Better parity in the NBA is NOT a Pipe Dream

[ballin]

In response to everybody's posts:

1) I should have mentioned contraction in my original post; I think it would be a good idea to do away with the two least popular teams.

2) As for everyone that said to set the max contracts at 35 per annum, or higher than that or just to eliminate max contracts altogether...

Here's the problem with that idea, and why I like my idea (and no, it's not simply because I automatically like my own ideas better)

Let's say you set max contracts at 35 per year. Yes, this would prevent the formation of superteams, and for that reason it would help parity somewhat. But it would still leave half of the league totally and utterly screwed. Why? Let's say you're drafted by the Timberwolves, who are still terrible, and remain terrible all the way up until the expiration of your rookie deal. Now the Timberwolves offer you the max at 35 mil, because you're a max player and they don't have any other max guys. Sure, LA and Miami and NYC can't sign you since they already have their max guys, so no superteams are about to be formed. BUT. You have absolutely zero incentive to stay in Minnesota, since a dozen other teams are offering you the EXACT SAME 35 mil to play in a place that's NOT Minnesota.

The fact is, when multiple places are offering the same money, you'll take the place you'll want to live in most. And that'll almost never be a small market. So while parity will have improved, teams like Charlotte and Minnesota and Milwaukee will never be more than feeder teams for everyone else. That doesn't make things fair.


Then the other option would be to eliminate max contracts. This would be even worse in my opinion. Once again, no small market would ever get a chance to retain a superstar since they'll just be outbid by places that can afford to spend more money.

Secondly, places like LA and NYC will just be perennial powerhouses because they'll be able to constantly retain 2+ superstars while the rest of the league will never be able to afford having more than 1 at the same time.

edit:

Just to make it clear, I feel like my system is similar in that it raises the cost of retaining superstars. So if you draft 3, you'll only be able to afford 2. The real difference lies within the fact that my system ONLY extends the advantage to the drafting team, so it rewards small market steams that draft well (to be accurate, it rewards ANY team that drafts well, but it also ensures that small markets don't get screwed, by giving the drafting team a financial advantage in retaining their drafted superstar)

[PosImpos]

simple answer to your max contract problem:

max contract w/ bird rights = 35 per year

max contract w/out bird right = 20 per year


difference between 5 yrs / 175 million and 5 years / 100 million

how many players worthy of the max are gonna leave 75 million on the table?

[BballTim]

In response to everybody's posts:

1) I should have mentioned contraction in my original post; I think it would be a good idea to do away with the two least popular teams.

2) As for everyone that said to set the max contracts at 35 per annum, or higher than that or just to eliminate max contracts altogether...

Here's the problem with that idea, and why I like my idea (and no, it's not simply because I automatically like my own ideas better)

Let's say you set max contracts at 35 per year. Yes, this would prevent the formation of superteams, and for that reason it would help parity somewhat. But it would still leave half of the league totally and utterly screwed. Why? Let's say you're drafted by the Timberwolves, who are still terrible, and remain terrible all the way up until the expiration of your rookie deal. Now the Timberwolves offer you the max at 35 mil, because you're a max player and they don't have any other max guys. Sure, LA and Miami and NYC can't sign you since they already have their max guys, so no superteams are about to be formed. BUT. You have absolutely zero incentive to stay in Minnesota, since a dozen other teams are offering you the EXACT SAME 35 mil to play in a place that's NOT Minnesota.

The fact is, when multiple places are offering the same money, you'll take the place you'll want to live in most. And that'll almost never be a small market. So while parity will have improved, teams like Charlotte and Minnesota and Milwaukee will never be more than feeder teams for everyone else. That doesn't make things fair.

  I don't think you're looking at this the right way. Not every team will want to have a $35M player. There will be different strategies to build teams. Melo at $18M might be a bargain because he's worth more than 2 $9M players. But is he worth more than 4 $9M players? If you start LeBron, the rest of your starting lineup will earn about $16M. You could compete with a team that's so centered on one player with a balanced team that doesn't have a superstar.

