This CBA sucks

[ConSarnit]

My opinion has always been that ownership shouldn't be cap penalized for the full amount so they can still reward the player but don't completely hinder roster flexibility. Maybe they put a .75x lever on them to turn an owner paying a player $50m that season to only having a $37.5m cap hit.... Illustrative numbers, but you get the idea

Why wouldn’t player salaries count in the entirety? Is this only highly paid player? This sounds like a way of going back to stacking the deck if you are talking about only high level players. If it is everybody, the cap would just artificially change to balance out.

No, I meant the players that meet the eligibility for these crazy contracts which only one team can offer - ideally scale back to designated rookie scale extensions.

The team has to decide between keeping their player happy and future flexibility.

I like seeing stars with the teams which drafted them and tools like the designated rookie max are a great way for that incumbent team to be competitive against the rest of the league - I don't see the need to fully penalize them for using those for their intended purpose as per the CBA.

I tend to agree that teams should receive some sort of cap discount for homegrown players. I don’t understand why teams are punished for drafting and developing star players. I feel like any homegrown super max (35%) player should only count against the tax at 30%. This would give teams who have done things the “right” way some leeway. I’m no Celtics fan but I don’t believe they should be punished because they were smart enough to draft Tatum and Brown. I could maybe be talked into a rookie max discount as well, at least off the of the 30% max.

[HawksVictory]

Cba is great, saved us from endless LeBron and Warriors finals. Small market teams actually have a chance now, and rich teams can't just buy the title

Compare this with the Dodgers and baseball, where the season is already over for half the league.

[ballzboyee]

Boston fans should be happy the second apron is forcing them to retool their roster. You still have two supermax guys and Brown. The rest of your players are expendable. It good GM should easily be able to build a 60+ win team around that core.

[ConSarnit]

I don't think the CBA is really hurting the Celtics. It's the Tatum injury. They re-signed everyone and set themselves up to pay a massive tax bill this year because they had a clear and obvious title window. But as much as people talk about their payroll, few realize how well they left themselves positioned for 2026-27 season not just to duck not the 2nd apron but the luxury tax altogether. Their (former, but still managing) owner came out and said how he doesn't think anyone will stay in the 2nd apron for more than 2 years because of the crippling basketball penalties around it but you can do it for those two years financially if the team is worth it on the court. They set themselves to stay over the 2nd apron for 3 years for a team very much worth it on the court, which is an extra year because some of the penalties were delayed that first year.

The "crunch" for the Celtics now is that because of the Tatum injury they probably have some urgency to duck 2nd apron and/or luxury tax now which they didn't really leave themselves feasible avenues to do so for this upcoming season. They never really factored in a season lost to injury for Tatum into their plans so now they either have to bite the bullet and still pay the costs this year or mortgage their future of assets to to get out of the high payroll a year earlier than they set themselves up to do.

John Hollinger (who is plugged into the league) has been reporting that it’s known that the Celtics were planning to dump salary this off-season for a year now so this doesn’t really line up with the idea that they are only doing it because of the Tatum injury.

[Pointgod]

Yeah I know obviously a celtics fan,

but why is it so hard to cut money even when you're trying to do the "right" thing? They should just make the second apron essentially a hard cap and you can spend up to it how you wish. From what I read, they even made it so you can't trade a guaranteed contract for a non guaranteed contract over the apron, why are they trying to lock you into the apron?

Honestly don't know anyone who enjoy this CBA. It kind of took a lot of fun out of trades and even killed the buy out market which was 99% hype and 1% production (almost always somebody washed up who makes zero impact).

The CBA is beyond idiotic because it was literally structured to stop one owner, Steve Ballmer. And at the end of the day Kawhi’s knees were more relevant to the Clippers than Ballmer’s pockets.

The idea that the NBA is a better product when you’re forced to dismantle a championship team after 2 years vs giving them an extended run is idiotic. But all of the owners of small market teams even handcuffed themselves. Boston is a really good example of how a punitive CBA wasn’t needed to force parity, NBA teams just needed to get better GMs and decision makers in the front office.

[meekrab]

This CBA increases importance of having good GMs who can find value in margins. Another change I am expecting is that teams will be extremely hesitant giving supermax contract unless someone is close to a top10 player.

Not just supermax but any extension has to be weighed carefully to make sure that you're paying the player based on what you expect him to do for the franchise in the future and not what he's done in the past.

Correct answer right here, so far everyone has either grit their teeth and taken the hit for a year or two or else dumped their expensive players before getting into it rather than play moderate hardball at the negotiating table. If this CBA sticks around long term you're going to see at least a few all stars resigning with their team for a number they don't like in order to try to win.

[WargamesX]

The reason the CBA sucks is they are attempting to pay the star players as close to their actual worth as they can and in attempting to do so they gutted the middle class contracts. You either have overpaid players or actual stars who are paid to much to have their roster’s work and then a bunch of players who are underpaid.

