Would the NBA be better without a salary cap?

[fandrew]

I agree that getting rid of the INDIVIDUAL max salary rule but keeping the rest how it is would go a long long way toward competitive balance.

The more you restrict an individual salary, the MORE likely a player is to pick one of the major markets or an already good team.
-This already happens with the MLE...when a player is an MLE type player, all the teams offer the exact same dollars, so the player picks LA or NY or a contender (Dall, Bos, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio, etc.). So if a player can get the max anywhere, they will pick the big, fun market, their original home area, or with their buds.
-The more you restrict individual max contracts, the MORE likely it is that multiple stars can team up. 2 reasons:
1. If the max is more restricted, just mathematically you can fit more max guys on a team. If one player was getting 50% of the cap, however, it would be much harder to get 2-3 of those guys.
2. The more you restrict the individual max, the less money a player is leaving on the table to take a paycut to make salaries fit.

Look at Miami: they all took a "paycut" of like 1 million per year to play together. But that's only due to the individual max. If there were no individual max, maybe then Lebron is thinking about a starting salary of 15 million in Miami vs 30 million in Brooklyn. That is a huge difference. Or, Miami would have asked Wade and Bosh to take big paycuts to start at 10 million per year to fit in Lebron at 25 million to try to get close to another team's overbid.

I agree with your Miami example. A team cap, but no player cap would probably work better than the current model. I also think that a hard cap for all teams is another good option. all teams have the same amount of money to create a team, with no going over that amount. This would force players to take a much deeper pay cut to play with other stars, or find a team with more available money. I know that is what stern wants right now, but I think it has merit.

[guava_wrench]

I would prefer the elimination of Max Salaries.  Top guys salaries go up and eat a larger portion of cap making it more difficult to have 2 or 3 of them.  I also think the incentives to stay with a team need to be significantly improved.

I agree. Suppressing the salaries of the top players to below market value is what makes it possible to get all these players together. Get rid of max limit and more people have the KG experience where his contract made it hard to assemble a full team.

None of this though will fix the problem of the value of endorsement deals that can make a contract insignificant compared to winning and market size.

[LooseCannon]

Massive revenue sharing of local media money is the best possible solution.

[mctyson]

No. But the NBA will never be the NFL, with its non-guaranteed contracts and cutting, without payment, of high-priced superstars.

The NBA has a good system in theory.  It just needs to keep refining its model:  higher luxury tax penalties for the spenders, better rewards for those who stay under the tax cap, and a better minor league system.

The biggest issue the NBA has is that of all the major team sports, it is most dependent on the draft.  I think they have to do something about the draft lottery if they ever really want to make their system fair.  It is simply unspeakable that teams who barely miss the playoffs even have a chance, however small, of getting the first pick.  And it truly boggles the mind when a team as historically bad as Charlotte was doesn't win that same pick.

So here are my suggestions for some "fixes" that does not alter the landscape of the league but moves it toward improvement:

1) Remove the lottery.  The NFL doesn't have a lottery and their 1st round is just as important in some respects as the NBA's.  Teams tank in the NFL.  It happens.  Big deal.

1a) If you insist on keeping the lottery, make it Top 8 only, and make the worst 4 teams in the league combine for 95% of the chance at landing the 1st pick.  Worst team should at least have a 50% chance.

2) I think they should implement a system like the MLB has, where when a team loses a Class A free agent (like Lebron James) the team that is signing the player automatically loses a 1st round pick the next season, and the team that loses the player gets a conditional pick sandwiched between the 1st and 2nd round.

2a) OR: the team that loses the Class A free agent automatically picks up a 1st round pick from the signing team from the next available draft, at the slot the signing team is  drafting (no lottery protections, or maybe Top 4 protected)

3) Get rid of the cap exceptions.  Have either a soft cap and a luxury tax system, or have a hard cap.  The union will never go for the hard cap, so the current system is with us to stay.  Make sure that the teams who spend the most money have to pay luxury taxes.

[celtsfan84]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

[wdleehi]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

I don't look at this as a way to make it "more equal"


Stars still rule.