[BballTim]

simple answer to your max contract problem:

max contract w/ bird rights = 35 per year

max contract w/out bird right = 20 per year


difference between 5 yrs / 175 million and 5 years / 100 million

how many players worthy of the max are gonna leave 75 million on the table?

  Or make the amount you're allowed to pay a player over their current contract a percentage that increases with the amount of time the player's on your roster, not how long his last contract was for. so (for example) if CP3 leaves as a free agent, he can get a smallish increase on a shortish contract, if he's traded to the Clips and plays for them for a year he can get more money on a longer contract, if he stays with the Hornets he can get a much larger contract for more years. If he does a sign and trade, it's based on how he slots into the team that's trading for him, so basically max for a free agent. If he re-signs with the Hornets for the "larger" max, they can't trade him for a year.

[PosImpos]

simple answer to your max contract problem:

max contract w/ bird rights = 35 per year

max contract w/out bird right = 20 per year


difference between 5 yrs / 175 million and 5 years / 100 million

how many players worthy of the max are gonna leave 75 million on the table?

  Or make the amount you're allowed to pay a player over their current contract a percentage that increases with the amount of time the player's on your roster, not how long his last contract was for. so (for example) if CP3 leaves as a free agent, he can get a smallish increase on a shortish contract, if he's traded to the Clips and plays for them for a year he can get more money on a longer contract, if he stays with the Hornets he can get a much larger contract for more years. If he does a sign and trade, it's based on how he slots into the team that's trading for him, so basically max for a free agent. If he re-signs with the Hornets for the "larger" max, they can't trade him for a year.

yeah, i like the idea of increasing the amount a player can sign with a particular team for each season that he's already played with the team.  reward loyalty.

i think the same should be done with the veteran minimum, by the way.  for each year that a player has already been with a team, tack on somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 to the veteran minimum.  a player who has been with a team for 10 years already should be able to sign a veteran minimum deal with that team for substantially more than a player who bounces around from team to team (e.g. paul pierce could sign for vet minimum with the celtics for $5 million).

[dlpin]

2) As for everyone that said to set the max contracts at 35 per annum, or higher than that or just to eliminate max contracts altogether...

Here's the problem with that idea, and why I like my idea (and no, it's not simply because I automatically like my own ideas better)

Let's say you set max contracts at 35 per year. Yes, this would prevent the formation of superteams, and for that reason it would help parity somewhat. But it would still leave half of the league totally and utterly screwed. Why? Let's say you're drafted by the Timberwolves, who are still terrible, and remain terrible all the way up until the expiration of your rookie deal. Now the Timberwolves offer you the max at 35 mil, because you're a max player and they don't have any other max guys. Sure, LA and Miami and NYC can't sign you since they already have their max guys, so no superteams are about to be formed. BUT. You have absolutely zero incentive to stay in Minnesota, since a dozen other teams are offering you the EXACT SAME 35 mil to play in a place that's NOT Minnesota.

This makes no sense. You are assuming that if you raise the individual maximum salary then every all star will get that deal. But they won't.

And your scenario is actually irrelevant. If a player can make the same 35 million in Minnesota and New York, and leaves for New York, so what? That doesn't hurt parity. What hurts parity is if New York can sign its second superstar more easily than Minnesota can sign its first.

There are only a small number of players who are worthy of 20 million plus a year. What hurts parity is not if one of them chooses New York over Minnesota, but if several of them choose New York vs Minnesota.

If the max is 35 million a year, or if there is no max, then New York will get its superstar at a super high salary. But then it won't be able to get the second one.

Add to that the existence of Bird rights and you already have a substantial advantage for teams to keep their superstars. With Bird rights Minnesota can resign its superstar without giving up anything, while New York would have to manage to get 35 million dollars under the cap to sign this player.

[JBcat]

I think one new rule that will help is teams paying the luxury tax can only use the mini mid level exception while the rest of the league can use the full MLE.   It might not seem like much, but it gives the powerhouses less room to improve and smaller market teams a slight advantage in free agency.  Look at the Heat, they haven't really added to their weak positions center and PG because of limitations.   Plus the luxury tax penalties will be stiffer in the upcoming years.  

