sure can. as SirCharlesFan said most contracts come with raises each year. so while the max salary for lebron (given the amount of years he's played) is $16,224,600. that's only in his first year of the new contract. now, only the team who owns his bird rights (cavs) are allowed to offer 10% raises every year, and a 6th year on the deal. assume he signs a full 6 year contract. it would look like this: $16.2M $17.8M $19.5M $21.4M $23.5M $25.8M so you see how quickly 10% raises add up. now if he signs with another team, they wouldn't have his bird rights and thus can only offer 5 years and 8% raises. given the amount of money, and the period of time... that 2% difference adds up quite a bit. not to mention that if he were only able to sign a 5 year contract (with another team) he would miss out on that $25.8M year and have to sign a new contract at whatever the max is at that time. that can potentially be a lot of money lost. all the more reason to stay with your team. now since you mentioned kobe and tmac... they would qualify for an even higher maximum salary because they were in the league more than 10 years. that max is $18,928,700. i'm sure given the previous example you can see how that would add up with raises over time. hope that was helpful!
Anyone worried bout the Cavs this season? They added Shaq to Lebron, but somehow that just doesn't make me fear them. I don't think is ready to go 82 games again. I think its Orlando from the east again.
I do not know about The Magic after lossing Hedo. He not a superstar, but Hedo got them a lot of easy points. I think Boston has one last run in them if they can come out of 82 games healthy
This scenario is EXTREMELY unrealistic. Take a moment to look at Varejao's contract. It's one of the longest ones in the NBA and very unwieldy. They're not going to be able to move it.
I'm not sure I would count on Boston. Something tells me they are very close to falling apart this year. There's a lot of what if's... Health is one for sure but there's an attitude problem with that team. KG getting mad at Doc and his knee is worse than they thought. Rondo having issues. R. Allen keeps running out of gas. I can't see them holding it together this year. That's just my opinion. But I will say this though, if Boston can't get back into the finals this year, I would almost be certain that team will definitely look different next season.
The raises aren't compounded - it's a fixed % based on 1st year salary, so the delta is the same each year: http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q47
If Lebron goes to NY or Brooklyn then its going to be a sign a trade where Lebron gets the 6 year max with 10% raise and the Cavs package some junk contracts along with him to gut the team.
