There needs to be more balance in the NBA. What if each team could only sign 1 max player?

[MrPerfect1]

If you genuinely love basketball, you want to see the best players play with each other and against each other. This means that some teams - again, the smart teams that draft well and make good trades - are stacked with talent while other teams are working to get to that point.

Totally disagree. Seeing the Best players playing with each other often takes away from each since they have to sacrifice some for the other. Does anyone in the world think that Curry is more fun to watch this year than he was last year without Durant? Heck, even Westbrook is more entertaining to watch without Durant. Wade was likely more fun to watch before Lebron and Bosh arrived. Wade vs Lebron used to be appointment TV, that all went away once they teamed up. MIA vs CLE went from awesome to sucky once Lebron joined the Heat.

In your world, there's no possibility for the Lakers vs Celtics rivalry, which is what turned the NBA into a legitimate sporting league. There's no possibility of Michael Jordan playing alongside another superstar for most of his career. There's essentially no possibility of all the great Western conference teams of the past 10-15 years. The only people who would want that are the handful of fans of incompetent franchises who have given up all hope of building a contender.

Your last sentence is comically absurd. Only fans of incompetent teams want to watch competitive games regularly or want to watch playoffs where all teams have a chance to win?

Parity means no rivalry??????? The NFL has much better parity. Someone should let Pitt and Balt know that they do not have a rivalry. Someone should have told the Carroll Seahhawks and Harbaugh 49ers that they had no rivalry, etc.

Michael Jordan never teaming up with another star wouldn't have been a bad outcome. Not sure why you present it like it would be some tragedy. Dirk won a title as the only real star on his team, pretty sure Jordan would have still ended up OK.

[Coolwhip]

The union would never agree to that. You realize this would screw players outs of millions of dollars

That's workable. Sign for a percentge of the cap total by year, and adjust the cap total as necessary. Same $ being paid out. I'm not in favour of that, just sayin...

You think the superstar players are going to be happy with that? Making less money so an end of the bench guys makes a little more? Players like lebron already are underpaid. The union is about staying united as players, not making concessions so the owners or fans can have a more competitive team. So I wouldn't agree with your point that its workable

[XxIronChainzxX]

This basically penalizes teams for being smarter than everyone else in terms of drafting and team building.

Getting around the 1 max contract rule would be pretty easy. Steph, we're going to start your contract at $1 less than the max.

Plus there's no incentive for the league to create parity. Super teams create interest and increase TV ratings. They mean money.

That is easily correctable: Only 1 player on a team can make the max, the next highest team contract can only be for 2/3 of the max.

Or just make a true max up to 70% of the cap instead of capping it at 35%. Good luck fitting multiple when 1 player takes up 50%-75% of the cap

The players association is not agreeing to that.

The better way to keep teams from hoarding stars is to get rid of the max contact altogether. Somebody wants to pay Durant or Stpeh $50 million per this summer, let them. They'll still have to fit players under the cap but it will spread out the best talent.

That won't stop players from wanting to stack up. A team with 3 elite max players and ring chasers on min contracts beats out a more balanced roster. It has to be a pure hard cap, or else you can just build your bench through the tax.

[The_Hater]

That is easily correctable: Only 1 player on a team can make the max, the next highest team contract can only be for 2/3 of the max.

Or just make a true max up to 70% of the cap instead of capping it at 35%. Good luck fitting multiple when 1 player takes up 50%-75% of the cap

The players association is not agreeing to that.

The better way to keep teams from hoarding stars is to get rid of the max contact altogether. Somebody wants to pay Durant or Stpeh $50 million per this summer, let them. They'll still have to fit players under the cap but it will spread out the best talent.

That won't stop players from wanting to stack up. A team with 3 elite max players and ring chasers on min contracts beats out a more balanced roster. It has to be a pure hard cap, or else you can just build your bench through the tax.

If players want to take pay cuts, there's absolutely nothing that can be done from watching them join up. But if there's no max salary, they're all leaving far more money on the table than they would otherwise.

[Pablo Escobar]

They didn't have competitive balance back in the day. Why should it be any different now? in the 80s you had the Lakers and Celtics with stacked teams winning, and people called that the "golden era." In the 90s you had Jordan winning 6 and it would've been 8 if he didn't take 2 years off. Point is the league has always been about stacked teams, parity never existed!

[XxIronChainzxX]

The players association is not agreeing to that.

The better way to keep teams from hoarding stars is to get rid of the max contact altogether. Somebody wants to pay Durant or Stpeh $50 million per this summer, let them. They'll still have to fit players under the cap but it will spread out the best talent.

That won't stop players from wanting to stack up. A team with 3 elite max players and ring chasers on min contracts beats out a more balanced roster. It has to be a pure hard cap, or else you can just build your bench through the tax.

If players want to take pay cuts, there's absolutely nothing that can be done from watching them join up. But if there's no max salary, they're all leaving far more money on the table than they would otherwise.

It won't work like that, because of the sheer chaos that's going to follow if this system gets set up. Teams won't just start with 0 salary - they'll have to free up cap room. Idiot teams will overpay for free agents worth way less than the old max, because the league won't just be a free for all of free agents. It will be pandemonium.

