Always an interesting point. 1 player can make a world of difference and two exceptional players can give you a championship team. Also, in basketball players are expected to play both sides of the ball. That is not the case in the NFL and is not as big an issue in baseball because the pitcher is such a colossal part of the defense that guys like Manny Rameriz can get away with being crap defensive players. If I were to write the new CBA, twittering, facebooking and any social mediaing other than team approved and edited interviews would be outlawed. I would hate to be the GM of a team whose has a player posting comments on the internet like "Pray for me" followed by "I just need to keep my head up". Comments like that could potentially derail their trade value.
Again, you would need a two year lockout to get the players to give up guaranteed contracts. They'll never do it. You misread or glossed over: I'm not saying "double the luxury tax" I'm saying keep the luxury tax and add a second, doubled luxury tax line at about $82M. It would not affect the Rockets at all, only the 5 major spenders. You again glossed over the point. There are only a handful of guys (LeBron, Wade, Kobe, Howard, Durant, etc) that make a team a contender on their own - if they cost the same or less than phony franchise guys like Rashard Lewis, and you can only afford one....then making one bad call on a max contract takes you out of the running for years. How is that parity? There's this unspoken assumption that every team will have a "franchise guy" making the max.....but there's only 6-10 "real" franchise guys out there. If you want parity, you've got to make teams pay full value for the LeBrons or make so that not every Keith Van Horn or Shawn Marion is eligible to make the max. A simple hard cap won't do that. You're underestimating how much these payrolls do matter - the big pocket teams aren't tapped into infinite resources. Both Paul Allen and Mark Cuban in past years had to cry 'Uncle' and bring the spending down a notch. In the end, the point is to make money, not bleed it dry. Because it has. The Knicks were running out of control with $124M payrolls...now they're at $58M. The Lakers and Magic are at the $90M high water mark....a severe pull back, even taking out inflation (player salaries still going up 5-8%). Only 7 teams are above the tax line. Only 5 above $75M. Having a soft cap lets teams on the cusp make a push for a title, and I think that's a good thing. Orlando is absolutely not a big money market - they've been dogged their entire existence with revenue woes. Max contracts aren't being handed out like candy anymore - half the contracts in the top 30 are at their last year and will disappear. Owners are afraid of the tax and don't want to risk crossing it over a Ben Gordon max contract. I think the beef over the Lakers/Celtics is legit...but it's not like the Mavs or Knicks have come close to winning anything. The Heat are going to cream the league the next could of years, and they are going to do so at or near the cap. A simple hard cap isn't going to lead to parity in a league where there are only a half dozen "nuclear weapon" players, and this is a league where individuals have the greatest say in success (football is the polar opposite). With a hard cap, what hope does anyone have matching Miami's talent? A hard cap doesn't change the fact that there aren't 30 legitimate franchise players....there aren't even 15 of them.
The way the average NBA player mismanages their money there's no way that they can last that long without a paycheck. Sorry, I did misread but I still don't think that would deter the big boys. The owners want to get rid of the fully guarenteed deals. That's part of their current proposal. One of the reasons for that desire is to allow them to get out of those "bad calls". That's how it works in the NFL today and it is one of the reasons that they have a huge amount of parity. I disagree on that one. If there's a hard cap then you have to deal with trade offs. Sure you can pair Lebron and Wade and Bosh but you can't put anything around them. That's now the case with the soft cap, you are able to put decent supporting talent around them and it's a no brainer that you just stockpile as many stars as you can. With a hard cap then you have to decide do you want one or two of those guys and some sort of supporting cast or do you want the big three with nothing around them? Does Lebron sign there if they can't put a supporting cast around him? I disagree. The Blazers and Mavs are primarily sources of entertainment for Allen and Cuban, not sources of revenue. They both have made lots of decisions that are solely to give them a better chance to win and costs them lots of money. A perfect example is that Cuban has said that he's willing to rent Carmello for half a season if it gives him a chance at a title. He'd spend lots of money for a chance at a title. You are mixing up your timeline. The current CBA (and the luxury tax) went into effect for the 2005 season. In the prior season ('04) the Knicks payroll was $89M. In the first year ('05) of the new CBA/luxury tax the Knicks payroll went up to $102M, '06 it went to $126M. So, the Knicks payroll increased by $40M during the first two years of the luxury tax. That of course was mostly due to Isiah Thomas. Additionally, the fact that the Knicks payroll is $58M has nothing to do with the luxury tax. It has to do with their approach to trying to acquire Lebron last summer. Their only shot at Lebron was to slash all of their salary and that's what they did. Take a look at the NFL. Up and coming teams have a much better chance of competing for a title than they do in the NBA. There's nothing about a hard cap that prevents teams on the cusp from making a push for a title. That's because it's a level playing field so everyone has an equal chance. Yes, the new trend is that guys are taking slightly under the max in order to play where they like. How many guys effectively got max deals just last summer? Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Boozer, Amare, Dirk, Joe Johnson, David Lee? If you take away all of the exceptions then they are greatly weakend. Take away the MLE and min salary guys from that team and they have a tough time fielding a team anywhere as good as they have right now. Today a team of just very good players can't beat a stacked team with two superstars and good role players. If you put in a hard cap then it's a question of can a group of very good players beat a team with one superstar and lesser role players. Under that scenario teams don't neccessarily need a superstar, they might be better served with 2 to 3 second tier players.
