The nba buyouts are ruining the game, gaming the hard cap

You can’t compare a normal career to the NBA though. The league has a vested interest in maintaining parity or at least the illusion of parity. Your premise is no different than saying a salary cap is communism because we’re not allowing the free market to dictate players’ inherent value. The NBA and Average Joe economy aren’t in the same universe; they’re not analogous.

That being said, I’m not sure what could be done to address OP’s concerns. Great players on good contracts aren’t typically bought out

 

NBA ratings seem to go up when there’s a truly dominant team and less parity. MJ’s Bulls dominated the 90’s. The league loved the 3-peat Kobe-Shaq Lakers. The league loved the Big 3 Heat and GS. The league is happy with a dominant team in BK.

 

Game been ruined...

 

What if the player is not really that bad but intentionally dogs it to force his way out? Hmm...

 

It brings in casual fans, and that’s the audience that makes the difference in ratings. Sure, it sucks for the rest of us Chumps who are more serious fans of mid-to-small market teams, but what are you going to do? The NBA did the calculus and determined that ensuring smaller market teams are competitive is not going to improve the bottom line. Our only hope is to see if certain ping pong ball combination come up like we’re desperate gambling addicts wasting our money on lottery tickets. How tacky is that? Maybe we should all just play bingo instead.

 

Some of us are doing this already.

 

Don’t forget the media trying to influence it


Amid the cries for Damian Lillard to bring his talents to a bigger market – like the Knicks, as ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has suggested – the Trail Blazers superstar is further cementing his roots in Portland.
Damian Lillard doubles down on Blazers as Stephen A. Smith calls for trade

https://nypost.com/2021/03/10/damian-lillard-doubles-down-on-blazers-amid-calls-for-trade/

 

If the OP were someone different, this would actually be an interesting thread.

I agree, something could be done.
It's one of the few problems of the Player's Union being so strong (compared to other sports)

While the right to cut players midseason and their right to find new employment midseason must continue, this traditionally means the player wasn't good enough for a trade. Players who are actually tradeable (if it weren't for their salary) ... that's the issue.

And I agree, it is a midseason gaming of the Hard Cap ... and a lot of contenders this year are Hard Capped ... to the point, GMs must be hardcapping themselves knowing they can still add good players midseason who do this.

that said, has anyone actually Won with key contribution from a buyout guy? I'm talking Winner!

 

This sounds all fine and good.
He will be a Portland Legend
Like
Gervin in San Antonio
Daugherty in Cleveland
etc etc etc
Unless he wins a ring . .. he will be a ringless obscure triva fact

You simply cannot stop player movement
This is a boon to good teams and allows bad teams to get from under their shitty contracts and decisions
It allows for ring chasing
but also auditions
take a shot at someone to see what they have in the tank

Rocket River

 

Don't think his chances increase if he goes to the Knicks like Stephen A wants

 

wildly untrue

This is too broad a brush of what the CBA allows and doesn't, to the point the statement is more a Mantra for one side of negotiations, than meaningful to current state of the rules.

• Trade Salary Matching rules play a huge part in what player can be traded and where --- a HUGE part
• The Salary Cap and its Exceptions places rules on Free Agent movement
• The Hard Cap constricts both trades and free agents

The point is player movement is restricted left and right by existing rules.
Loopholes to the spirit of those rules are closed ALL THE TIME.

So, what's the potential loophole around the spirit of the player movement rules?​

• Midseason buyouts of huge contracts are essentially 1/2 season free-agent rentals for contenders -- while they should definitely still be allowed (bc Owner and Player both benefit), it's the sidestepping of scores of Salary Rules by the rental team, which is the loophole.

I consider midseason buyouts of huge contracts to re-sign anywhere with no reprucussions to team salary of new team, as a potential loophole run wild. I think the loophole really only benefits contenders (these players aren't getting midseason buyout to go to bad teams), so for that reason, it is unfair, and we should consider proposals to close it.

Even amongst the contenders, proposed solutions can eliminate full freedom of movement, to give contenders with better Cap Management a better chance to get the player -- which is the Spirit of the Salary Cap Rules wrt Free Agents

 

One simple twist in rules that would expose this loophole run wild is make in illegal for any Hard Capped (or above) teams to purchase a buyout player who clears waivers.

