Should the NBA change the rules somehow to prevent these "super" teams?

[Anthony1]

A disturbing trend is starting to establish itself in the NBA. Originally, it started with the Lakers. You have your 2 or 3 superstars (Kobe, Gasol, Odom), and then you get a ton of cheapo bench guys that normally would get paid way more money (Artest, Fisher). The mercenaries come out of the woodwork, accepting minimum salaries and MLE's, knowing they could get 5 times the minimum, or even almost double the MLE, but instead they sacrifice the payday to win a ring and get more exposure, hoping to parlay that ring and exposure into a bigger payday in the future??

Boston did it with Garnett, Pierce and Allen. 3 huge players, and then surrounded them with guys willing to take a bargain basement deal to try to get a "easy" championship.

Now we have the Miami Heat doing the same thing. It's starting to bother me a bit looking at all the players that are going to be on this Miami Heat team if the rumors pan out. Mike Miller? Derek Fisher? Udonis Haslem? etc, etc, etc... It's not like they are going to end up with nothing buy scrubs surrounding their big 3. They are going to surround them with alot of veteran guys that are willing to take dramatically less money to try to guarantee themselves a championship, and to be a part of a team that will develop a cult like following across the USA.

I can't really blame these players for the fact that they are willing to play for peanuts to try to guarantee themselves a ring. Still, this new era in the NBA is going to do some serious damage to the legitimacy of the league. Seriously, we could be looking at a situation where both the Lakers and Heat have 3 to 1, or even 2 to 1 odds to make the NBA Finals for the next several years. There won't be any intrigue to the league. It will be a forgone conclusion that the Lakers will play the Heat in the finals. What kind of a league is this, in which you already know the two teams (barring a major injury to Kobe or Lebron) who will be playing next June?

 

[Vlade4GM]

Did you just imply that Odom is, or might be, a superstar?

Oh, and to answer your question, no. If teams can't become dominant, then that really spoils the goal in building a "dynasty." Which is the dream of every franchise.

 

[Bricklayer]

They should change the rules that allowed the Heat debacle yes. But that was a realtively unique occurrence.

The Lakers and Celtics came about there superteams in relatively fair fashion, basically just winning various trades.

Now if the focus is on all the vets and roleplayers and whatnot singing on for below market value, yes that has long been a problem. I called it such as far back as the Lakers attempt to do it with Payton and Malone. Essentially the league's entire balancing mechanism is financial. It depends on players being greedy and seeking to be paid what they are worth. You cap each team's salaries they can pay, all the players demand to be paid what they are worth, and no team can accumulate overwhelming talent. But when guys intentionally sign for far below their market value to join a particular team it breaks the system and threatens the balance. Having equal caproom no longer helps teams like Sacramento or Cleveland or the Clippers, things have become unbalanced by factors beyond money. But who could you possibly prevent that? I've made proposals about how to stop the superstar gangbang that formed the Heat, but the only way to control piles of guys underselling themselves to title winners would be to basically make every free agency restricted -- give the home team the right to match any offer to anyone every time, and if a guy undersells himself enough maybe his original team just keeps him. But that would be an unimaginable fight with the players union to make that happen, and it would significantly shrivel free agency.

As an aside, one of the NBA's great golden era was the 80s with the Celtics/Lakers meeting almost every year. Superteams alone do not have to be bad for the league. The perception that they can only be foremd by certain cities, and the smaller franchises are just locked out as Washington Generals is the problem, not the superteam itself.

 

[ivan_fiba]

If it was the kings you would be happy just enjoy basketball people bicker to much

 

[mac]

Yeah, did you just call Odom a superstar?

In the case of the Lakers I don't think the problem is as big ... Artest did take a paycut, but it wasn't a huge paycut or the vet's min. or something like that that could happen with Miami. Fisher is getting paid about the right amount, you could even make the argument that he's being overpaid.

 

[steelevt]

They should change the rules that allowed the Heat debacle yes. But that was a realtively unique occurrence.

The Lakers and Celtics came about there superteams in relatively fair fashion, basically just winning various trades.

so the heat getting 3 free agents to sign with them isnt ok, but the lakers getting allstar pau gasol for kwame brown, another scrub, and a couple late draft picks is fair? the heat managed their salary to make room to sign these guys. no one questioned their trades. but after the lakers trade, many memphis fans, other team's gms and fans of other teams around the nba (except lakers fans) cried foul. the heat took a risk in cutting all that salary to sign these guys, but other teams did the same like ny, nj and chi. miami's risk paid off...nj not so much. but they took risks as a opposed to getting an allstar bigman handed to them on a silver platter.

 

[Rookie]

I really don't care one way or another.