But, it will allow more flexibility for teams to restart without being stuck with pointless cap hurting money. 

[celtsfan84]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

I don't look at this as a way to make it "more equal"


Stars still rule.



But, it will allow more flexibility for teams to restart without being stuck with pointless cap hurting money. 

Then you are giving NBA teams incentive to be poorly managed.  Giving incompetent GMs a "get out of jail free" card would likely just lead to more incompetent GMs and bad risks and investments.

Wouldn't you be more likely to make a bad investment if you knew you could get out of it?  This helps teams in the short run but hurts them in the long run.  Otis Smith would still be running a team.

[Lioney]

The rules don't work anyway. Lakers always get who they want. So Lakers -always- have enough cap flexibility. Who cares the salary cap?

[Yoki_IsTheName]

No. Because the rich teams would just buy championships.

What the NBA need is two things, in my opinion at least.

A Flex Cap, with 80% of it should be covered by salaries every season, and a 10 mil. MLE to go over the cap, which can be split. The Flex Cap would have a $3 to every dollar luxury tax. So basically teams can still spend money and just pay the tax. But the penalty is big. The MLE has to expire first as well before they can offer another one. It's not one MLE every year. Until a players contract who got offered the MLE expires, they can't offer another MLE.

Limit max-contracts to just 2 per team. That way players who want to team up either get less money or not.

Just me.

[celtsfan84]

No. Because the rich teams would just buy championships.

What the NBA need is two things, in my opinion at least.

A Flex Cap, with 80% of it should be covered by salaries every season, and a 10 mil. MLE to go over the cap, which can be split. The Flex Cap would have a $3 to every dollar luxury tax. So basically teams can still spend money and just pay the tax. But the penalty is big. The MLE has to expire first as well before they can offer another one. It's not one MLE every year. Until a players contract who got offered the MLE expires, they can't offer another MLE.

Limit max-contracts to just 2 per team. That way players who want to team up either get less money or not.
Just me.

Your post has some intrigue and merit, but this would be near impossible to legislate to be meaningful.

For an example, the HEAT have LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are on the same team and all took less than the max.  So if you consider the HEAT's big 3 to be a problem, this wouldn't solve it.

Guys would just take pennies less than the max and make it all up in endorsement dollars, like the HEAT guys.

[Sketch5]

I know this will never happen because the small market teams won't allow it, but if somehow enough concessions were made to appease everyone, would the NBA be better off without a salary cap?  My proposed salary structure is below so it isn't a full no cap situation and it isn't like baseball (though does borrow pieces from it and football for that matter).

In my proposed situation there would be no salary cap and the luxury tax range would be much higher (say 100 million) and looser (only dollar for dollar), similar to baseball.  However, unlike baseball there would still be player contract length and dollar limits and it would still be financially beneficial for every player to stay with his current team (i.e. more years, starting at higher dollars, and with bigger raises).  I'd even make it more beneficial than it currently is by restricting free agent signings to 3 years, but giving the home team 5, as well as starting higher and with higher raises. 

I would eliminate sign and trades, but would have a system like football where you could "franchise" someone so any team signing him would have to give up various 1st round draft picks (without protection).  If a player did not have anyone willing to give up the draft picks (and if he didn't agree to a long term deal) then the player would return for a 1 year contract at various multiples of the maximum.  Thus if a team designated a player as 2 draft pick worthy, that team would have to pay him twice the maximum if no one else signed him (the signing team could sign him to whatever contract they wanted within the rules).  This would thus discourage teams from franchising a player especially at a high draft pick unless they are sure he will be signed i.e. Lebron James would have been franchised at like 4 firsts, while no one would franchise a guy like Kris Humphries at more than 1 if at all.  Teams could not franchise the same player more than once and the franchised player would have a full no trade clause for that season (which obviously could be waived by the player if he wanted).   

I would also limit all teams to offering 1 max contract per season and no more than 2 total contracts above 10 million a year, with exceptions for re-signing your own free agent.  Thus a team couldn't go out and sign 2 max contract players in the same season (this would not have stopped the Miami situation since they re-signed Wade and then brought in Lebron and Bosh).