Don’t forget, you’re not officially bought out until you clear waivers. So Hard Capped can still buy existing contracts that got cut for 48hrs, assuming they fit under the Hard Cap. This also doesn’t affect contract fully waived, ie not bought out

Here’s the list of current contenders that are Hard Capped. That’s a loophole run wild

LAL, LAC, UTA, MIL, MIA, BOS, POR, PHX, DAL, DEN AND TOR​

With a summer warning of new rule, that list of hard capped teams would immediately clean up, and return to normal. Then you’d be back to allowing those teams and players to do it again, but at least this time they haven’t used a Full MLE or BAE or done a SnT ... so in a sense, under new rule, you can’t have your cake and eat it too...wrt using exception and buyouts

 

Hampered - Yes
Incentivized - Yes
Stopped - No

Rocket River

 

For the sake of competitive balance, do we really want teams to have an easy excuse for owners to not spend money and make aggressive moves in the offseason?

It is not at all hard for me to imagine a cheap owner not spending the full MLE/BAE or participating in a S&T and then saying: "we wanted to preserve flexibility for the buyout market". And when they don't make a buyout signing, then they'll say: "unfortunately, Player X found a better opportunity with more playing time". But in the long run, it's just another way for teams to force players to accept smaller salaries, and artificially cap their own bids.

Finally, who is going to be pushing for this? Contenders want to be able to add buy-out veterans. Players don't want to be kept away from a losing team not playing indefinitely. Bad teams want to be able to dump salary. The Pistons achieved $13M in salary relief with the buyout of Griffin. To clear $13M in future salary obligations cost the Rockets a 1st and a 2nd (Brandon Knight / Iman Shumpert Trade), and a 22-year old 11/10 center shooting 68% from the field (Taurean Prince/Jarrett Allen Salary Dump). Buyouts are powerful rebuilding tools that literally create value out of thin air for the very worst teams, and we honestly should be giving these kinds of teams crippled by big contracts gone wrong more tools to help them both rebuild more quickly and incentivize them to spend more.

 

Good.

 

wait, that's my point!!

For the sake of competitive balance is this loophole discussion: Currently, having your cake and eating it, too, wrt contenders Hard Capping themselves and still able to compete for top buyouts is hurting competitive balance.

I do agree that there are other proposals to discuss ... but they are likely more complicated than merely adding a new Hard Cap penalty. So I was just suggesting an easy one to discuss.

The other proposals could be about math of absorbing/sharing more of the buyout salary. But anything that moves salary to the buyout recipient would be blocked by the Hard Cap, anyhow (if the recipient team is too close to the line), thus your excuse still has potential there, as well.

Current excuses:

• Morey saying he can't use the Full MLE/BAE to maintain trade flexibility, then never using it
• And the reverse, Cheap Owners use excuse to pay their own Bird free agents less, by saying they need money for a Full MLE, so need room under the Hard Cap. Morey did that to Capela.

but yeah, you don't want to screw the player's market with more rules ...

imo, the only concern is if it hurts the free agents to add an extra penalty for Hard Caps. But, it's reasonable to say, that if the free agent is worth a Full MLE, he can get it somewhere

for instance, Lakers (or any contender) wasn't going to pass on Montrezl for hopes of maybe getting Drummond in buyout. It just means they can't do both.​

 

I don't understand this point. Cheap owners will always have excuses for not signing players with more money. Good players will have the market to sign with other teams. Cheap owners will have bad teams they deserve. That's part of the competition, at least in theory.

What we don't want to see is contenders getting good players with bad contracts on bad teams getting bought out. It also incentivize these bad contract players to dog the season to get out of a bad team and go to a contender. So these bad contract players end up having the cake (big money contract) and eat it (playing for a contender). This is on top of the team that gets the player having the cake and eat it as heypartner pointed out. So this gives an unfair edge to the contending teams and give players a fresh free agent opportunity because of a bad contract they had not deserved in the first place.

That said, most of these bought out players aren't really that good. But many of them can conceivably help a contending team get over the hump in the playoffs.

 

How is competitive balance being hurt buy the buyout.

Did GSW get a buyout every year?

Did Miami or the Spurs benefit from buyouts?

What's next are we gonna go after veteran minimus on hard caped teams?

Morey did not do that with Capela he gave him market rate and a lot of people thought he overpaid.

 

that's already against the Hardcap. There are no exceptions to the hardcap, literally, no CBA Exceptions

for instance, if the Lakers (currently hardcapped) were right up on the line, they would be blocked from getting Drummond. That's current rules. We had to cut Green because we were right up against the line, due to whatshisname's injury.

no one thought he overpaid once they realized how much of it was Unlikely Incentives.

 

So how can the Nets sign Blake with a veterans minimum?