NO! According to everyone here, the owners get all the say in the next CBA. Franchise players become indentured servants. Free agency is basically destroyed. All good Clippers remain Clippers the rest of their lives.
While i certainly dont want to rape the players, I do have to agree with the majority that wants to mitigate the risk of the team, mainly because as a fan, im rooting for the team. Often in Baseball and Basketball, I see players signed to contracts that effectively hamstring their teams, due to the players either, getting injured or not living up to the contract. As a fan, this is one of the most annoying things about following basketball or baseball, a team stuck in cap hell (in the NBA) or budget hell (in MLB), due to a Rashard Lewis or Elton Brand signing or a Barry Zito or Soriano signing. Some argue that, those signing are due to bad management and ineffective GM's, but while surely some are due to horrible mismanagement (rashard, Zito) many are just due to plain bad luck and chance (B,Roy, Yao Ming). Did anyone in the GARM argue against the Yao Ming extension back in 2005 or whenever or whether or not Portland should extend BRoy in 09? With that said, I do agree that reducing guaranteed contracts to 1 or 2 yrs is going too far (for NBA/MLB) towards the owners favor, i do like the idea of a buy out clause for ALL contracts after the 3rd year. The idea is simply that contract length/guarantees stay the same but that the team OR the player can buy out of it after the 3rd year for 30% of the remaining contract for owners and 15% for players. So for instance, the Magics can pay Gilbert Arenas 20 million to void the 60 million left on his contract after this season. Likewise in this scenario Carmelo could have paid Denver 2.5 mil this season to get out of his contract (17mil) to sign a longer and more lucrative contract with the Knicks before the season started. This way, long term contracts are conserved to help teams and players from constantly dealing with negotiations and free agency, while at the same time mitigating risk for teams, fans and players alike. I also agree with eliminating certain types of sign and trade, MLE and likewise see no need for franchise tag. Im only advocating eliminating the sign and trades like, Bosh to Miami or Rashard Lewis to Orlando types, not the David lee to GS non max types. In other words, sign and trades are legal, but Miami and Orlando could not offer Bosh or Rashard Lewis anymore than in max salary than they allowed without it. In other words, no transference of bird rights via sign and trade. That way only the team the free agent played for last season, can offer them a 5% premium in salary,
I like all this. I would add: No MLE or LLE for teams in the first layer of the luxury tax. This stops teams like Miami from adding a MLE contract every offseason and turning into an unbeatable juggernaut.
Great point! Although I agree with pretty much all of emjohn's points, I think this one is definitely one to be looked at. It would defer teams from going over the cap and giving them an advtantage over other teams. Pugs
Actually we are not on the owners' side. We are on the fans' side. The OP ask if WE were god, what would WE do. I assume that WE means we FANS. For us fans, the bottom line is, we want good competitive basketball. We don't care if the owners make money. We don't care if the players get screwed. We want good competitive teams we can root for, teams that are OURS, not just a group of mercenaries. Free agency kills team identity thereby dilute fan loyalty. The phenomenon of a few perpetual dominant teams in a few cities kills competitiveness. Most of the suggestions here pretty much try to do two things: 1. Limit movement of elite players 2. Parity regardless of size of market Actually, I would want a system where bad owners can be kicked out of the league. The Clippers wouldn't have to be the Clippers if not for that scumbag Sterling. The Knicks fans would not have to be in hell if not for that idiot Dolan.
Players can buy insurance against the risk of getting injured. Why would a team pay someone not to play. That is why I would only guarantee one year of the contract. The players are free to not play if they are getting "screwed" so badly. Something tells me they would still sign up to make millions of dollars per year to play basketball even if only the first year of their deals was guaranteed. On the other hand, there are teams who have a lot of difficulty competing because one of the players takes up tens of millions of dollars of cap space (not to mention actual money) and provides absolutely no return.
Not when you're being paid obscene amounts of money to play basketball. Should Griffin have been say that he didn't want to play for the Clippers? The whole point of the franchise tag is that the tradeoff for retaining the player is that they are compensated for it.
