Update: It appears at least some NBA execs feel as annoyed about what the buyout process has become. From Zach Lowe
erception is worse than reality, but this sure feels like a rigged game, doesn't it? The Raptors trade real stuff for Serge Ibaka, while LeBron and the Warriors wait around to nab their pick of the buyout crew for free. The process agitates the other 28 teams. (So does The Process, but that's a different conversation. Get well, Joel!)
Team executives have pitched a bunch of solutions to this maybe-not-a-problem. The league could move up the drop-dead date for playoff eligibility -- now March 1 -- so that it comes before the trade deadline. It could limit buyout signings to one per team. One exec even suggested a "buyout wire" that would operate like the waiver wire.
Right now, if no team in the waiver wire line with room to absorb Andrew Bogut's full $11 million salary hit volunteers, he goes straight into free agency -- eligible to sign with every team but the one that just waived him.
Teams with requisite room will almost never claim expensive players via that waiver process; they are available because they aren't performing up to their deals, and of minimal interest to the typical team with mega-space.
Once a player goes unclaimed, he'd move onto the proposed "buyout wire." Teams with cap room would get first crack at offering these guys reasonable salaries. Instead of swallowing Bogut's full deal, a team like Houston, flush with $3.5 million in new space, could bid any or all of that amount against other teams with room (or the $2.9 million room exception). Whoever bids the most gets Bogut. If no team with room bids, the capped-out teams -- like Cleveland -- can have at him, perhaps in reverse order of record. The winning bidder could even snare Early Bird Rights on the player -- a potential incentive to bidding.