Another new rule I like is teams now have to spend 85% of the cap, and I think that it raises to 90% next year.  It almost forces small market teams to spend a little more to compete.
 

I think both things will help bring a little more parity to the league.  

[PosImpos]

one thing to keep in mind with this "enormous max contract idea" is you'd see a lot of teams with young superstars scrambling to jettison half their roster the season before that star reaches the end of their rookie contract, otherwise they'd skyrocket into luxury tax as soon as the player got signed.

[GreenEnvy]

I think one new rule that will help is teams paying the luxury tax can only use the mini mid level exception while the rest of the league can use the full MLE.   It might not seem like much, but it gives the powerhouses less room to improve and smaller market teams a slight advantage in free agency.  Look at the Heat, they haven't really added to their weak positions center and PG because of limitations.   Plus the luxury tax penalties will be stiffer in the upcoming years.  

Another new rule I like is teams now have to spend 85% of the cap, and I think that it raises to 90% next year.  It almost forces small market teams to spend a little more to compete.
 

I think both things will help bring a little more parity to the league.  

The problem I always had with these "floors" were that teams may be more inclined to overpay for players. In the NFL it is acceptable because players can be cut. But in the NBA these bad contracts are guaranteed and can come back to bite these small-market teams who usually have very little wiggle room.

But I don't think toooo many teams usually sit that low below the cap anyway. I know Sacramento took on 'Quis last season just to get their payroll up.

Teams should pay what they want. If they are legitimately losing money, why force them to spend X amount to bring in just as many fans as they would spending $10M less?

[PosImpos]

I think one new rule that will help is teams paying the luxury tax can only use the mini mid level exception while the rest of the league can use the full MLE.   It might not seem like much, but it gives the powerhouses less room to improve and smaller market teams a slight advantage in free agency.  Look at the Heat, they haven't really added to their weak positions center and PG because of limitations.   Plus the luxury tax penalties will be stiffer in the upcoming years.  

Another new rule I like is teams now have to spend 85% of the cap, and I think that it raises to 90% next year.  It almost forces small market teams to spend a little more to compete.
 

I think both things will help bring a little more parity to the league.  

The problem I always had with these "floors" were that teams may be more inclined to overpay for players. In the NFL it is acceptable because players can be cut. But in the NBA these bad contracts are guaranteed and can come back to bite these small-market teams who usually have very little wiggle room.

But I don't think toooo many teams usually sit that low below the cap anyway. I know Sacramento took on 'Quis last season just to get their payroll up.

Teams should pay what they want. If they are legitimately losing money, why force them to spend X amount to bring in just as many fans as they would spending $10M less?

it prevents cheapskate owners like don sterling from fielding the lowest salary team he can and still making money because of a good lease deal or a dedicated market.

im sure the big market teams are also big on the salary floor just because they don't want the sup-cap teams who benefit from luxury tax payments / potential revenue sharing from profiting without actually trying to put a good team on the floor.

[guava_wrench]

A few opinions:

1. Losing franchises are not a problem. For every win, there has to be a loss. It is preferable if the least supported (by fans) teams are also the least successful so that there are more pleased fans.

2. Max contracts hurt competitiveness and help create superteams. When Lebron can't get market value, he is willing to give up a million or 2 per year to be on a loaded team. Owners are also willing to pony up when max contracts are so artificially low. Allow Lebron to get market value, maybe $30 million a year, and he will have far inferior supporting pieces. Part of KG's curse  was that he was the last one to get a market driven contract. If other superstars were allowed to get the same, they would have had the same problems with supporting casts and talent would have been more evenly distributed.

3. All advantages to veterans re-signing with a team that drafted them need to be eliminated (NOT including restricted free agency). This just hurts players drafted into bad situations, like Chris Paul. He should be able to get the contracts others get without having to remain in a sinking ship. Let players move around. Just remove max contracts so that they wouldn't all be willing to give up $10 million a piece to collect on a single team.