They're the team to beat....bring it on! Well maybe 2-3 more years after our guys matured.

As of right now Miami only look good on paper...let's see them winning it 3 out of 4 season then we can complain.

 

[SacKings7]

so the heat getting 3 free agents to sign with them isnt ok, but the lakers getting allstar pau gasol for kwame brown, another scrub, and a couple late draft picks is fair? the heat managed their salary to make room to sign these guys. no one questioned their trades. but after the lakers trade, many memphis fans, other team's gms and fans of other teams around the nba (except lakers fans) cried foul. the heat took a risk in cutting all that salary to sign these guys, but other teams did the same like ny, nj and chi. miami's risk paid off...nj not so much. but they took risks as a opposed to getting an allstar bigman handed to them on a silver platter.

The more I think about it, the more I think that that trade wasn't as bad as it seemed. Yes, I hate the fact that the Lakers got the best offensive big man for change, but Memphis wasn't going anywhere with or without Pau. With the trade, they got out of his contract (Kwame was expiring), got Javaris Crittenton who never panned out but I believe they got a future 1st from Washington for him, and they got Marc Gasol who is much better than I anticipated. I can't remember who they acquired using that cap space (Randolph?) but it wasn't a horrible deal for them in hindsight.

 

[Bricklayer]

so the heat getting 3 free agents to sign with them isnt ok, but the lakers getting allstar pau gasol for kwame brown, another scrub, and a couple late draft picks is fair? the heat managed their salary to make room to sign these guys. no one questioned their trades. but after the lakers trade, many memphis fans, other team's gms and fans of other teams around the nba (except lakers fans) cried foul. the heat took a risk in cutting all that salary to sign these guys, but other teams did the same like ny, nj and chi. miami's risk paid off...nj not so much. but they took risks as a opposed to getting an allstar bigman handed to them on a silver platter.

The Lakers won a trade. Unless you are suggesting collusion and that the Grizzlies numbnut GM was actually on the Lakers payroll there is nothing wrong with that. We got Webb for an aging SG who was a scrub within 3 years. All's fair in a trade because the teams have opposite interests and its a battle of talent/evaluation abilities as to which team wins out. All part of the competition. And in the end its one player mopving, and assets are exchanged both ways. Wallace is actually right that by this point, looking backward, the Grizzlies did not lose that trade by nearly as much as was thought at the time. Pau's brother alone is a valuable chit, and they got various other little assets around the edges.

The Heat mess is different. The teams had no control over what was going to happen there. The players and their hangers on were running the show, and running the show in a way that ruined two less glamorous franchises and may have upset the competitive balance of the league for half a dozen years. And the whole process leading up to it significantly scuttled half a dozen others who quit trying to win in order to get into position to receive the windfall themselves. Its a process and situation where the little guy got screwed without recourse to create an artificial juggernaught that is even now being further fortifed by various players piling on for less than their market value. And the ickiest part is that it may have been planned out years ago. Now that is collusion. The Lakers unfair advanatge over the years has never been that other teams might be dumber than them in trades, its that they have access to free agent reosurces that no other team has had. That Shaq will abandon a title contender to go play movie star, that Kobe will let it be known as an 18yr old he's not going to play for the small market team and wants to pay for the Lakers. That Artest will join them for pennies on the dollar. Now the Heat have trumped all that in a maneuver so extreme it may result in changes to the CBA to prevent it.

 

[Lafayette]

There is no way they should change the way this went down. If anything they need to cap individual salaries for players. I don't blame anyone, not the league, players, teams for any of this because its a free market. Those players could've gone anywhere. I would've liked to see some variety with LBJ in NY, Wade in Chi and Bosh and Joe Johnson in Miami, something to really shake up the East but instead we got a SUPERTEAM that will be fun to watch. It'll be, "Can we beat them tonight" and everyone will be watching. I think that the teams should get $60M in cap, leave it at that, don't change it, everyteam, it's up to them on how they spend it. Then cap the individual salaries to about $10M a max player, $3M MLE, $1M for Vets and rookies come in with the current salary scructure. I think star players should make no more then $10M with incentives. Think about it this way, we'll take the Lakers.

G - Blake - $3M
G - Kobe - $10M
F - Artest - $5M
F - Gasol - $10M
C - Bynum - $6M

So the starters alone cost the team $34M, now you have $26M to fill the team and it doesn't mean spend every dollar. This in not going to happen but it would be the smart thing to do and also ROOKIES after 2 years should be able to get extensions/bigger contracts if they are willing to stay with their current team.

We'll see what happens but if anything MAX deals should only be for 3 years with a 4th year team option.