It's really a matter of what's best for the league. The more successful the league is then the more that both the players and owners benefit. That means that all teams benefit, not just ones in LA, Miami, Chicago and NY. If you have more competititve teams then there's more interest in the league in all citys. That's one thing that the NFL's cap has done, it's allowed many different teams to be competitive. If you believe the recent Forbes report, 17 NBA franchises are currently losing money. That's not a good thing for the players or the owners. In order to fix it the players will get less, that's true but they will still have a sweet deal.
If you have a true hard cap there is no minimum salary exception. They certainly could negotiate a minimum salary, but that just defines the lowest amount you can pay players of various experience levels. It's not an exception though since it won't allow you to exceed the cap. So, if you're $500K under the cap and the minimum salary is $1M, then you can't sign a $1M player unless you get rid of at least $500K in salary. With a hard cap everything counts toward the cap. To answer your question, yes if you wanted to add salary then you have to shed salary in order to free up space. The need to do that would be one of the things that dictated fewer guarenteed deals. That's how it works in the NFL and they have no fully guarenteed deals, only guarenteed signing bonuses.
I do think that players should be protected from injury risk. Teams should be required to buy injury insurance for players. But they should also have the freedom to release injured players. Guaranteed contract gives lazy players less incentives to perform, and clogs up the pipeline for deserving players to enter the league.
Uh, the Lakers and Celtics of the 80's created those teams fair and square. So did MJ. So did Duncan's Spurs. Your NFL CBA rules would have broken those teams up. This is getting over blown. The Laker's won based on Kobe and good trades. The Celtics won based on good trades and one helluva draft pick in Rondo. San Antonio has never used Free Agency that much. Miami won based on Wade. Detroit: trades and picks. Dallas has never been successful doing free agency. I just described all the post-Shaq laker's years right there. Actually, Shaq and Moses are the only players in 30yrs who have won as the best player on his team coming via Free Agency. What are you talking about? The new Miami? So, you are going to blow up the CBA based on one team? Franchise Tag Debate I honestly do not like the NFL's CBA. I really think the NBA is the best and close to nailing it. There are just too many exceptions and we have some loopholes, but free agency otherwise works well. The Franchise Tag for the NFL is an Indentured Servant tag. Aside from the best of the QBs, how many Franchise players retain that tag past 5 yrs. In the NBA, a superstar would be off the market for 10 yrs. With no choice whatsoever. I really like my idea of limiting one Larry Bird exception per year/per team. That should do it. That allows you to resign your Otis Thorpes and Robert Horry's of the world. That is GOOD FOR THE FANS! Sure you can still bolt with the Larry Bird exception...but eliminating the SnTs for high dollar salaries would eliminate franchise players moving to a team over the cap.
Moses was traded to the Sixers he didn't go there as a FA. That trade is how we got Caldwell Jones and the Cleveland first round pick that turned into Rodney McCray. You are correct that few big name free agents end up signing outright with other teams, but that's only because once it's obvious that they are leaving then their team will agree to a SnT just to get something back. While Lebron and Bosh were technically traded they forced the deals via the FA process. As far as the Franchise Tag NFL playes don't like it and because while it's great money it's just a one year deal. That's why players eventually sign a longer term deal to get the guarenteed money of the signing bonus that comes with a long term contract. It would be the same in the NFL, you wouldn't see a guy franchised for 10 yrs, it's too much risk for the player and it's too expensive for the team. If you have no max salary (which you don't with a hard cap) then it eventually gets hard to continue paying that huge salary to a star. That's why you rarely see guys franchised more than two seasons. If after two years they still aren't willing to sign a deal then teams usually let them leave because that salary is eating up too much of the cap. That's how you see a guy like Julius Peppers walk away from Carolina for nothing. I don't think that anyone is saying that the Lakers, Celtics or Bulls didn't play by the rules to assemble the teams. The problem is that the current rules favor teams in big markets and teams with deep pockets. If there's only a handful of teams that realistically will have a chance to win a title then the league is less exciting. There's too many teams making moves strickly for finacial reasons and those move through off the competitive balance of the league. Today's NBA is much close to MLB where only a handful of teams have a realistic shot and big money free agents. That's not good for the game. Can you tell that I'm not a Yankee fan?
