The lakers payroll will exceed $100 million in 2012-2013. It will only get worse the following season. They are the most blatant Luxury tax violators. I thought the whole point of the lockout was to secure player salaries while also creating a more balanced league so we wouldnt have just a couple really good teams whose willingness to utterly ignore the salary cap and spend/pay penalties in order to have the best shot at a championship destroys the whole basis for league equality and competitiveness. How is this allowed? I thought after Stern raped the rockets last summer, annulling a trade and subsequent moves that would have gotten the Rockets competitive again, that for sure he would not have allowed the Lakers to bypass their deserved rebuilding mode after Kobe retires and allowed them to continue being one of the dominant franchises in the NBA. Doesnt seem right. Orlando took a ****ty deal, much less than they could have netted from the Rockets offers, and sold their souls(again) and allowed LA to fleece them for the #1 center in the NBA. Its not right. Even if Houston didnt get Dwight, competitive balance will never be achieved if LA gets to keep getting every good player they want, regardless of breaking the salary cap or the lie that is the NBA's goal of parity.
Isnt there still a luxury tax even now? I know the new penalties apply starting next year but I thought there was a current one.
last year and this year team are playing by rules of the last CBA when it comes to crossing the cap limits
This conspiracy theory just popped into my head...what if David Stern and Lakers colluded to 'veto' the CP3 trade so they could obtain D12 right now? Meanwhile Clips get CP3... Stern knows the big markets are where the money is and wants to milk them for all they can.
CBA is a joke right now IMO. I hope the owners try to get out of it in 2017 and make the CBA more fair.
This..... The thing is that competitive balance is there too......It will be very competitive among about 25-teams....too bad they're all playing for 3rd place.
I'll be curious to know if the Lakers will keep all their players and high payroll once the CBA penalties truly kick in. Until then, nothing is set in stone.
i think when it comes time to pay the big luxury tax, lakers will amnesty gasol. They are probably banking on the fact that the 4 of them will probably win a championship and then when cap hit gets big they let go of gasol and still have a competitive team with nash, kobe, howard combine that with that fact that okc will prob lose either harden or ibaka they will still be a top 2 team in the west and not take a huge cap hit
LOL well said. I think this might be the only true result of the new CBA, that and the fans lost 2 months of basketball.
That's a huge white brick. Paragraphs would help. The lockout achieved a shortened season so the bank of LerBon and Kobe could make money off of struggling players.
Well seeing as how it doesnt kick in until next year it heavily taxes the teams that have a track record of going over the tax (NY/Lakers) so all the teams not going over the tax will end up getting evenly spread out money from what I understand. Yeah it doesn't seem fair but what do you expect? Orlando made their choice. They're a joke of a franchise, please look at following examples in Shaq, next to Tracy Mcgrady, and now lastly to Dwight Howard. They all share the common trait of wanting to get the hell out of Orlando. With the exception of Moses Malone ( I think ) I don't remember any other franchise players (Hakeem doesn't count, he was in his last year and it helped us net the pick to get Yao. Can't discredit a guy for completing his life's goal) wanting to get out of Houston. Just my 2 cents.
BRI was all that mattered. Basketball Related Income going more the owners way. There were SOME issues addressed on competitive balance, including more revenue sharing. But the big market owners didnt want to concede anything. The owners did propose a HARD CAP at the start. (at well BELOW the current salaray cap, no way the players and agents went for that). But they caved in some to the players union. Thats how it goes in negotiations. Sometimes its not about whats best for the industry, but about who's the most influential in bargaining their side. The most simple but still most effective way often mentioned to bring competitive balance is having a hard cap with no limit to max contracts. There would still be lack of balance in competition, but maybe instead of just 3 teams having a chance at the title, it increases to 5.
I'll have to wait and see how it all fleshes out but I am concerned. Look at the Knicks though (Lin), it's already made an impact there.