Not that this is the place to get into it but it’s a metaphor for America….

[NotaHypeJob]

The worst era of NBA was the 70s where there was too much parity. Some of you guys sound delusional saying that parity is what casual fans want. This CBA is legit horrible, we haven't had a good finals since 2019 and this year will be another lame one. The season is way too long to not end up with greatness vs greatness

[Chuck Everett]

The worst era of NBA was the 70s where there was too much parity. Some of you guys sound delusional saying that parity is what casual fans want. This CBA is legit horrible, we haven't had a good finals since 2019 and this year will be another lame one. The season is way too long to not end up with greatness vs greatness

So we haven't had a good finals since even before this CBA was introduced (and affected the NBA as a whole)? Why is it bad then?

[2011dirk]

The Celtics completely mismanaged their payroll. That's not the NBA's fault.

Why did they sign a 34 year old J-Rue Holiday to a ridiculous contract? Who else was going to offer him anything remotely close? They could have signed a vet to fill that role and provide slightly less production at a literal fraction of the cost.

I do absolutely agree with your point. But from the celtics side, with jrue, brown, and tatum (healthy obviously), they were pretty much guaranted a multi year championship window.

[Drakeem]

It is beyond stupid. It penalizes teams for having great players. Needs to be tweaked immensely. Look at the situation Cleveland ended up in. They signed Mobley to a rookie max that he definitely deserved but the contract now turned into a cap killer because he got the DPOY. DPOY is great achievement but it doesn’t make you a player that can carry a team. They need to fix how max contracts count against the cap and the tax. These contracts should never count more than 30 percent. That way teams won’t second guess themselves extending their best players without making it impossible to build around these players.

IMO stuff like this just makes me believe that the issue lies more with the market itself needing a correction for players. There’s been a tendency to just auto max your young players once they look like they can be more than just an average starter.

I think it’s going to take a while but eventually teams are going to restructure spending habits out of necessity.

[Jadoogar]

The Celtics completely mismanaged their payroll. That's not the NBA's fault.

Why did they sign a 34 year old J-Rue Holiday to a ridiculous contract? Who else was going to offer him anything remotely close? They could have signed a vet to fill that role and provide slightly less production at a literal fraction of the cost.

Similarly for other players/contracts, I have no idea why they didn't use declining contracts rather than escalations to more effectively manage their payroll. That's 100% on the GM.

Lastly, one-dimensional players like Sam Hauser should not be getting $10MM/year on a team strapped for cash. You can get one-dimensional players at vet minimum contract or even rookie contracts.

I don't have any sympathy for the situation because they knew the impact of the new CBA well in advance of some of their financial decisions.

Honestly, every champion has to pay this bill at some point. You go all-in to win the title and you end up being left with a big bill after. It happened with the Bucks in terms of draft picks, Nuggets have an extremely high payroll, Warriors are stuck with a massive deal for Draymond and had to lose Klay for nothing.

Unless you're the Lakers, there is a cost to building a title team, weather is pushing in all your draft picks or having an unsustainable salary bill.

[Drakeem]

The reason the CBA sucks is they are attempting to pay the star players as close to their actual worth as they can and in attempting to do so they gutted the middle class contracts. You either have overpaid players or actual stars who are paid to much to have their roster’s work and then a bunch of players who are underpaid.

Not that this is the place to get into it but it’s a metaphor for America….

Is it fair to call them underpaid if their on court value is only a fraction of a true super star? We can very well make the argument that most are OVERPAID based on production and impact.

[djsunyc]

superteams were forming so they came up a way to deter that...and it is working. there's alot of parity now and no dynasties. why is this a bad thing? this was in a response to prior complaints. they will tweak it some more based on feedback of this one.

[WargamesX]

The reason the CBA sucks is they are attempting to pay the star players as close to their actual worth as they can and in attempting to do so they gutted the middle class contracts. You either have overpaid players or actual stars who are paid to much to have their roster’s work and then a bunch of players who are underpaid.

Not that this is the place to get into it but it’s a metaphor for America….

Is it fair to call them underpaid if their on court value is only a fraction of a true super star? We can very well make the argument that most are OVERPAID based on production and impact.

There are no superstars who can carry a team by theirselves but there are superstars paid like they can

They are underpaid if you can’t get enough of them to have a functioning team. Looking at them as an individual doesn’t account for the value having depth is. Right now with the CBA the Celtics are overpriced because they paid guys what they are basically worth and are going to have issues moving them because everybody else roster is either guys who are underpaid or overpaid.

[TheGeneral99]

I do agree that there should be some relief for teams that draft good players and do it the right way. It doesn't make much sense to penalize teams for drafting well when the whole point of the CBA changes was to prevent big markets from getting stars and forming super teams.

But the CBA is effective at creating parity and limiting the formation of super teams, which I very much approve off.