Imagine the injustice of a situation where an unrestricted free agent can't get a fair contract with the team that drafted him because that team wants to rebuild by signing a FA the following off season. The player now loses the chance at that final year on his contract just because he got drafted to a poorly managed team that decided to take the risk of trying for an all-NBA caliber free agent. Ridiculous. Let the market decide if that player is worth the extra season, not the whims of the team that drafted him.

[PosImpos]

3. All advantages to veterans re-signing with a team that drafted them need to be eliminated (NOT including restricted free agency). This just hurts players drafted into bad situations, like Chris Paul. He should be able to get the contracts others get without having to remain in a sinking ship. Let players move around. Just remove max contracts so that they wouldn't all be willing to give up $10 million a piece to collect on a single team.

Teams that drafted a player should always have a greater ability to re-sign that player than other teams (beyond restricted free agency).  I get that sometimes players get drafted by teams with dysfunctional organizations, but the alternative is that you have teams that sink enormous amounts of resources into developing players (not the least of which is time on the court) only to see them bolt as soon as they hit free agency.  That's not a system that rewards player development, and therefore it's one I don't like.

[ballin]

2) As for everyone that said to set the max contracts at 35 per annum, or higher than that or just to eliminate max contracts altogether...

Here's the problem with that idea, and why I like my idea (and no, it's not simply because I automatically like my own ideas better)

Let's say you set max contracts at 35 per year. Yes, this would prevent the formation of superteams, and for that reason it would help parity somewhat. But it would still leave half of the league totally and utterly screwed. Why? Let's say you're drafted by the Timberwolves, who are still terrible, and remain terrible all the way up until the expiration of your rookie deal. Now the Timberwolves offer you the max at 35 mil, because you're a max player and they don't have any other max guys. Sure, LA and Miami and NYC can't sign you since they already have their max guys, so no superteams are about to be formed. BUT. You have absolutely zero incentive to stay in Minnesota, since a dozen other teams are offering you the EXACT SAME 35 mil to play in a place that's NOT Minnesota.

This makes no sense. You are assuming that if you raise the individual maximum salary then every all star will get that deal. But they won't.

First of all, it makes complete sense, and nowhere did I assume that everyone will get paid the max. Teams in smaller markets will get screwed under this scenario regardless of what the free agent is worth. If he's a Lebron James type, he's getting paid the max and he'll simply go to NY because of the additional money he'll make off of sponorships, etc. If somebody is only worth 20 million, well guess what? New York will offer 25 because they can afford to spend it. If Minnesota wants that player, they'll have to OVER spend, despite having even LESS money to spend than a team like New York. So they get screwed no matter what. Now, tell me again how that doesn't make sense?

And your scenario is actually irrelevant. If a player can make the same 35 million in Minnesota and New York, and leaves for New York, so what? That doesn't hurt parity. What hurts parity is if New York can sign its second superstar more easily than Minnesota can sign its first.

Actually, by definition, that hurts parity.

There are only a small number of players who are worthy of 20 million plus a year. What hurts parity is not if one of them chooses New York over Minnesota, but if several of them choose New York vs Minnesota.

If the max is 35 million a year, or if there is no max, then New York will get its superstar at a super high salary. But then it won't be able to get the second one.

Add to that the existence of Bird rights and you already have a substantial advantage for teams to keep their superstars. With Bird rights Minnesota can resign its superstar without giving up anything, while New York would have to manage to get 35 million dollars under the cap to sign this player.

As I've already stated, unrestricted salaries would prevent the creation of superteams with 2+ superstars. You just reiterated that point. But what unrestricted salaries would fail to do is give small market teams a chance (translation: they don't help parity as much as the rule I'm advocating), because they 1) small markets don't have enough money to outbid a large market for a superstar 2) small markets can't offer the same promotional advantages or the same quality of living (in the eyes of the players)


So I'll reiterate my point which is that why unrestricted or higher max salaries would help, as you've pointed out, they still leave teams like Minnesota and Milwaukee in the dust. So hey, if you want 10 or so of the teams in this league to continue to resemble the Washington Generals, that's fine. But unrestricted salary caps are NOT the best way to ensure parity.