Beyond that, if teams are going to offer a stupid high level of money for one player, sure, theoretically money is being left on the table, but it's also a career-killer. At that level, you're both impossible to trade and made it impossible for you to build a team around yourself.

The system is totally unworkable - but what creates the issue with max contracts now is just collusion by the players. There will be some new threshold of collusion - players taking less because their endorsements are crazy, ringer-chasers, etc. If players want to collude you can't prevent it unless you come up with hardline rules - like former MVPs can't be on the same team.

[Jakay]

The union would never agree to that. You realize this would screw players outs of millions of dollars

That's workable. Sign for a percentge of the cap total by year, and adjust the cap total as necessary. Same $ being paid out. I'm not in favour of that, just sayin...

You think the superstar players are going to be happy with that? Making less money so an end of the bench guys makes a little more? Players like lebron already are underpaid. The union is about staying united as players, not making concessions so the owners or fans can have a more competitive team. So I wouldn't agree with your point that its workable

Actually it would be exactly the same as it is now. Like, exactly. Only represented as percentages of a cap.

[Sixerscan]

That won't stop players from wanting to stack up. A team with 3 elite max players and ring chasers on min contracts beats out a more balanced roster. It has to be a pure hard cap, or else you can just build your bench through the tax.

If players want to take pay cuts, there's absolutely nothing that can be done from watching them join up. But if there's no max salary, they're all leaving far more money on the table than they would otherwise.

It won't work like that, because of the sheer chaos that's going to follow if this system gets set up. Teams won't just start with 0 salary - they'll have to free up cap room. Idiot teams will overpay for free agents worth way less than the old max, because the league won't just be a free for all of free agents. It will be pandemonium.

Beyond that, if teams are going to offer a stupid high level of money for one player, sure, theoretically money is being left on the table, but it's also a career-killer. At that level, you're both impossible to trade and made it impossible for you to build a team around yourself.

The system is totally unworkable - but what creates the issue with max contracts now is just collusion by the players. There will be some new threshold of collusion - players taking less because their endorsements are crazy, ringer-chasers, etc. If players want to collude you can't prevent it unless you come up with hardline rules - like former MVPs can't be on the same team.

Who is colluding by not taking max contracts right now?

[jbk1234]

This basically penalizes teams for being smarter than everyone else in terms of drafting and team building.

Getting around the 1 max contract rule would be pretty easy. Steph, we're going to start your contract at $1 less than the max.

Plus there's no incentive for the league to create parity. Super teams create interest and increase TV ratings. They mean money.

That is easily correctable: Only 1 player on a team can make the max, the next highest team contract can only be for 2/3 of the max.

Or just make a true max up to 70% of the cap instead of capping it at 35%. Good luck fitting multiple when 1 player takes up 50%-75% of the cap

The players association is not agreeing to that.

The better way to keep teams from hoarding stars is to get rid of the max contact altogether. Somebody wants to pay Durant or Stpeh $50 million per this summer, let them. They'll still have to fit players under the cap but it will spread out the best talent.

There are 480 players on rosters in the NBA. They'll never agree to a no max rule because the overwhelming majority of them would never get it. So long as there's a cap, and there always will be, any extra salary above the max comes out of the other players' pockets. I think you can limit it to one max contract, one rookie max contract, and the next highest salary being 2/3 of the max and get a majority of the players to go along.

Even this won't fix everything though. There aren't 30 true max players in the NBA right now and some of the top 20 are on rookie max deals. You're still going to have team giving max contracts to undeserving players either to retain their own guys or poach other teams good players. There aren't enough max players to go around and teams will give max money to players who aren't worth it. There's no getting around bad management.

[The_Hater]

That is easily correctable: Only 1 player on a team can make the max, the next highest team contract can only be for 2/3 of the max.

Or just make a true max up to 70% of the cap instead of capping it at 35%. Good luck fitting multiple when 1 player takes up 50%-75% of the cap

The players association is not agreeing to that.

The better way to keep teams from hoarding stars is to get rid of the max contact altogether. Somebody wants to pay Durant or Stpeh $50 million per this summer, let them. They'll still have to fit players under the cap but it will spread out the best talent.

There are 480 players on rosters in the NBA. They'll never agree to a no max rule because the overwhelming majority of them would never get it. So long as there's a cap, and there always will be, any extra salary above the max comes out of the other players' pockets. I think you can limit it to one max contract, one rookie max contract, and the next highest salary being 2/3 of the max and get a majority of the players to go along.

Even this won't fix everything though. There aren't 30 true max players in the NBA right now and some of the top 20 are on rookie max deals. You're still going to have team giving max contracts to undeserving players either to retain their own guys or poach other teams good players. There aren't enough max players to go around and teams will give max money to players who aren't worth it. There's no getting around bad management.

The max contract rule (dollars was originally pushed by the owners during labor negotiations, not the players association. The players association would prefer this didn't exist like MLB and NFL.

[perempe20]

limit the $20+ million salaries to two!

[Alex DeLarge]

I don't think it's fair to essentially guarantee a superstar talent to franchises that are as poorly run as the Kings.