RealGM

I hope this is in the right area of discussion...

With Ricky Rubio's agent implying his client would only be interested in playing in a large market (where he'd be able to make up for the cost of his buyout through lucrative sponsorship deals) I wanted to ask your thoughts on the $500k max that NBA teams are allowed to contribute to a player's buyout from a non-NBA team.
Rubio's buyout with his current team is somewhere around $8M, leaving Rubio to pay the rest out of pocket.

Now, would the league be better served if they raised the max a team could contribute to a contractual buyout? Or maybe even remove it?

Would this benefit the large-market teams who have more money to spend?

Or, if a team can fully buy out a contract, should a certain portion count against the cap? 9(eg: 50%)

Is this something that needs to be addressed, as the NBA moves forward towards globalization, and buyouts become more frequent?

I'd hate to see Rubio (or any undrafted player) try to dictate where they will and will not play, and leave smaller market teams holding the bag if the player refuses to report. Is there anything the NBA could implement that might either stop this type of behavior, or offer teams more freedom in absorbing a players contractual obligations overseas?

My thoughts are an NBA team should not be allowed to give a foreign company $500k to buy a player without the $500k counting against the teams salary cap. The amount shouldn't be increased. The practice should be reviewed and consideration should be given to disallowing it in the future. It's an unjust benefit to teams that hire foreign players rather than domestic players.

d-train wrote:My thoughts are an NBA team should not be allowed to give a foreign company $500k to buy a player without the $500k counting against the teams salary cap. The amount shouldn't be increased. The practice should be reviewed and consideration should be given to disallowing it in the future. It's an unjust benefit to teams that hire foreign players rather than domestic players.

So you would be in favor of Portland having had to add $500k each to its team salary when they signed Rodriguez, Fernandez and Batum? And that's not counting any luxury tax obligations they may incur as a result.