[Fan from VT]

2) As for everyone that said to set the max contracts at 35 per annum, or higher than that or just to eliminate max contracts altogether...

Here's the problem with that idea, and why I like my idea (and no, it's not simply because I automatically like my own ideas better)

Let's say you set max contracts at 35 per year. Yes, this would prevent the formation of superteams, and for that reason it would help parity somewhat. But it would still leave half of the league totally and utterly screwed. Why? Let's say you're drafted by the Timberwolves, who are still terrible, and remain terrible all the way up until the expiration of your rookie deal. Now the Timberwolves offer you the max at 35 mil, because you're a max player and they don't have any other max guys. Sure, LA and Miami and NYC can't sign you since they already have their max guys, so no superteams are about to be formed. BUT. You have absolutely zero incentive to stay in Minnesota, since a dozen other teams are offering you the EXACT SAME 35 mil to play in a place that's NOT Minnesota.

This makes no sense. You are assuming that if you raise the individual maximum salary then every all star will get that deal. But they won't.

First of all, it makes complete sense, and nowhere did I assume that everyone will get paid the max. Teams in smaller markets will get screwed under this scenario regardless of what the free agent is worth. If he's a Lebron James type, he's getting paid the max and he'll simply go to NY because of the additional money he'll make off of sponorships, etc. If somebody is only worth 20 million, well guess what? New York will offer 25 because they can afford to spend it. If Minnesota wants that player, they'll have to OVER spend, despite having even LESS money to spend than a team like New York. So they get screwed no matter what. Now, tell me again how that doesn't make sense?

And your scenario is actually irrelevant. If a player can make the same 35 million in Minnesota and New York, and leaves for New York, so what? That doesn't hurt parity. What hurts parity is if New York can sign its second superstar more easily than Minnesota can sign its first.

Actually, by definition, that hurts parity.

There are only a small number of players who are worthy of 20 million plus a year. What hurts parity is not if one of them chooses New York over Minnesota, but if several of them choose New York vs Minnesota.

If the max is 35 million a year, or if there is no max, then New York will get its superstar at a super high salary. But then it won't be able to get the second one.

Add to that the existence of Bird rights and you already have a substantial advantage for teams to keep their superstars. With Bird rights Minnesota can resign its superstar without giving up anything, while New York would have to manage to get 35 million dollars under the cap to sign this player.

As I've already stated, unrestricted salaries would prevent the creation of superteams with 2+ superstars. You just reiterated that point. But what unrestricted salaries would fail to do is give small market teams a chance (translation: they don't help parity as much as the rule I'm advocating), because they 1) small markets don't have enough money to outbid a large market for a superstar 2) small markets can't offer the same promotional advantages or the same quality of living (in the eyes of the players)


So I'll reiterate my point which is that why unrestricted or higher max salaries would help, as you've pointed out, they still leave teams like Minnesota and Milwaukee in the dust. So hey, if you want 10 or so of the teams in this league to continue to resemble the Washington Generals, that's fine. But unrestricted salary caps are NOT the best way to ensure parity.

Well, the point is not just unrestricted max salaries, it's unrestricted max salaries IN CONJUNCTION with a salary cap.

Therefore all teams have to spend the same 65 million per year or whatever, so it is up to teams to decide what percentage of the cap they want to tie up in one player. So if NY "outbids" Minny for a player at 35 per year, they only have 30 left to fill out the roster, it's not like they have a bigger budget to spend on players because of the cap.

[wdleehi]

Until the league becomes team driven instead of star driven, this issue will always exist.


The rules are written to make the stars look like even bigger stars.  They (and their teams) are given the bigger advantage. 


So to compete, you have to have stars. 


There are not enough real stars for every team.  This issue is then compounded when teams have multiple stars and stars force their way onto teams with other stars.  Of course, they want to play where it is warm with a great night life.