Would something like this be good for basketball?  I am a bit torn, but I think ultimately it would make the game better.

This would actually make the NBA worse. You'd Have NY,LA,Miami always in the top 3 or four of the league.

To make it better it needs to spread out the "Stars" and have less of these "Team Ups".

Each team should have:
   1 Max
   1 Semi Max
   1 Vet Max
   3 MLE
   3 Mini MLE
   4 Vet min
   5  mini contracts. these go to 2 end of the bench players and 3 D Leaguers. That way each team can have two extra on the bench and 3 in development that could be also used in trades.

This way if a Trio of players like Miamis wants to play together they have to decide whos max, whos semi and whos the Vet, they are teared down, say. 20 mil, 15 mil and 10 mil.

With the 4 vet min helps the bad teams with the young stars have Vets to teach them the ropes of the NBA. One reason why players 20-30 years ago were better was because they had Dr.Js, Larry Birds to show they the ins and outs of the league.

So if you want to get 20 mil, you might have to head to the Bucks to do so, because they are the only team that can give that money out.

it also keeps lopsided trades from happening. Only way you could trade say for MLE's for a Semi is that if the team already doesn't have a Semi on the team, you couldn't have two Semis on one team.

[celtsfan84]

I know this will never happen because the small market teams won't allow it, but if somehow enough concessions were made to appease everyone, would the NBA be better off without a salary cap?  My proposed salary structure is below so it isn't a full no cap situation and it isn't like baseball (though does borrow pieces from it and football for that matter).

In my proposed situation there would be no salary cap and the luxury tax range would be much higher (say 100 million) and looser (only dollar for dollar), similar to baseball.  However, unlike baseball there would still be player contract length and dollar limits and it would still be financially beneficial for every player to stay with his current team (i.e. more years, starting at higher dollars, and with bigger raises).  I'd even make it more beneficial than it currently is by restricting free agent signings to 3 years, but giving the home team 5, as well as starting higher and with higher raises.  

I would eliminate sign and trades, but would have a system like football where you could "franchise" someone so any team signing him would have to give up various 1st round draft picks (without protection).  If a player did not have anyone willing to give up the draft picks (and if he didn't agree to a long term deal) then the player would return for a 1 year contract at various multiples of the maximum.  Thus if a team designated a player as 2 draft pick worthy, that team would have to pay him twice the maximum if no one else signed him (the signing team could sign him to whatever contract they wanted within the rules).  This would thus discourage teams from franchising a player especially at a high draft pick unless they are sure he will be signed i.e. Lebron James would have been franchised at like 4 firsts, while no one would franchise a guy like Kris Humphries at more than 1 if at all.  Teams could not franchise the same player more than once and the franchised player would have a full no trade clause for that season (which obviously could be waived by the player if he wanted).  

I would also limit all teams to offering 1 max contract per season and no more than 2 total contracts above 10 million a year, with exceptions for re-signing your own free agent.  Thus a team couldn't go out and sign 2 max contract players in the same season (this would not have stopped the Miami situation since they re-signed Wade and then brought in Lebron and Bosh).


Would something like this be good for basketball?  I am a bit torn, but I think ultimately it would make the game better.

This would actually make the NBA worse. You'd Have NY,LA,Miami always in the top 3 or four of the league.

To make it better it needs to spread out the "Stars" and have less of these "Team Ups".

Each team should have:
   1 Max
   1 Semi Max
   1 Vet Max
   3 MLE
   3 Mini MLE
   4 Vet min
   5  mini contracts. these go to 2 end of the bench players and 3 D Leaguers. That way each team can have two extra on the bench and 3 in development that could be also used in trades.

This way if a Trio of players like Miamis wants to play together they have to decide whos max, whos semi and whos the Vet, they are teared down, say. 20 mil, 15 mil and 10 mil.

With the 4 vet min helps the bad teams with the young stars have Vets to teach them the ropes of the NBA. One reason why players 20-30 years ago were better was because they had Dr.Js, Larry Birds to show they the ins and outs of the league.