 

[Bricklayer]

There is no way they should change the way this went down. If anything they need to cap individual salaries for players. I don't blame anyone, not the league, players, teams for any of this because its a free market. Those players could've gone anywhere. I would've liked to see some variety with LBJ in NY, Wade in Chi and Bosh and Joe Johnson in Miami, something to really shake up the East but instead we got a SUPERTEAM that will be fun to watch. It'll be, "Can we beat them tonight" and everyone will be watching. I think that the teams should get $60M in cap, leave it at that, don't change it, everyteam, it's up to them on how they spend it. Then cap the individual salaries to about $10M a max player, $3M MLE, $1M for Vets and rookies come in with the current salary scructure. I think star players should make no more then $10M with incentives. Think about it this way, we'll take the Lakers.

G - Blake - $3M
G - Kobe - $10M
F - Artest - $5M
F - Gasol - $10M
C - Bynum - $6M

So the starters alone cost the team $34M, now you have $26M to fill the team and it doesn't mean spend every dollar. This in not going to happen but it would be the smart thing to do and also ROOKIES after 2 years should be able to get extensions/bigger contracts if they are willing to stay with their current team.

We'll see what happens but if anything MAX deals should only be for 3 years with a 4th year team option.

That clearly can't be the way to go. That would only make the problem that much worse. So bad in fact that you would wipe out the league. Tons of star level players hitting the market every year, and maxed out at such a low number that 4 or 5 of them could join a single team at once. Unbeatable teams would be created as groups of guys decided to team up to "win" a title, stripping msaller teams of their top player in the process. And because the teams truly would be unbeatable, everybody who wanted to win would have no choice but to try to create one itself, which would mean that hordes of teams would be playing the salary cap rather than playng to win every year. There would no more team building, because it would be pointless. It would all be crater, try to the cool destination of the summer, then crater again.

If anything the way to go would be to eliminate max salaries and have the whole league held hostage by top free agents trying to take the cap all onto themselves. But I'm not sure I want ot go back to that world.

Simpel scenario to show you what a disaster this could be: The Nazgul win the next 5 titles. Will it happen? I think not. Could it happen? By talent alone, yes it could. That's the whole reason the badwagon is loading on up. So Let's say it does. The Nazgul are unbeatable. Everybody else is just playing for second place. If you are in the East you aren't even playing for that. You're just playing for a chance to be smashed by them at an earlier round of the playoffs. If that happens, then it is clear that the only way to beat them will be to duplicate what they have done. Will be to strip your team down to nothing and try to stack up three superstars. Multiple teams will bne tanking every year in an effort to be the "next" unbeatable Nazgul team, because if you play to win, and this is the only way you win, then that's what you do. Half of the league's superstars will be collected on two or three teams, and all the remainder will have no choice but to think about forming their own Nazgul group if they ever want to win a title. It would compeltely destroy the league, and little teams like the Kings in particular might as well just fold. They would be reduced to nothing more than feeder teams drafting somebody else's superstars for them every few years.

 

[kingsnation]

A disturbing trend is starting to establish itself in the NBA. Originally, it started with the Lakers. You have your 2 or 3 superstars (Kobe, Gasol, Odom), and then you get a ton of cheapo bench guys that normally would get paid way more money (Artest, Fisher). The mercenaries come out of the woodwork, accepting minimum salaries and MLE's, knowing they could get 5 times the minimum, or even almost double the MLE, but instead they sacrifice the payday to win a ring and get more exposure, hoping to parlay that ring and exposure into a bigger payday in the future??

Boston did it with Garnett, Pierce and Allen. 3 huge players, and then surrounded them with guys willing to take a bargain basement deal to try to get a "easy" championship.

Now we have the Miami Heat doing the same thing. It's starting to bother me a bit looking at all the players that are going to be on this Miami Heat team if the rumors pan out. Mike Miller? Derek Fisher? Udonis Haslem? etc, etc, etc... It's not like they are going to end up with nothing buy scrubs surrounding their big 3. They are going to surround them with alot of veteran guys that are willing to take dramatically less money to try to guarantee themselves a championship, and to be a part of a team that will develop a cult like following across the USA.

I can't really blame these players for the fact that they are willing to play for peanuts to try to guarantee themselves a ring. Still, this new era in the NBA is going to do some serious damage to the legitimacy of the league. Seriously, we could be looking at a situation where both the Lakers and Heat have 3 to 1, or even 2 to 1 odds to make the NBA Finals for the next several years. There won't be any intrigue to the league. It will be a forgone conclusion that the Lakers will play the Heat in the finals. What kind of a league is this, in which you already know the two teams (barring a major injury to Kobe or Lebron) who will be playing next June?

