They didn't though. That's a myth. Tim Duncan signed for less than the max at a time when he was old and looked like he was breaking down. Ginobli signed his deal after people thought he needed to retire after looking washed up in the Finals. Parker signed his deal before he exploded. The Spurs got lucky that two guys got rejuvenated after signing those deals and Parker hit free agency at the right time. Duncan and Ginobli both are guys who play limited minutes because of age and injury issues. They are not superstars. Now, Wade is in the same camp in my opinion now, but it isn't going to change the fact that small market teams are going to get pissed about this. The last CBA was intentionally written in a way to bust up superteams.
I would be very happy with that. Hawes would be a great facilitator and rebounds better than T.Jones. He just seems like he would be a very solid contributor on a contender.
I agree, and don't care much if the spurs took less money to keep a championship team together. But what some people may say is that the spurs didn't take less money to venture into free agency, they used it to sign their own players and remain under the luxury tax. That's a little different than the heat situation. They're taking less money to stay under the cap, so that they can better their team through free agency. That, I think, is why people are complaining.
I don't understand why people are complaining. If anything, they should be applauded. How many players can say they want to take huge pay cuts just to win?
I admire The Heat for what they are doing. They clearly value winning more than moneywhich is very rare in the NBA.
You are misunderstanding. I'm not complaining that the players are doing it. I wish guys did it on OUR team. I'm telling you small market owners are not going to like it. They have a salary cap and a CBA that is intentionally designed to artificially create competitive balance. It rests on certain fundamental principles, and a key one among those is that the players will seek maximum or near maximum market value with certain cases of "hometown discounts" in small sums. The owners wanted to prevent the Big 3 model from being viable going forward. They wanted to prevent super teams. The Heat successfully getting around those rules (without violating any of them) is going to piss small markets off. Edit: As a fan I fully endorse players valuing winning, heck even playing with friends, over money. I endorse them controlling the markets they play in as well.
I think the only real solution is contraction- if you have less teams, you have less watered down talent, and you'll more likely to achieve some sort of competitive balance. A team like Cleveland or Milwaukee might not be able to attract big name guys- but they could easily keep a solid core of 2nd tier guys. But neither the owners or the players' union will agree to that.
I don't really think there is a good solution, but we should all be prepared for a bloody CBA fight in the next round of negotiations. Imagine if you are Toronto and Miami clears $12 million in space because of the Big 3 orchestrating salary cuts. And then they use bird rights to keep Ray Allen and then they use the BAE to add another player... How is a team like Toronto supposed to compete?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p>Kyle Lowry completed his meeting with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri and coach Dwane Casey, and mulling Raptors offer, league source tells Yahoo.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/statuses/484060367765512192">July 1, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> I guess its a positive that he isn't "thrilled" and ready to sign
- I guess my lil LOWKEY source was correct earlier @zachlowe_NBA "Credit @johncanzanobft for being first out there with the ballpark salary range today." @windhorstESPN Earlier, @johncanzanobft reported Wade was willing to start at $12M per season & Bosh $11M & this backs that up. Story coming.
I expect the next CBA to more tightly limit the max you can offer another team's free agent. We've seen that the current CBA doesn't really make it prohibitive. The owners will fight hard to make it something like the current team can offer the full max plus a 5th year but if you are going after someone else's free agent you are limited to offering a base level max for four years. So maybe something like: Incumbent team: Can offer you 35% of salary cap with 5% raises each year for up to 5 years. New Team: Can offer you $14 million a year with 4% raises each ear for 4 years. No sign and trades of the first option. The players will fight that like hell which is a big part of why I expect a bloodbath.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Heat telling free agents they will have $12+ million to spend, indicating Wade & Bosh ready to take huge pay cuts, sources told ESPN</p>— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/WindhorstESPN/statuses/484058625342578689">July 1, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Source: Forget Kyle Lowry to Houston. Rockets wanted sign & trade but Toronto won't deal bc they want to keep Lowry</p>— Chris Broussard (@Chris_Broussard) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chris_Broussard/statuses/484057128215531520">July 1, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Saw this a few minutes ago. This is BS. The Rockets "apparently" can trade Lin if they want to another team to clear nearly 16 million in cap space (not that they really want to pay that much but they can). There is NO SHOCK at all that the Rockets tried for a S&T first with Toronto, and it should come as NO SHOCK that Toronto opted to not agree to a S&T The good news for Rockets fans is, if Morey felt strongly enough to go ahead and offer a S&T to Ujiri ALREADY, that is a pretty strong indication that Lowry is in fact very interested in going to Houston. Otherwise, Morey wouldn't have bothered offering it to Ujiri just yet. I'm sure with Morey its wait until tomorrow's meeting with Melo before they decide to pull a Lin trade to free up the cap space to sign Lowry if they really do want to sign him for enough that it will take to get him.
