Pay Players as a % of the Cap

Max contracts and MLEs are a percentage of the cap, but only for the first season of the contract. Like the max extension that Anthony Davis just signed is going to pay him WAY more than the current max contract because it kicks in next year and it'll start out as a percentage of whatever the giant cap number next year will be.

But they don't maintain that percentage thing for each year of the contract because there could be unexpected fluctuations (up or down) in the cap, which would make it hard for the player or the team to plan ahead financially.

 

I guess it would be relatively simple for the team to plan ahead, since the cap would only increase if their overall revenue increased as well (or vice versa). So teams could always afford to pay out 100% of the cap to players like you're saying. But from the player's perspective, wouldn't it be a better deal to know exactly how much money you would be making over the course of your contract?

 

Contracts are not negotiated by % of a cap because NBA rosters are flexible, players get traded, cut and signed constantly. If you're trying to trade players to another team or a free agent is deciding between offers from different teams they would have to convert that % salary into hard numbers anyway, why go through this BS and just stick with real numbers? Also the league would have to go through another CBA to decide what %s are appropriate for veteran minimum, rookie salaries, exceptions etc.

As a rule owners don't like signing players to %s, because that means you'll be paying more for the same player as the cap goes up. For example in Harden's case, his salary could end up to twice or thrice his initial salary as the cap goes up, and you could be paying that money to two or 3 other players instead. That's great for star players like Harden, but what about the 99% of other players who would get a smaller cut of the salary pool? The NBA players would first have to sort it out among themselves and only then can they propose it to the owners for agreement, you can't arbitrarily decide that since Matthews is less of a player than Harden he should be making less when he already signed a contract to get paid a specific amount.

Its not worth the trouble and the benefit is only to the 30 or superstar players while marginalizing the rest of the NBA population.

 

If 100% of your cap is already used up, how can you sign vet mins and rookies unless you can get your players to agree to take less salary than what they signed up for? This means you will never be able to sign another player unless one of your contract expires, and the only trades you can do is to another player with the EXACT % of the cap salary.

I guess you didn't really think the ramifications of this idea lol...

 

because it would be bad for the owners' pockets.
But right now and for the following two years, any new contract should be evaluated only as a percentage of the cap because that's what matters not the rising numbers.

 

No, the players union think Conley, and the rest of the FAs this summer deserve a huge pay bump rather than a smoothed out cap raise.

Depending on how the cap raise was structured, the players union may have actually made the right choice from a overall players vs owners financial standpoint.

And roslolian's legitimate reasons for not paying as % of cap still stands.

 

geez, this is a private business, let them make whatever they make. It seems like people are more upset with gm's than they are what health care and bank giants are doing.

 

Who said that?

 

All these guys are multi-millionaires. Who cares if Player A is making more money than Player B.

 

Incredible logic. Can I make a million assumptions about you since I haven't seen you make explicit statements about them?

I get you want to win an argument but this is not the way to go about it.

To take your point to another level, you could tie performance more closely to salaries so Steph Curry wouldn't be relatively underpaid right now.

But everyone wants assurances and I think players will take firm money versus what's essentially stock options every time. Because the one time salaries drop the **** will hit the fan so hard there will be a return to the norm again.

 

Neither the owners or the players are interested in this.

 

It's weird that people feel this was in an NBA forum huh? Super weird.