos]

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.  

I am against rules that help clubs keep their free agents because the flip side is that these are rules that hinder other clubs from signing free agents. This is an anti-parity rule.

Get rid of RFAs too. If you want to keep a guy, pay him. If this is supposed to be a reward for past investment, than lower the rookie scale. Why restrict a player's ability to get market value by playing games with their livelihood. If they want to keep the guy, sign him to an extension ahead of time instead of letting him become an RFA.

I completely disagree.  Allowing teams to keep their free agents, or at least force other teams to compensate them for taking their free agents is absolutely a PARITY rule.  If Toronto, Cleveland, Denver, and now New Orleans and Orlando had stronger measures in place to keep their best players, there would be a great deal more parity in the league.  

Any league where individual free agents have more power to choose where they want to play than teams have in making their own personnel decisions (e.g. Melo deciding to be traded to NY and nowhere else; Bosh, Wade, and LeBron all planning to join up in 2010) is going to be a league without significant parity.

Right now, free agents have too much power and they have learned in the last few years just how much power they have.  As a result, the league is becoming increasingly top-heavy.

Also, teams like the Thunder that draft well and manage their team well should be rewarded with the ability to hold onto the great core they put together.  Otherwise, they're in danger of doing all the work of putting together a great team only to have it come apart because individual players want to be "the man" somewhere else, or want over-sized contracts that the small-market team can't afford.

[LooseCannon]

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.

I don't see it as punishment of guys who take care of their money.  I'd compare it to the players being better off if they collectively bargain for uniform health care benefits rather than everyone being responsible for buying their own health insurance.

[Who]

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.

Yeah, that really bugs me too.

They should stop players from being able to re-sign with their previous team until the start of the following season.

[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.

I hear people talk about this but they I regularly hear others complaining when non-stars are getting 'star calls'. I can't help but wonder how much of this is in the imaginations of fans.

I mean, Maggette is in no way a star, but the guy lives at the line. It is a product of a skill he has.

Maggette doesn't get calls like the ridiculous upfake/charge that Pierce exclusively gets.  He doesn't get to travel/carry/crab-lobster-squid-whatever dribble ad nauseum like the messiah, Pierce, Los Nash, Wade, and Bryant do.  Unlike the messiah, Maggette actually is getting fouled.  If Maggette was more than a one-trick pony, he'd be in the discussion with the above.  

I would contend that any of the above would be better if they actually were officiated the same way as Maggette or any other NBA player.  They are much more talented than the average NBA player.  They'd work harder at their games and expand their skill set without the help.  I've always believed that beyond the obvious integrity issue that star officiating brings...It's a detriment to the game because the best players get away with taking short cuts instead of expanding their game.

The sign and trade gimmick is a joke to circumvent the process.  I have no doubt that anything that is agreed on will be circumvented in a similar way.  In that way, it is a lot like the tax code.

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.

Yeah, that really bugs me too.

They should stop players from being able to re-sign with their previous team until the start of the following season.

A brilliant idea indeed.  Since all of this has a government stench to it....All the more reason to believe it'll never happen.  Too logical.