So if you want to get 20 mil, you might have to head to the Bucks to do so, because they are the only team that can give that money out.

it also keeps lopsided trades from happening. Only way you could trade say for MLE's for a Semi is that if the team already doesn't have a Semi on the team, you couldn't have two Semis on one team.

This system is very inflexible and would get quite boring.  It also would mean there are exactly 30 max aplayers in the NBA.  Would the team whose max player is Andre Igoudala ever beat the team whose max player is LeBron James if the rest of their teams were equal?

Wouldn't LeBron's team win every year?

And I don't really remember a whole slew of young players that Dr. J and Larry showed the ins and outs of the league to.  The 76ers and Celtics both faded away because their young guys mostly stunk.  Both teams stunk for a long time after those guys left.

[wdleehi]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

I don't look at this as a way to make it "more equal"


Stars still rule.



But, it will allow more flexibility for teams to restart without being stuck with pointless cap hurting money. 

Then you are giving NBA teams incentive to be poorly managed.  Giving incompetent GMs a "get out of jail free" card would likely just lead to more incompetent GMs and bad risks and investments.

Wouldn't you be more likely to make a bad investment if you knew you could get out of it?  This helps teams in the short run but hurts them in the long run.  Otis Smith would still be running a team.

It helps smart teams. 


It allows franchises clear out both bad management and bad contracts.



Better then letting the fans of a team have to wait and suffer through big mistakes.

[celtsfan84]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

I don't look at this as a way to make it "more equal"


Stars still rule.



But, it will allow more flexibility for teams to restart without being stuck with pointless cap hurting money. 

Then you are giving NBA teams incentive to be poorly managed.  Giving incompetent GMs a "get out of jail free" card would likely just lead to more incompetent GMs and bad risks and investments.

Wouldn't you be more likely to make a bad investment if you knew you could get out of it?  This helps teams in the short run but hurts them in the long run.  Otis Smith would still be running a team.

It helps smart teams. 


It allows franchises clear out both bad management and bad contracts.



Better then letting the fans of a team have to wait and suffer through big mistakes.

Doesn't the current system help smart teams?

How does it allow franchises to clear out bad management?  Bad management gets to fix their mistakes, as you said.  It allows teams to add bad management.

Also, are you aware of the concept of dead money in the NFL?  Teams take cap hits when they cut massive contracts.  It is frequent that a player counts against a team's salary cap and isn't even on their team.

[wdleehi]

For the record, the bulk of these suggestions would have made the KG-Pierce-Allen combination impossible to form and would have ended thoughts of Banner 17 if instituted in 2007.  The Celtics are hurt by these "new rules" more than most other teams.

Looking back at history, the dynasties (Bird vs. Magic, Michael's run, Shaq and Kobe) have been the most successful periods for the NBA.

I think saying the NBA would be better by making it "more equal" would be a grave mistake.

I don't look at this as a way to make it "more equal"


Stars still rule.



But, it will allow more flexibility for teams to restart without being stuck with pointless cap hurting money. 

Then you are giving NBA teams incentive to be poorly managed.  Giving incompetent GMs a "get out of jail free" card would likely just lead to more incompetent GMs and bad risks and investments.

Wouldn't you be more likely to make a bad investment if you knew you could get out of it?  This helps teams in the short run but hurts them in the long run.  Otis Smith would still be running a team.

It helps smart teams. 


It allows franchises clear out both bad management and bad contracts.



Better then letting the fans of a team have to wait and suffer through big mistakes.

Doesn't the current system help smart teams?

How does it allow franchises to clear out bad management?  Bad management gets to fix their mistakes, as you said.  It allows teams to add bad management.

Also, are you aware of the concept of dead money in the NFL?  Teams take cap hits when they cut massive contracts.  It is frequent that a player counts against a team's salary cap and isn't even on their team.

Yes I do.  Smart teams know how to manage it.  They take the hit one year and move on.  Of course the cap hit is from money they have already payed. 


In the NBA, you can waive a guy and still pay all the money left on the contract with a cap hit for all the years.  (or use the new spread out rule for the last year of the contract)




It is easier to turnover a bad team in the NFL.  Doesn't necessarily mean the team will become good, but it gives the fan base actual hope.