The Path To A Permanent Peace Between NBA Players And Owners

This is more-or-less how it used to be (well, with a soft cap). But what the league found is that the owners put all their money in star players (see Kevin Garnett). The owners didn't like it because they couldn't control themselves. The players didn't like it because a small chunk of players got all the money.

 

In theory, yes. But in practice, it creates perverse incentives. For example, you lose a lot of money if you get injured because you play fewer minutes (70% of your salary is based on minutes played). That means there's incentive to not get hurt - ie, don't take charges, don't drive into the lane, etc. Players who can do that without losing minutes (stars, for example) would have an incentive to avoid those things. Rather than simply caring about what's best for the team, players would be incentivized to demand more minutes or try to put up big stats. Things like that would be detrimental to building cohesive teams.