The Lockout has arrived.

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
I can see why that's a primary concern, a hard-cap wouldn't have prevented prevented the Miami big 3 from coming together, though. Those three set a precedent of taking less money to play where you want. I just don't see what can be done to stop that from happening short of eliminating free agency.
I don't remember the exact details but I think Bosh is the only one that ultimately left any money on the table. LBJ eventually forced the Cavs to do the sign and trade so he got a max contract. One of the things a hard cap would do is make it impossible to even carry a full roster if you signed those guys and had to sign everyone else to minimum deals. Now if you coupled that with the ability to franchise say 3 players and take a fixed cap hit but pay them anything you want - AND made those rights 100% non-transferable - players would actually have to choose between getting paid and playing on a super team for peanuts. Somehow I think that if those guys really did take a serious pay cut - like say they were playing for 5 million each, then some may have even respected what they did. But as it was they all got raises from their previous deals.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
or you could impose a harder cap but remove max contract levels. Would LeBron really turn down $35 million to stay in Cleveland? No way you can build a super team unless the superstars are really willing to turn down major money.


The max contract did indeed follow the law of unexpected outcomes and eventually cleared the way for stars to bolt. But the alternative as it was forming up in the late 90s was just disgusting and rampantly unfair to anybody without big money. Its why I am very much in favor at this point of simply slapping a franchise player clause into the CBA instead of constantly fiddling around trying to entice people to do the right thing with financial gimmicks. There is a problem, just suck it up and address it directly and accept the consequences (more Vince Carter/Melo drama queening as the football holdout becomes possible). Its really the only way to counterbalance a young and not very educated set wanting nothing more than to live the high life in Miami with the hunnies anyway.
 
I don't remember the exact details but I think Bosh is the only one that ultimately left any money on the table. LBJ eventually forced the Cavs to do the sign and trade so he got a max contract. One of the things a hard cap would do is make it impossible to even carry a full roster if you signed those guys and had to sign everyone else to minimum deals. Now if you coupled that with the ability to franchise say 3 players and take a fixed cap hit but pay them anything you want - AND made those rights 100% non-transferable - players would actually have to choose between getting paid and playing on a super team for peanuts. Somehow I think that if those guys really did take a serious pay cut - like say they were playing for 5 million each, then some may have even respected what they did. But as it was they all got raises from their previous deals.
Not quite. The sign and trade deals didn't add any money to the player's base contracts. It just added a year to the entire deal plus they could now get 10.5% raises as opposed to just 8.5 had they not signed outright. But still, they all had to take base year's of $14.5 million even with the sign and trade when the max was worth $16.8 million.
 
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I will chime in to say that I do not feel this way. I'm frustrated, but nowhere near angry enough to turn away from the NBA. I don't think a completely lost season would change that, either.
I'm with you and Warhawk. I'm a fan no matter what but we are few and far between. The owners and players really don't want to go down the road of missing the whole season. Despite the rhetoric that we're hearing, I'm confident that won't happen.
 
or you could impose a harder cap but remove max contract levels. Would LeBron really turn down $35 million to stay in Cleveland? No way you can build a super team unless the superstars are really willing to turn down major money.
That too although I still think it should be limited to a certain extent. For example, make the max salary for a player staying in his market be 20% higher than if he bolts. The bogus extra year and extra 2% on the raises doesn't do nearly enough to keep stars at home.

As for the MLE, the big 3 are already together so you have to look at ways to minimize them getting better which is where the MLE idea comes from.

Also, I like the rumor I'm hearing about only allowing one bird rights signing per year. The big 3 all become free in the same season so someone would have to go. Even if you get one to not opt out, you still have the remaining 2 that they will have to choose from. Sure, they could trade one of them but with the rest of the league knowing that they have no leverage, they wouldn't get nearly as much value in return.

This works especially well for the Kings since Hickson, Evans and Cousins all become free agents in separate seasons. They could conceivably sign all 3 to max deals if they were actually worth it and stay within the confines of the new cba should it adopt that rule.
 
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pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Not quite. The sign and trade deals didn't add any money to the player's base contracts. It just added a year to the entire deal plus they could now get 10.5% raises as opposed to just 8.5 had they not signed outright. But still, they all had to take base year's of $14.5 million even with the sign and trade when the max was worth $16.8 million.
OMG, how can they feed their children??

