DallasNews.com: Salary cap at root of a wild off-season

Interesting article, thought it was worth reading.... Really shows that years from now these teams that are spending all this money on FAs are really going to get hit hard.

Makes what the Rockets are doing right now being fiscally responsible make a lot of sense for the future.


Salary cap at root of a wild off-season
08:37 PM CDT on Saturday, July 24, 2004
By DAVID MOORE / The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...ll/nba/stories/072504dnspomoorecol.656de.html

Now that Shaquille O'Neal has pulled his semi into Miami, Carlos Boozer and Gordon Gund have sparked a public discourse on ethics, and Mark Cuban has found fiscal responsibility, we take a deep breath and reflect on the most stunning development of the month.

Did Golden State really pay nearly $42 million to keep Adonal Foyle?

Every off-season in the NBA takes on a personality of its own. This one has been more volatile than most.

The sport's most dominant player (O'Neal) has switched coasts. Tracy McGrady and Kenyon Martin, two of the best young players in the league, have been traded. Boozer and Steve Nash have walked, leaving their former teams with nothing. Several pedestrian players, a group that includes Foyle, have hit the jackpot.

A unique set of circumstances prompted each move. Put the dysfunctional dynamics, broken promises and questionable decisions aside and you hit on a universal truth.

The salary cap discourages owners from paying more than two elite players in their prime. Sure, there are teams that boast three top players. But check the salaries, and one of them usually makes in the $6 million to $8 million range.

That may sound high to you and me, but it's modest by NBA standards.

The fact is, every bold acquisition made this off-season has been by a club whose best player is in his first contract.

Miami's Dwyane Wade and Denver's Carmelo Anthony have three years left on their rookie contracts. Wade will need all three years to equal what O'Neal pockets by Christmas. Anthony earns $11.87 million in that span, which is $1.3 million less than the average salary Martin will pull down from the Nuggets in his $92.5 million deal.

McGrady can opt out of his contract at the end of this season, but Houston has the flexibility to pay him because Yao Ming makes just slightly more than the Mavericks' Shawn Bradley. Utah could spend big on Boozer and Mehmet Okur because it has only $1.6 million devoted to All-Star Andrei Kirilenko this season. Phoenix can go the extra mile – and $10 million or so – to land Nash because Amare Stoudemire is a steal with a total of $4.61 million flowing his way over the next two years.

Two and three years from now, when the young players are paid market value, these same teams will be suffering key losses in free agency. The luxury tax makes that a certainty.

Focus all you want on the friction between Kobe Bryant and O'Neal. Blame O'Neal's demands for an extension. Part of the reason it made fiscal and competitive sense for owner Jerry Buss to trade O'Neal is because he and Bryant consumed so much of the cap that the team couldn't put young, quality talent around them.

If New Jersey gave Martin what he wanted, it would have been forced to wave goodbye to Richard Jefferson when his contract expired at the end of this season. With so much tied up in Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley over the next four years, Cuban couldn't afford to make the same commitment to Nash.

Of course, he couldn't afford to let him walk and get nothing. The excess Cuban showed in re-signing Finley and acquiring Tariq Abdul-Wahad, Danny Fortson and others caught up to the Mavericks when it came to keeping Nash. The Lakers and Nets didn't get equal value for what they lost, but at least they got something.

More marquee players have changed teams this off-season than usual. That doesn't mean what we've seen is an aberration.

No owner, no matter how rich, is looking to pay the luxury tax. He might be willing to absorb the hit for a year or two if the team wins a championship. Otherwise, it's impossible to justify.

That's why we'll continue to see movement among the league's top players during the off-season. Every team reaches a different stage of development, a different stage of cap management, where change is inevitable. The only way to slow this trend would be to do away with the luxury tax in the next collective bargaining agreement.

The owners aren't about to drop a mechanism that saves them from themselves and levels the playing field.

A player of O'Neal's magnitude won't change teams every year. But in today's financial climate, it's no longer out of the ordinary.



TRADING PLACES

Player movement this NBA off-season has been more volatile than usual. Staff Writer David Moore takes a look at some of the best and worst moves:

Perfect fit
Brent Barry, San Antonio: Gives the Spurs the outside shooting they desperately needed in their second-round playoff loss to the Lakers.

Stephen Jackson, Indiana: Upgrades the Pacers' backcourt and allows Reggie Miller to move to the bench.


Early winners
Miami Heat: Getting Shaquille O'Neal to South Beach is huge. Now, if the Heat can just get him on the South Beach diet.

Denver Nuggets: Kenyon Martin is the perfect complement to Carmelo Anthony and gives this team a physical dimension it lacked.

Utah Jazz: So much for free agents not wanting to go to Salt Lake City. Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur will be there soon.


Early losers
Los Angeles Lakers: Even with Kobe Bryant, the Lakers will see how the other half lives ... and struggles.

New Jersey Nets: No more trips to The Finals for this team.

Mavericks: Will probably start a rookie at point guard and Shawn Bradley at center. This is not a good thing.


Biggest blunder
Cleveland: When the Cavaliers let Boozer out of his contract a year early, they set him up to be either disloyal or stupid. He chose disloyal and the extra $30 million that came with it.

Money matters
New Jersey has been criticized for letting Kenyon Martin go. But let's say the Nets retained Martin and then signed Richard Jefferson to an extension. Toss in Jason Kidd, and the club would have had $278 million tied up in three players. That's only $22 million less than Charlotte paid to obtain an expansion franchise.