If guaranteed contracts are a bad thing, why do teams offer them? These special rules and exemptions just complicate things and stifle creativity. Hard cap and a rookie scale is all you need.
I know right. This is all I want. I don't give a flying flip if the owners lose a billion a year or the players get paid minimum wage. When I start hearing something about the price of tickets or league pass then I will give a flip about what is going on with the CBA.
Teams offer them because they have to in order to compete for good players under the current set of rules. The only way teams can get away with not offering fully guaranteed deals is if they all get together and agree that nobody will offer them and make it a part of the CBA. It's the same thing with any of the salary limits: If they are not written in the CBA, teams will most likely pay much more than they do now for the stars players or even above-average ones.
I actually e-mailed a proposal to the nba and the union on what I think would work. I havent gotten a response, but here is a snapshot of my proposal. Contracts only guaranteed to 50%. The example i used was Eddy Curry. Curry signed a 6 yr 72m deal or basically 12m per year. Once Curry hit half of his contract, the rest would only be partially guaranteed. So the last 3 yrs and 36m would be paid by being on the opening roster for half and at the 41 game mark for the other half. This would allow teams to get from under injury plagued players. The disclaimer to that is even if you cut the guy, his salary would count 25% against the cap for the duration. Using the curry model, after a year 3 cut, he would count 3m per yr for 3yrs or the team could do it in 1 or 2 yr hits. Hard cap for ceiling and floor set according to bri. If the nba were to set the roof at 73m the basement should 85% of that number. Thats to keep the cheap owners from just pocketing the money. That brings me to another point, revenue sharing. The nba was the first team sport with a salary cap and revenue sharing. For the most part, its a pretty good model, but with the new economic culture, there should be modifications. La,Boston,Chicago,Ny benefit greatly from the population within their reach. Those teams are considered high revenue because of the money they get from local tv and radio. These reveues should be put in the pot and distributed. This is what makes the nfl special. Those markets command more because they reach more people, but for the solvency of the league, Sacramento,Indy,and New Orleans should be punished because they can't reach as many viewers and listeners as those markets.