Point is the money left on the table was nowhere steep enough to incentivize staying in the market that cultivated them. For it to work the difference has to be on the magnitude of 50%.
 
I don't remember the exact details but I think Bosh is the only one that ultimately left any money on the table. LBJ eventually forced the Cavs to do the sign and trade so he got a max contract. One of the things a hard cap would do is make it impossible to even carry a full roster if you signed those guys and had to sign everyone else to minimum deals. Now if you coupled that with the ability to franchise say 3 players and take a fixed cap hit but pay them anything you want - AND made those rights 100% non-transferable - players would actually have to choose between getting paid and playing on a super team for peanuts. Somehow I think that if those guys really did take a serious pay cut - like say they were playing for 5 million each, then some may have even respected what they did. But as it was they all got raises from their previous deals.
Whether any on them took a serious pay cut is clouded by the fact that Florida has no state income tax. It is an advantage to Florida and Texas teams and used to be one to Washinton, too.
 
Whether any on them took a serious pay cut is clouded by the fact that Florida has no state income tax. It is an advantage to Florida and Texas teams and used to be one to Washinton, too.
Right. No wonder Chris Bosh was very happy to get out of Canada with one of highest income tax rates in the world, especially on wealthy individuals. Florida a gold mine for him but Texas where Bosh grew up no doubt would have worked too.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Whether any on them took a serious pay cut is clouded by the fact that Florida has no state income tax. It is an advantage to Florida and Texas teams and used to be one to Washinton, too.
Right and I've also suggested tailoring the cap to compensate for that and everyone thought I was taking crazy pills. It really isn't that hard to just base cap hit on take home pay is it?

They actually already do something like that for Canada, why not for the other states?
 
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http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/216060/NBA_Official_Progress_Was_Being_Made_Until_Garnett_Entered_Room

I just read this article about Garnett being defiant and messing up the negotiations. The article makes me kinda curious why players are even part of the negotiation discussions at all. It seems like this whole process would go a lot faster if Billy Hunter met with the players, figured out what offer they would take, and then went to meet with Stern. I don't understand why the players need to be coming into the negotiations and mucking up the whole process.

It seems to me that a lot of the emotion and fanfare would be taken out of the process just by letting the negotiators meet by themselves, discuss a deal, and then take it back to their respective partys to see if they could get a deal done that way.
 
I didn't really didn't think Garnett would go his entire career being a complete prick. My wife ran into him at a MN restaurant. He was a complete D1*^. After he left the staff apologized to her for him and said that he had a very bad rep around town. Good to see he's doing his best to screw up this NBA season.
 
I didn't really didn't think Garnett would go his entire career being a complete prick. My wife ran into him at a MN restaurant. He was a complete D1*^. After he left the staff apologized to her for him and said that he had a very bad rep around town. Good to see he's doing his best to screw up this NBA season.
What do you expect from a barely made it through high school dunce? I heard is GPA at graduation was barely above 2.00. Of course, a lot of dummies have manners but Garnett is the double whammy of no class and no brain.
 
Right and I've also suggested tailoring the cap to compensate for that and everyone thought I was taking crazy pills. It really isn't that hard to just base cap hit on take home pay is it?

They actually already do something like that for Canada, why not for the other states?
I thought about that also but the problem is that owners in New York and Canada would have to pay a ton more than owners in Florida and Texas. The Raptors, Knicks and Nets would put up a fight on that one.

OTOH, I'm guessing we could see another form or revenue sharing to compensate the Canadian and New York markets somehow but that would start getting really confusing.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
I thought about that also but the problem is that owners in New York and Canada would have to pay a ton more than owners in Florida and Texas. The Raptors, Knicks and Nets would put up a fight on that one.
They wouldn't have to, they would just have the option. Canada its already being done. Something tells me NY and LA would actually gladly take the ability to spend more. They'd only have to do it for guys worth the max anyways.
 
Agents get in there and really mess up negotiations, too. While I totally get why they want to tell their payers what they should and shouldn't accept in the negotiations, I think agents should be barred from communicating with any of the players during negotiations. It's not a contract between agents the NBA and the players for cripes sake.
 