aelliott, it's best we just agree that we see the hard cap extremely differently. It's my belief that a model that works reasonably well in the NFL* isn't readily transferable to the NBA. To your counterpoints: The luxury tax didn't change everything with every time immediately, but my point remains that the payrolls of the top few teams is much smaller today than when it came about. And it is no secret that 25 teams in the league are terrified to cross it. 2/3rds of the league stays between $50M-$70M right now, which is not a ridiculous disparity. Improve it? Absolutely. But I don't agree that a radical change is called for. Only 3 of the 8 guys you listed signed for the max, and David Lee wasn't close to it. More to the point, only Joe Johnson was a stunning overpay. I still hold that owners don't throw around bad money max contracts like they used to. They still spend foolishly overall, but if you cut out the annual MLE and killed the S&T, you'd knock out a lot of that. Make them sign within the traditional cap rules and not even LA can amass a $90M payroll. If any team had the option of signing to max contract stars and filling out the roster with minimum contract guys versus a team of good players, they'd go the Miami route every single time. In fact, that's way the MLE came about in the first place - the league had been trending hard towards rosters of a few mega deals surrounded by marginal ones. Additionally, once you have 2-3 "superfriends" teams (Miami, LAL, NYK)...there's no truly elite guys left to counter them. Teams like Milwaukee would be FUBAR. But I get that you don't agree with any of this. That's fine, that's fair. *Ask a Buffalo Bills fan if there's true financial parity in the NFL if you want a laugh.
Having teams only one superstar, in a league with only a handful of elite players, would mean the team with the best superstar would have a huge advantage, as other teams couldn't counter by trying to get another superstar to beat the team. Celtic's started this, and LA counted by getting Gasol, and Miami counted by getting Bosh and Lebron. Soon, another team will counter with something different, its all about evolution in basketball.
Yes we do see things differently. The current system is broken. David Stern will even admit that. According to Forbes 17 of the teams in the league lost money last season. When over half of your league isn't turning a profit then your system doesn't work and minor tweeks aren't going to make much of a difference. Yes payrolls are smaller but that's not because of the luxury tax, it's because of the economy. Every major corporation has cut their spending due to the economy. The problem is that overall payrolls are down but the competitive imbalance between the haves and the have nots has grown larger. I understand that all of those guys didn't sign for the max, that's why I said " the new trend is that guys are taking slightly under the max in order to play where they like. How many guys effectively got max deals ". Yes, Lebron took less than the max but he's still in the ball park. Those guys took less not because of any luxury tax, rather they took less so that they could play together. If the fact that David Lee got an $80M contract somehow shows that the luxury tax works then I'm failing to see it. That sounds true but think about what that means. If there's a hard cap and you sign the big 3 then you have less than about $13M to sign he rest of your roster. That also means that every dime of salary that you pay the remainder of those guys counts against your cap. You don't get to spend all of your cap space and then use exceptions to go $7M over the cap which is exactly what the Heat did in constructing their current roster. According to Forbes the Bills are ranked 28th of the 32 NFL teams in value and they are valued at $799M. Also according to Forbes the Knicks have the highest value of any NBA team at $655M. Forbes also reports that 17 of the NBA's 30 teams lost money last year. The lowest valued team in the NFL is the Jacksonvill Jags at $755M. That's still $100M more than the most valuable NBA franchise. You're telling me a hard cap doesn't work? Buffalo is making plenty of money. Their issues of recent years were self inflicted from bad management and coaching decision not from lack of money. Buffalo made $28M last season, so how does that compare to the #28 franchise in the NBA? That would be the Bucks that are worth $255M and lost money last season. How have finances hindered the Bills? Bad management and bad decision making has killed them but they've got money.
