PFT: NBA’s best urged to take less “if they want to win.” Agents, unions unhappy with trend.

Agreed. 20 mil per year is more money than I could imagine being able to spend. Give me ONE million and I would be set for the rest of my life, and if invested wisely I could make things comfortable for my offspring and future generations. I just can't sympathize.

 

Not my money. If a owner not willing spend the money for good players and impose these max and caps, they shouldn't be owning a NBA team. Should buy a WNBA team instead.

 

Most people says and believe that
until they in that situation

If a Job came to you . . .and offered you 1 Million a year for 20 yrs
Sign a contract and everything

PURELY OFF YOUR LABOR
you watch the company turn profits like this
Year 1 - 10 million
Year 2 - 20 million
Year 3 - 50 million
Year 4 - 100 million
Year 5 - 120 million
Year 6 - 200 million
Year 7 - 400 million
Year 8 - 1 Billion
etc

you still making your 1 million

At some point . . . most folx will want a bit more of the pie they baking

Rocket River
simplistic example

 

Exactly, River. People always want to say that pro athletes are overpaid, but never look at how much revenue each league or team is generated.

 

This has a drawback though. Say you pay Lebron 40 million and over 50% of the salary cap and he goes down with a injury and is never the same player again. All of a sudden your team is severely debilitated for the length of the contract because the salary cap limits you. If you could cut Lebron then that solves the issue but players don't want that.

 

Which is why you don't sink 50% of your salary cap into 1 player.
Same issue with the D.Rose contract in Chicago
it would not be much different

Rocket River

 

The rotation players and the bench warmers are overpaid. They contribute nothing to marketing compared to Harden/Durant/Bron and in basketball the star players value are much more.

You push down Brons contract with a max and you will inflate the contracts of scrubs. Bron and Durant should never take less than the max, it should be the Diaw's taking less.

 

That's exactly what happened to us with Yao and McGrady. But that's the nature of the game. You rely on a star or two to win. When they are not healthy, you are screwed. It's a problem even with the current system.

Ridding the max contract has the effect of paying each player the real value, not forcing guys like LeBron to be underpaid their whole career. The current system benefits the middle-class players, not the superstars.

 

Yao and mac had 6 year contracts though. These 4 year contract will not be nearly as dangerous for teams.

 

Get rid of Max Salaries and also have a similar salary guarantee system the NFL uses

 

I actually like this concept. It allows for certain players, Lebron for example to make beyond the "max". In no way should someone like Josh Smith or Joe Johnson make comparable money to LBJ.

 

Really it's been the players that have been the primary catalyst for this movement, not the owners. Heck the GM's in Minnesota could be waving around blank checks to the top ten players and still no one will bite.

What changed with Lebron and his Decision was the realization that, for a top 3-5 player in the NBA, your actual salary represents a miniscule fraction of your true annual gross income. Guys like Lebron or Kobe pull 100+M per year, and the bulk of that comes through the image building that the NBA has helped them with. To that extent, there's much more potential in playing for a team with worldwide notoriety like the Lakers than there is taking more money with the home team and saving, say 15 million over the life of the contract (3 years? 4 years? you're talking about 3-5M annually).

So if the agents are taking less of a cut from the NBA deal, they can blame the max or the luxury tax or the CBA-negotiated revenue cut all they want. In the end they gotta convince their players to abide by the laws of the free market, instead of colluding like they have been since the Decision. It's not gonna be easy though.

 

Exactly. The sole reason they have the max is to protect bad FOs from themselves so that you dont have middling all stars like Josh smith getting $40 million a year.

 

meh, maybe super stars thinks that colluding together and taking a paycut to make a championship team will net them more publicity and more money from sponsors.

The 2-3 million dollar per cut they take in contracts is nothing compared to the money they can potentially earn from sponsors by being world champions.

Plus when you have that much money, you start to think about legacy and other stuff, and winning basketball and championships to them is worth more than getting 10 million a year vs 15 million a year

 

The max contract will be hard to get rid of. The union has a lot more middle-class players than stars, so they aren't necessarily in opposition to it. And the owners fought for it to protect themselves after Kevin Garnett - having no max salary allows a star to crush a team. When KG was a free agent, he demanded an obscene amount of money. Minnesota was stuck with two ugly options - pay and destroy your team (which they did) or don't pay and start over from scratch, angering your fans.

I agree with removing the max contract; but I think you add a hard cap with that - that forces owners to be fiscally responsible and it makes players accept that. With bird exceptions, it lets the players argue for more money without as much consequence. Basically, if you want a lot of money, you better carry your team. If you want superfriends, accept that you simply can't have a bench. It should allow more 1 and 2 star teams to be successful.

 

YEa. . LeBron could demand and get 80% from some team
but shut up if you playing with nothing but D-Leaguers
Because it is what you chose

I think this will make players more teammates with GMs
which is what is beginning to happen now anyway

Rocket River

 

Minus the percentages part, we had this system in the 90's. It didn't lead to players working with GMs - it led to players holding GMs hostage (Kevin Garnett being the straw that broke the camel's back).

 

Does this mean we're getting another lockout?

 

I think this makes the most sense and will probably create more balance, if you wanna form a super team, you make a huge pay cut and then have no bench

 

Reality bites ...

one or two superstars who take up the cap space on your team ain't enough to win you a championship.

They need a solid team behind them and that takes money.

If they can win it by themselves, then do it. Otherwise, take less money and build a better team.