Actually, I see no problem with the way this Lakers team was built or made. The Gasol trade was one-sided but other than that, I'm fine with it.

Now, the Lakers team of 2004 with Shaq, Kobe, Malone and Payton that was a joke. And I think that is a situation that should be looked at.

The Boston team acquired Ray Allen and KG in trades so I see nothing wrong with the way this team was built either.

Miami was unique because 3 FA superstars all agreed to go to one place.

So, in conclusion I think that

LA 04/Mia 10 = unfair or just sad ways to build a team.
LA 10/Bos 08 = Great work by the teams GMs.

 

[Lafayette]

That clearly can't be the way to go. That would only make the problem that much worse. So bad in fact that you would wipe out the league. Tons of star level players hitting the market every year, and maxed out at such a low number that 4 or 5 of them could join a single team at once. Unbeatable teams would be created as groups of guys decided to team up to "win" a title, stripping msaller teams of their top player in the process. And because the teams truly would be unbeatable, everybody who wanted to win would have no choice but to try to create one itself, which would mean that hordes of teams would be playing the salary cap rather than playng to win every year. There would no more team building, because it would be pointless. It would all be crater, try to the cool destination of the summer, then crater again.

If anything the way to go would be to eliminate max salaries and have the whole league held hostage by top free agents trying to take the cap all onto themselves. But I'm not sure I want ot go back to that world.

Simpel scenario to show you what a disaster this could be: The Nazgul win the next 5 titles. Will it happen? I think not. Could it happen? By talent alone, yes it could. That's the whole reason the badwagon is loading on up. So Let's say it does. The Nazgul are unbeatable. Everybody else is just playing for second place. If you are in the East you aren't even playing for that. You're just playing for a chance to be smashed by them at an earlier round of the playoffs. If that happens, then it is clear that the only way to beat them will be to duplicate what they have done. Will be to strip your team down to nothing and try to stack up three superstars. Multiple teams will bne tanking every year in an effort to be the "next" unbeatable Nazgul team, because if you play to win, and this is the only way you win, then that's what you do. Half of the league's superstars will be collected on two or three teams, and all the remainder will have no choice but to think about forming their own Nazgul group if they ever want to win a title. It would compeltely destroy the league, and little teams like the Kings in particular might as well just fold. They would be reduced to nothing more than feeder teams drafting somebody else's superstars for them every few years.

Yea, I see what your saying but I think something like I put together could work if the team CAPS were about $45M leaving some teams with only $12-15M to fill out there roster. I really comes down to the team CAPS and not so much the individual because if the caps lower then players can't team up. So I say cut the cap size or cut the max salary.

 

[Freakout]

The biggest problem is the way Wade, The Second Fiddle, and Bosh went at it.

They purposely lead teams to believe they had a shot at signing them when they clearly did not. That effects the competition as a whole. New York has purposely sucked for years to get a shot at signing Lebron and he sure flirted back. I can't see them standing pat as they have simply to land Amare. The three stooges played several teams and made a spectacle out of the free agent process that we have never seen before.

Riles has had this in motion for awhile.

Sure no one stuck a gun to these teams heads but what you have left is a system built on a certain level of honesty that has been striped of it.

Cleveland has brought in player / contract just to keep Lebron happy so that they could have a chance in good faith of re-signing him. There is no way in hell they trade for Jamison at the deadline if they thought Lebron was really gone. I'll always believe he threw game 5. Sore elbow my ***. He knew if his team advanced to the Finals and *gasp* actually won that he would be stuck in Cleveland forever.

 

[Chupacabra]

The more I think about it, the more I think that that trade wasn't as bad as it seemed. Yes, I hate the fact that the Lakers got the best offensive big man for change, but Memphis wasn't going anywhere with or without Pau. With the trade, they got out of his contract (Kwame was expiring), got Javaris Crittenton who never panned out but I believe they got a future 1st from Washington for him, and they got Marc Gasol who is much better than I anticipated. I can't remember who they acquired using that cap space (Randolph?) but it wasn't a horrible deal for them in hindsight.

Right. Memphis really took off on a perennial playoff run after that trade. The reason that that trade is so horrible besides what Memphis actually got for Gasol is that they could have gotten a MUCH better offer had Jerry West (the 7akers GM prior to going to Memphis) actually entertained the offers that other teams could have made. Theres absolutely no way in hell that that was the best deal Memphis could get for Gasol. The trade should have been investigated and there should have been more media coverage about it.

