i agree with this completely. performance incentives have been used on occasion in the NBA. pat riley signed tim hardaway to a deal that would pay him x amount in a bonus if his ast:/to ratio was above a 3:1. i would say half of the salary should be guaranteed. the rest should be available through performance bonuses.
This is something that the NFL does and it's part of the reason why the league operates so smoothly. It allows a hard salary cap to work, and you very rarely see albatross contracts last for more than a year, and you NEVER see a player's contract hold more worth than the player himself. I've been a proponent of this for years. It just makes no business sense to me to guarantee contracts when the very nature of the profession leads to unpredictable things (injuries, aging, lack of motivation, etc.).
The problem with performance-based incentives in basketball is that, unlike golf, they can be detrimental if a player is greedy for the money. For example... -A Power-Forward trying to steal a rebound away from the guard just to boost his stats. -A point guard passing up an open shot because he needs that 8th assist. -A player holding back a 1st quarter ending half-court shot so he doesn't hurt his FG%. -And so forth. I think it's more important for GMs to hire hard-working, solid-character players for the right money than to worry about this type of stuff.
The only reason it works in the NFL is because the NFL players union is weak. The way the redskins sign players it doesn't seem they even have a salary cap.
It's not really comparable. Golfers compete in tournaments for prize money. NBA players are contracted by teams.
Problem is. This is a team game. This system does not encourage teamplay or playing for the passion of the game. I say instead of setting static goals like get X many rebounds per game. You could just have somebody (GM or other management official) judge each player on their overall performance and give them a little bonus here and there depending on how hard they play, if they helped the team, etc.
The best 'incentive' deal is for wins or points allowed. ie: players get a bonus if they win. If every player got half the salary that way I think you'd see less Kelvin Cato's.
Points allowed seems like a good deal. It could apply to any team. Good or bad, any team can still play defense.
Totally agree with you. A player's worth should not just include his stats but his over all game as a player on and off court. His disposition and attitude towards the game is of utmost important.
It's really weird to compare golf to the NBA. Yeah the average golfer has no fixed salary, but the top guys on tour do, Tigers gets lots of cash just to show up at tournaments regardless of his performance. The NFL is the best league as far as contracts go, for the owners. Fringe guys can bust their butts and incur life altering injuries just to be tossed aside like trash on the last cut day. The NFL got this way because their union is incredibly stupid and ineffective. The owners of the league have all the power and the players have none. I know people don't like seeing guys like Jerome James or Eric Dampier hulk up on a contract year and then do nothing afterwards. But I think the majority of players in the league try hard to honor their contracts. The GMs in the league have also been slowly figuring out the system and the contracts are becoming more managable. Besides, why would you feel bad for an owner dumb enough to overpay those guys? Everyone could see the writing on the wall when a bad contract is signed except the owner dumb enough to sign off on the contract. Would you feel bad if a rich guy blew 50 million on a bad investment that everyone told him was terrible?
Wins is a bad idea: Adam Morrison would earn lots of salary while Durant wouldn't earn his? If they really based it on points allowed: be prepared to see tons of 50-45 games in the league. Oops, the shot clock expired again, ka ching ka ching.
Who the heck would really do that... I'm sure the coach wouldn't be too happy if their players started draining the shot clock.
Not everybody's value is measured in points and not everybody goes to the free throw line. Shaq, in his prime, wouldn't have gotten paid nearly what he was worth if pay was based on free throw performance. With +/-, it's dependent on your teammates. A crappy player on an otherwise great team would make more than a great player on an otherwise crappy team. We all know that players like Battier and Hayes are worth more than what their stats say.
Points allowed isn't a great metric for pay because it would discourage fast offense. Maybe not shot-clock violations, but still why would you push the tempo if you're paid on points allowed? I think paying on +/- and/or on wins would be best. But, the pitfall there is that the incentive would encourage players to go to the best teams to maximize their incentives. Even with +/-, your performance will be dependent on the performance of the 4 other guys on the court. A team that wants to play a certain way could build their contract incentives to accentuate the desired style. A run-and-gun team could put an incentive on team ppg in order to push the tempo, for example. But, since the incentives travel with the player, trades would complicate that strat. And this is why I think that incentive-laden contracts are not common in the NBA. Static incentives like ppg, rpg, etc emphasize individual stats over winning. Incentives on winning will cause distortions in the league balance of power. A structure that might work is having compensation come in two parts. The first part is the normal contract, but at dollars depressed from what they are today. That travels with the player. The second is a team-centered incentive system that pays the other half of the comp. It pays a set amount per team, perhaps, but assigns dollars based on an evaluation system defined by the team. So, if they want to emphasize +/- or defense or tempo or tanking or whatever, they can use the incentives to effect it.
I've thought about widespread incentives in the NBA many times before, but it's too complicated and exposes the game to even more greed and selfish play than exists already. Imagine a player sitting on 17 points in the last minute of a 2 point game, hoisting up a wild 3 just so he can get his "20 point per game" incentive. Later he'll say "I wanted to go for the win, not the tie". Fans, media, teammates, will be left to wonder just how true that statement is. The free throw line is about the ONLY place it stands to succeed.