It's already hard to make trades for basketball reasons with the rules regarding money, a variable cap would make it harder. Sorry Houston, we'd love to trade you Billups, but your state's taxes are just too low and we can't take back that much dead money.

Also, I don't think the NBA wants roster moves tied to fights over state taxes. Mark Stein is reporting that, if Atlanta cuts taxes to curb high unemployment, they will be over the cap and they will send Josh Smith to Minnasota in a salary dump. Or "Well, Jerry Brown got his higher taxes passed, but on the bright side the Kings got another 2.7 million in cap space."

Most of the time the bigger markets have both higher taxes and more local ad money for the player, thus its often a wash. Miami is an exception. So are Houston and Dallas, but you have to live in Texas.
 
What are they doing different in Canada? I thought they took in Canadian dollars from the fans, but their cap and everything was set in US dollars like every other team.

This was a big problem a few years ago, when they we're pulling in .75 and playing out $1 ... but because the US dollar is getting pounded that's no much of an issue right now.

Is that not right?
 

Warhawk

Give blood and save a life!
Staff member
Apparently there will be an announcement around 4 pm from the mediator. Stay tuned!

Edit - sounds like they will continue meeting tomorrow at 2 pm after the NBA BOG meeting. At least they are still talking.....
 
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Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
Apparently there will be an announcement around 4 pm from the mediator. Stay tuned!

Edit - sounds like they will continue meeting tomorrow at 2 pm after the NBA BOG meeting. At least they are still talking.....
16 hours yesterday, 8.5 hours today...at least they seem to be serious about this. I'm hoping we'll see basketball in December!
 
OMG, how can they feed their children??

Point is the money left on the table was nowhere steep enough to incentivize staying in the market that cultivated them. For it to work the difference has to be on the magnitude of 50%.
I realize it's a ton of money and I don't feel sorry for them one bit. My point is that it gave Miami a competitive advantage when those guys took less than the max. They were able to add $9 million worth of extra free agents. You can argue about whether spending it on Haslem and Miller was the right thing to do but for the sake of competitive balance, it would've been nice if 2 of the 3 best players in the game didn't wind up as the 23rd and 24th highest paid.
 
They are losing money not playing... Losing more money not playing than the concessions they are looking for in the deal.. It is only for this year that they are losing money, and they are looking beyond this year, but each game that is cancelled hurts them in regards to the deal vs not playing.. If they lose the whole year they basically just gave the owners what they wanted. The owners can give them a sweet deal and still come out ahead being that the players lost a whole year of pay.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
What are they doing different in Canada? I thought they took in Canadian dollars from the fans, but their cap and everything was set in US dollars like every other team.

This was a big problem a few years ago, when they we're pulling in .75 and playing out $1 ... but because the US dollar is getting pounded that's no much of an issue right now.

Is that not right?
Canadian teams can pay a 20% signing bonus.
 
They are losing money not playing... Losing more money not playing than the concessions they are looking for in the deal.. It is only for this year that they are losing money, and they are looking beyond this year, but each game that is cancelled hurts them in regards to the deal vs not playing.. If they lose the whole year they basically just gave the owners what they wanted. The owners can give them a sweet deal and still come out ahead being that the players lost a whole year of pay.
Oh but it's not about them, it's about the future of all NBA players (bla bla bla)
 
Canadian teams can pay a 20% signing bonus.
http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q66

Per Larry Coon, every team can pay the players a 20% signing bonus. It's a tax rule that applies to the bonus that helps the Raptors on the taxes issue. Thus, the Raptors have a tax loop hole they can use, but all 30 teams have the same signing bonus rules, cap, ect.

So it's just more tax rules, and the same system for everybody. However, the league did put the rule in place to help force the loop hole.

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As to this lockout,

The NBA players want to live in a world where: (1) they pay no expenses; (2) get 50% of all income no matter what; and (3) with guaranteed deals, their contracts aren't tied to performance for 3-5 years at a time in a league where many play for 2-7 years.

The owners are trying to protect themselves from a league full of people that can decide how to pay players based upon how they impact their business, and that's a crappy reason to shut the game down.

The players are screaming about "fair" but they can't point to any other business in the world that works like the system they don't want to give up. The closest thing would be football, which doesn't have guaranteed deals and does have a hard cap. But of course, those are "blood issues" for the players and the reason we don't have a CBA. The player's argument has very little logic to it