 

[steelevt]

Right. Memphis really took off on a perennial playoff run after that trade. The reason that that trade is so horrible besides what Memphis actually got for Gasol is that they could have gotten a MUCH better offer had Jerry West (the 7akers GM prior to going to Memphis) actually entertained the offers that other teams could have made. Theres absolutely no way in hell that that was the best deal Memphis could get for Gasol. The trade should have been investigated and there should have been more media coverage about it.

plus the fact that marc gasol turned out to be a good player isnt the point. he was a second round draft. chances were he was gonna be crap, but he turned out a good player. that doesnt make the fact it was a horrible trade better at the time. no one knew how good he was gonna be. trading an allstar big for capspace, a young player, and lakers 1st round pick, and marc gasol sounds better than the truth...kwame brown, crittenton, lakers late pick and a second round pick. memphis lucked out since the only thing that panned out was that second round pick which in 9 times outta 10 would have turned out to a bench player at best. this was a horrible trade.

and the difference between this trade and the celtics. celtics traded ray allen for a top 5 pick, and traded garnett for a real up and coming al jefferson and other young players. no one really questioned this trade like they did the lakers.

 

[steelevt]

The Heat mess is different. The teams had no control over what was going to happen there. The players and their hangers on were running the show, and running the show in a way that ruined two less glamorous franchises and may have upset the competitive balance of the league for half a dozen years. And the whole process leading up to it significantly scuttled half a dozen others who quit trying to win in order to get into position to receive the windfall themselves. Its a process and situation where the little guy got screwed without recourse to create an artificial juggernaught that is even now being further fortifed by various players piling on for less than their market value. And the ickiest part is that it may have been planned out years ago. Now that is collusion. The Lakers unfair advanatge over the years has never been that other teams might be dumber than them in trades, its that they have access to free agent reosurces that no other team has had. That Shaq will abandon a title contender to go play movie star, that Kobe will let it be known as an 18yr old he's not going to play for the small market team and wants to pay for the Lakers. That Artest will join them for pennies on the dollar. Now the Heat have trumped all that in a maneuver so extreme it may result in changes to the CBA to prevent it.

theres no way you know that is a fact. did they play together on team usa? yes. did they say it would be great to play together? yes. but that doesnt mean this was all planned from the start. kobe also said he would love to play with these guys in the nba. that doesnt mean he also had some devious plan to get them on his team. things had to fall into place for this to work. before the draft, there was no way this team would have been possible. chi couldnt even have gotten 2 out of the 3. the only possibility was NY getting 2 out of the 3. so to say this was going to happen years ago is flawed. mia had to make trades to make room to get all three and risk the fact they wouldnt. there was a chance bosh could have went to cleveland with lebron, or bosh could have gone to chi with wade. or the fact mia couldnt clear enough space for all 3 contracts and the salary cap wouldnt have gone up. all those could have stopped this "plan that started years ago." the risk was worth it. i see less collusion in mia than the possibility of collusion between la and memphis with jerry west in the FO. which happened out of no where with many other gms saying they didnt see it coming and many people thinking other teams could have made a better offer. my main argument is that there were many things that could have gone wrong to stop this "planned" event. whereas with la, it just took a couple guys talking behind closed doors.

sorry if im taking this thread off topic. but i just believe this "super team" phenomenon didnt start with mia. it started before. and if we do something to stop it through FA, one sided trades have to be looked at too.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

theres no way you know that is a fact. did they play together on team usa? yes. did they say it would be great to play together? yes. but that doesnt mean this was all planned from the start.

Yes there is no proof but that doesn't change the fact that it was reported as speculation in 2008 and then it happened which makes it awfully suspicious. Not going to win in a court of law but definitely worthy of changing the rules to prevent it from happening again.

And make no mistake the rules will be changed with the players' union's blessing because they are not going to react positively to guys playing for the minimum around 3 guys with max deals. That flies in the face of everything a union represents, even the sports unions that aren't exactly representative of those representing the working class.

 

[Anthony1]

But when guys intentionally sign for far below their market value to join a particular team it breaks the system and threatens the balance.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that a team can't sign LeBron, Wade and Bosh, but normally the consequence of that is that they have to surround those guys with guys that normally might not make a NBA roster. Obviously, we all know that this isn't the way things are going. Miami isn't going to have to settle for guys that maybe should be in Europe or the Developmental League, they are going to surround their big 3 with some real talent.

The bottom line is that this type of situation really isn't fair to the rest of the NBA (Boston and LA excluded, because they are enjoying the same thing). The Sacramento Kings could be a very, very good team in a couple of years. When Reke is in his 4th year, and Cousins is in his 3rd year, and assuming our other guys develop properly, we should be able to make a serious run in the playoffs, but what's the point if we are going to have to go up against a Superteam that surrounds their megastars with very talented supporting players that are willing to play for pennies on the dollar. They aren't going to be willing to play for pennies on the dollar in Minnesota or Utah or Charlotte, etc, etc. Only for the super glamour teams like the Celtics, Lakers and Heat.