I stand corrected. So there has been only ONE player (Shaq) in 30 years who won a title via Free Agency as a Franchise, best player. Right. Am I wrong, now? This is completely false, and you should know better. Magic and Bird saved the NBA. And you know that. And then Detroit had to fight so hard for their two. And MJ and to fight so hard through Detroit. Come on. Basketball is most exciting when the best teams are playing at the highest level.This requires a Franchise player to develop chemistry with his midclass players who everyone in this thread wants to toss to the curb. More than anything else you said...this actually upsets me. MLB does not have a cap. Please do not make any comparisons to MLB. Here is the way I think: MLB has the strongest union = no cap NFL has the dumbest union = hard cap NBA has the best of both worlds = soft cap The NBA CBA is beautiful...just needs a few tweeks. Play God all you want, the Union is still there. bottomline In any change to the CBA, please tell me how a franchise is going to keep their very important middle class glue players. FOR THE GOOD OF THE FANS.
The other thing that really annoys me about using the NFL rules to apply to the NBA...completely different sports. NBA is so dependent on chemistry, since it is a constant motion sport. NFL is a structured...this play is being run...learn it....sport. Please do not compare constant motion sports like bball and soccer to structured Xs and Os like you can just shuffle the deck each year and make it happen as a coach. Those NFL coaches are pretty incredible. But you can't shuffle NBA and soccer teams each year and get the best ball out of them
You know, aside from the need to have a minimum salary exception to prevent teams from going under 15 players, you also have to retain the Traded Player Exception. There is popular belief that a TPE is something only about non-simultaneous trades. But in reality, as described in the CBA, the TPE is mainly about the fact that you can't easily match salaries in a trade...so you have a 125% window. Are you getting rid the NBA of that 125% window of trade room as well, in your "no exceptions allowed" CBA?
Actually I agreed with some of what you said in an earlier post. I think there should be cap exceptions for retaining players who were on the team last year. However, I feel they should be required to sign those players first. I definitely agree with flexibility on trades. With such a small roster and no exceptions, trades would be very difficult. (What would we talk about? :grin: ) I think the sign and trade needs to be looked at. I could go either way on guaranteed contracts depending on how other pieces are structured. I do not mind them for veterans, but I do not like them for draft picks. Lemon law / bankruptcy. This may seem like a team benefit, but it actually would help players as well. Teams would be willing to pay more / longer contracts if they knew they had an easier way to pay out a bad contract without the long term impact.
With a hard cap there is no restriction on matching salaries. You just have to be under the cap after the deal is completed. You can trade a guy that makes $550K for a guy that makes $10M. You don't need an exception to do it because you aren't allowed to exceed the cap. So, if you are at or near the cap and you want to do a deal where you take on extra salary then you have to shed salary prior to the deal. That's why you don't want all of your players to have guarenteed deals. The definition of a hard cap means that you can't exceed the cap for any reason. That means no exceptions.
I'm truley sorry to hear that comparisions to the NFL upset you but much of the owners inital proposal was based on the NFL's cap. So, if the owners are aiming for a more NFL-like cap then there's going to be comparisions made. Sorry.
Tons of guys have changed teams due to Free Agency. Just because hey ultimately negotiate a SnT because it's best for both parties doesn't change that. Lebron, Bosh, Boozer and Amare all changed teams this year due to free agency (even though they didn't outright sign as a FA). Carmello will likely join that club later in the month (even though he will be traded). As far as the glue guys, they won't get overpaid by other teams like they do now. Since the stars take a huge chunk of your salary cap and you need to retain flexibility thenn you won't see teams overpaying for 2nd tier guys as you do in today's NBA. That's great that you think that the NBA is so great right now but according to Forbes latest report 17 teams are losing money. So, maybe "beautiful" to you doesn't translate into profitable. I think that's the focus of the owners, to make the league more profitable for everyone, which is probably why they are looking at a more NFL like model.
The players union would murder you guys over at least half of the propositions in this thread. Doesn't mean I don't like them. I love getting rid of sign and trade, but you will never see anything close to the pyramid tiered contract system, though; by nature it limits the pay ceiling of the bulk of NBA players. Of the many issues to deal with, I just don't think Free Agency is so high on the priority list. As long as there are maniacal agents and r****ded GMs there will be free agency mistakes made.