I just don't think the way things are setup right now is a fair situation. I'm not going to stop watching the NBA or anything, but you guys have to admit that this is kinda bogus. We could easily see Lakers vs Heat in the finals in 4 of the next 5 seasons. How exciting will that be? Some might argue that it will still be exciting to see these two "superteams" collide, but personally, I think it's pretty lame to know who is going to play in the finals even before a preseason game is played.

 

[hoopsfan]

Right. Memphis really took off on a perennial playoff run after that trade. The reason that that trade is so horrible besides what Memphis actually got for Gasol is that they could have gotten a MUCH better offer had Jerry West (the 7akers GM prior to going to Memphis) actually entertained the offers that other teams could have made. Theres absolutely no way in hell that that was the best deal Memphis could get for Gasol. The trade should have been investigated and there should have been more media coverage about it.

Jerry West had been gone from Memphis for over a year when that trade happened. Pau hadn't won a playoff game, let alone a series before going to LA. As was stated before, money was the main catalyst for the trade. People were just pissed because it happened with the Lakers. You didn't hear a peep when McHale, who WAS the gm with Minn. at the time,traded KG to his buddy, Ainge.
Personally, I don't care about Miami. I don't think it's gonna be as easy as they think. Will they even win a championship? They're over-the-top cocky already..."Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7..." WTH?

As far as the 2004 Lakers...I didn't think it would work. Malone was a jinx. No team with him on it was ever going to win a championship. Usually, these loaded teams don't work. It didn't work in LA. It didn't work in Phoenix. I guess we'll see what happens in Miami.

 

[Kingstime]

Super teams are fun and as fans of a Western conference team it shouldn't matter to us one bit. Some say this is gonna bring on the era of younger guys taking the AAU approach to winning on the next level. I realllllly don't see how these guys don't get atleast 2 rings in the 6 yr span they will be together. If these guys can stop me from having to see Kobe raising trophies I'm all for it.

 

[est.1999]

Trying to justify the gasol trade by evaluating what they have now in Memphis is a joke. They trades within the conference. Teams hardly ever do that. And to top it off, everyone and their grandmothers knows there were plenty of teams in the east that could have offered wayyyyy more than what the lakers offered. Jerry west did the lakers a favor. I think that cries "evel empire" moreso than what Miami just did and what the Yankees do on a daily basis. F the lakers!

 

[est.1999]

Boston gutted their team. Traded away al Jefferson. The lakers traded away players who have the basketball skillset equivalent to my left ball sac.

 

[Jose]

They could do something about it by having a financial impact on the team that takes the superstars. I would do something like this:

- Free agents go thru the recruiting and the teams who are interested will extend offers. Free agents will be REQUIRED to take offers from any interested team.
- Free agents then decide on which offer they accept.
- The salary that they accept counts against the hiring team's cap (as it is now). The differential between the player's new salary and the highest offer counts for luxury tax purposes. So, if Cleveland offers LeBron $20M but he signs with MIA for $12M, then MIA pays Lebron's $12M, and the extra $8M count for luxury tax purposes. If they exceed the luxury tax threshold, then it's going to really hurt.
- I would also make it so that if a team bids on its own free agent and the player leaves, the team automatically gets a TPE for the player's new salary on his different team. That way teams get a little something and are not forced to do S&T to not come emtpy-handed.

That way, players still have a choice, teams still have a chance, and teams that get a player "on the cheap" still pay more - especially if they abuse it and get multiple players for cheap.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Interesting ideas Jose.
A variation on your idea for luxury tax that might be more realistic:
- If a player takes less than market value to join a new team that is already maxed out their previous salary will be used as the basis for luxury tax calculations.

A few others:
- Figure out a way to calculate endorsement deals as part of a players compensation and work it into the cap structure.
- Negate the tax advantage in states like Florida, Texas and Tennessee (Wash. state also has no income tax if Seattle ever gets a team again).

One way to implement those two ideas without going too crazy would be to allow a player to a signing bonus not counted against the cap that is calculated based on a multiplier based on annual market analysis of the above factors.

 

[Kingstime]

I really see nothing wrong with how this all has gone down, except the whole live ESPN special. The Heat have the cap space to get all of this done, so more power to them. This team really isn't THAT super folks, it looks alot more formidable on paper than I really see it being in real time on the court. There are teams who will be able to compete with the SuperFriends South Beach Chapter. Quietly the Bulls are assembling something very nice too in acquiring Redick, Korver and Boozer. If Rose keeps getting better he will be able to become a straight killer with the penetration kicking it out to the shooters on the wings. Orlando is still there and they will be even better when they get a 4 to match up with D12 while also sliding Lewis to the 3. Boston has one more run in them and that's it, mind you they eliminated Bron and Wade last year they also have the distinction of bringing the art of the super team back. CP3 and Melo are most likely heading out East soon as well...

If anything this just is starting to prove the dilution of real NBA talent even more, as the gap between the great teams and the crap teams is truly wider than ever. I also the East starting to look alot like how the West used to look years ago, stacked teams up and down the conference. This offseason the west has actually regressed for the first time in years with their overall talent.

 

[Superman]

They should change the rules that allowed the Heat debacle yes. But that was a realtively unique occurrence.

The Lakers and Celtics came about there superteams in relatively fair fashion, basically just winning various trades.

Now if the focus is on all the vets and roleplayers and whatnot singing on for below market value, yes that has long been a problem. I called it such as far back as the Lakers attempt to do it with Payton and Malone. Essentially the league's entire balancing mechanism is financial. It depends on players being greedy and seeking to be paid what they are worth. You cap each team's salaries they can pay, all the players demand to be paid what they are worth, and no team can accumulate overwhelming talent. But when guys intentionally sign for far below their market value to join a particular team it breaks the system and threatens the balance. Having equal caproom no longer helps teams like Sacramento or Cleveland or the Clippers, things have become unbalanced by factors beyond money. But who could you possibly prevent that? I've made proposals about how to stop the superstar gangbang that formed the Heat, but the only way to control piles of guys underselling themselves to title winners would be to basically make every free agency restricted -- give the home team the right to match any offer to anyone every time, and if a guy undersells himself enough maybe his original team just keeps him. But that would be an unimaginable fight with the players union to make that happen, and it would significantly shrivel free agency.

As an aside, one of the NBA's great golden era was the 80s with the Celtics/Lakers meeting almost every year. Superteams alone do not have to be bad for the league. The perception that they can only be foremd by certain cities, and the smaller franchises are just locked out as Washington Generals is the problem, not the superteam itself.

I disagree with the spirit of this post. You make several valid points, including the impact of three star players deciding two years ago that they wanted to play together. It's a very slippery slope, to say the least, because if Dwayne Wade told Pat Riley to gut the roster so that they could all sign there this summer, that's absolutely collusion, through and through. I don't think you'll ever prove that, though. Other than that, you have three guys saying "we'd all like to play together, let's see if we can make it happen".

As for the impact on small market teams, yeah, it doesn't bode well for Kings fans (or Thunder fans, etc.) But I don't think the league should step in and say "we're not going to let you build a superteam overnight, even if the guys signing there have the right to sign wherever they want for whatever they want to sign for." And as for the vets and roleplayers signing for less than market value, I don't know what you can really do about that. Once you let the Lakers sign Karl Malone and Gary Payton for below market contracts, you set a precedent. I don't see the union accepting any changes that restricts players decisions, not pertaining to the minimum that they're willing to take.

The idea to restrict free agency will wind up killing free agency. You've had restricted free agents in the past that signed offer sheets and then begged the current team not to match (Lamar Odom comes to mind). The fact is that a player should be able to earn free agency, and if you're not going to give them true free agency, then you're going to have to give them no-trade clauses. Not just star players, everyone. And you'll never get non-guaranteed contracts, either.

I just disagree with the idea that if three guys decide in free agency that they want to play in the same place, if it's at all possible, that the NBA should stop them from doing so. Sure it upsets the competitive balance, but that's what every team wants, as long as it's in their favor. The Kings want to upset the competitive balance of the league, they just want it tilted their way. And if we had been in a position to sign all three of them, and they had approached us, we'd have signed them, and stuck middle fingers up at the rest of the NBA, the same way Miami is doing. Now, the fact that it's Sacramento makes that highly unlikely, but those are the breaks. Given the choice with all things being equal, a free agent in his prime is going to go with the big market team, and there's nothing anyone can do to change the fact that the big markets are more attractive than the small markets. You can make tweaks here and there to try to make it harder on big market teams, but you can't legislate parity. It won't happen. Sacramento will always have it harder than Miami, LA, New York, Chicago, etc.

I also don't see the difference between a team trading for superstars and a team signing them outright. In Boston's case, Kevin Garnett stood in the way of the trade to the Celtics until they were able to secure a deal for Ray Allen, essentially making them the powerhouse team in the NBA. Until the trade deadline, there wasn't a single team that would have been able to legitimately challenge the Celtics in 2008. Danny Ainge put together a couple of deals, and built his team around his three star players, and lucky for them, it worked. But there's no guarantee that just because you put together a great team that you're going to win championships, and that's why the games still get played. There's already a ton of people doubting that the Heat are going to be able to win, at least this season. And even the Celtics struggled in the playoffs. They should have at least had a three year run, but Garnett broke down in 2009. "Best laid plans of mice and men..." and all that.

Can't just stand in the way of a team building a legitimate superpower just because "they're gonna be too damn good." That's what every team is trying to do, one way or another. Free agency is a way of building your team, just like trades and the draft. None of them are guaranteed.

 

[Superman]

They could do something about it by having a financial impact on the team that takes the superstars. I would do something like this:

- Free agents go thru the recruiting and the teams who are interested will extend offers. Free agents will be REQUIRED to take offers from any interested team.
- Free agents then decide on which offer they accept.
- The salary that they accept counts against the hiring team's cap (as it is now). The differential between the player's new salary and the highest offer counts for luxury tax purposes. So, if Cleveland offers LeBron $20M but he signs with MIA for $12M, then MIA pays Lebron's $12M, and the extra $8M count for luxury tax purposes. If they exceed the luxury tax threshold, then it's going to really hurt.
- I would also make it so that if a team bids on its own free agent and the player leaves, the team automatically gets a TPE for the player's new salary on his different team. That way teams get a little something and are not forced to do S&T to not come emtpy-handed.

That way, players still have a choice, teams still have a chance, and teams that get a player "on the cheap" still pay more - especially if they abuse it and get multiple players for cheap.

That would kill free agency. Never mind that it would never get ratified by either the player's union or the owners, why would a team agree to pay an extra $8 million on top of what they agree to with the player they're signing? Why not just get rid of the salary cap altogether and just have a luxury tax on everything above the current cap threshold? All your proposal would do is ensure that teams like the Clippers stay under the cap so Donald Sterling can profit off of his NBA team.

What you could do is allow teams that lose players in free agency to receive a) compensatory draft picks, determined in order by the value of the contracts the departing player signed/was offered, and whether the team losing the player offered a contract or not; b) cap allowances for the following season, particularly if the team is over or close to the cap and can't be a player in free agency aside from their own free agents, so that trades and free agent signings are a little easier to make happen. Or a combination of both. That way, when a team loses a player in free agency, they don't come up empty handed.

In this case, Cleveland and Toronto would both receive compensatory picks (maybe even two, since they lost max contract players, assuming both players were offered max contracts by the teams that lost them), and if Cleveland would have the right to sign a max contract player even though they don't have the cap space to do so, or they can sign any number of players using that allowed cap space. Toronto has the cap space, so they don't need the allowance. On the other hand, a team like Phoenix would NOT get a compensatory pick or an allowance, since they didn't even make an offer to Amare Stoudemire. Or maybe they receive a late second round compensatory pick. The middle ground would be a team like Utah that maybe offered Boozer a contract, but not at the max, and they'd receive one compensatory pick, no allowance. When a team uses an allowance and goes over the luxury tax threshold, they still pay the tax.

 

[Rookie]

Well to be fair..Celtics were joining up over the hill stars so I wouldn't compare them to the Heats. I'm not sure but were any of them a top 5 NBA player in 2008? Kobe/James/Wade were top 3 already I think. Camelo 4th?

But I do agree with most of what you said.

 

[Superman]

Well to be fair..Celtics were joining up over the hill stars so I wouldn't compare them to the Heats. I'm not sure but were any of them a top 5 NBA player in 2008? Kobe/James/Wade were top 3 already I think. Camelo 4th?

But I do agree with most of what you said.

Kevin Garnett was 31 years old, had no significant injury history, and had just come off a season that was right in line with his career average. Went to Boston and promptly won DPOY. I disagree with the idea that he was over the hill. Perhaps past his prime, and so not LeBron James or Chris Bosh, but we're not talking about 40 year old Karl Malone. We're more talking about 32 year old Wilt Chamberlain going to the Lakers.

Even Ray Allen was only 32. But he had probably played fewer games in his career at that point than Garnett had. Was still a 25+ ppg scorer, and as primarily a shooter (not a big man, not a post player), he could and still can do exactly what he had been doing his entire career, which was serve as a primary scorer. Past his prime? Sure. Over the hill? Not at all. That's revisionist history.

Now, to be sure, neither of them is 26 year old Chris Bosh or 25 year old LeBron James. But that doesn't change my point, which is that a player earns his free agency, and a team that's far enough under the cap to offer them competitive salaries (and let's face it, none of these guys are playing for the MLE; they are all getting close to max deals when it's all said and done) should be able to do so without being penalized by the NBA. Excluding the premise that Pat Riley got an insider tip two years ago, this is what free agency is about in the NBA.