[Myth]

My opinion has always been that ownership shouldn't be cap penalized for the full amount so they can still reward the player but don't completely hinder roster flexibility. Maybe they put a .75x lever on them to turn an owner paying a player $50m that season to only having a $37.5m cap hit.... Illustrative numbers, but you get the idea

Why wouldn’t player salaries count in the entirety? Is this only highly paid player? This sounds like a way of going back to stacking the deck if you are talking about only high level players. If it is everybody, the cap would just artificially change to balance out.

No, I meant the players that meet the eligibility for these crazy contracts which only one team can offer - ideally scale back to designated rookie scale extensions.

The team has to decide between keeping their player happy and future flexibility.

I like seeing stars with the teams which drafted them and tools like the designated rookie max are a great way for that incumbent team to be competitive against the rest of the league - I don't see the need to fully penalize them for using those for their intended purpose as per the CBA.

I could see being on board with drafted players or players who had been on a team for an extended period of time (3 years?) being signed with a percentage that doesn't get taxed, or maybe a percentage over a certain amount. Though, the moment a team trades for them, I think that team should have to have the full amount count. For the Celtics, this could mean that their tax bill isn't crazy for retaining their drafted players. I'd maybe want other restrictions of being over the cap in terms of acquiring new players still to be in place while only having the tax relief for retaining players.

[ballzboyee]

superteams were forming so they came up a way to deter that...and it is working. there's alot of parity now and no dynasties. why is this a bad thing? this was in a response to prior complaints. they will tweak it some more based on feedback of this one.

Yep, NBA ratings are way up this playoffs and we have four teams left that have not won a championship in a long time or ever as in the case of Minnesota. Injuries aside, the playoffs this year have been amazing to watch. Superteam Era was revolting in its excess and the way players and spend-happy teams colluded to control the overall league balance. That era produced a terrible product with only three or four teams that mattered from a realistic competitive standpoint. Most rs games were irrelevant, and this suppression of the rest of the league turned a lot of fans off. The league was also just flat boring.

[hugepatsfan]

I don't think the CBA is really hurting the Celtics. It's the Tatum injury. They re-signed everyone and set themselves up to pay a massive tax bill this year because they had a clear and obvious title window. But as much as people talk about their payroll, few realize how well they left themselves positioned for 2026-27 season not just to duck not the 2nd apron but the luxury tax altogether. Their (former, but still managing) owner came out and said how he doesn't think anyone will stay in the 2nd apron for more than 2 years because of the crippling basketball penalties around it but you can do it for those two years financially if the team is worth it on the court. They set themselves to stay over the 2nd apron for 3 years for a team very much worth it on the court, which is an extra year because some of the penalties were delayed that first year.

The "crunch" for the Celtics now is that because of the Tatum injury they probably have some urgency to duck 2nd apron and/or luxury tax now which they didn't really leave themselves feasible avenues to do so for this upcoming season. They never really factored in a season lost to injury for Tatum into their plans so now they either have to bite the bullet and still pay the costs this year or mortgage their future of assets to to get out of the high payroll a year earlier than they set themselves up to do.

John Hollinger (who is plugged into the league) has been reporting that it’s known that the Celtics were planning to dump salary this off-season for a year now so this doesn’t really line up with the idea that they are only doing it because of the Tatum injury.

Can you link me to that reporting?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5569914/2024/06/18/boston-celtics-salary-cap-nba-free-agency/

Here's an article from after their title where he's reporting hearing that they planned to re-sign White and Hauser (like they did). He does allude to them being a favorite in 24-25 and then possibly facing some tough decisions.

And even so, then looking to dump salary this offseason doesn't necessarily conflict with how they seemed to have set up their timeline. They still would have needed to do that. As of right now, assuming they draft at #28 and #32 this year, sign those picks, and then draft at #28 again next year (which is probably about where they would have picked if not for Tatum injury) then they'd be about $7.8M above the projected tax line with 12 players signed by my calculations:

White / Pritchard
Holiday / Scheierman
Brown / Hauser / Walsh
Tatum
Queta
+ 2025 #28 pick, 2025 #32 pick, 2026 #28 pick

They'd still need to fill two more spots, likely via vet min, so add about $4-5M, so they'd need to clear probably $12-13M in salary. Their resources are also heavily allocated to the perimeter positions so reallocating would make sense too.

It's always easier to move money a year sooner than you need to clear it. It gets tougher when you're chasing the savings int he current year. For instance, if BOS tried to dump Hauser into a TPE or MLE this year they likely get nothing back, maybe even need to send a second. But if they moved him for an expiring player, then they accomplish the goal of clearing it off the books for next year except they probably get an asset back (provide the expiring player back is of the "filler" classification). Trading Jrue's 2026-27 salary for a guy immediately making $12M less would be potentially difficult, but easier to do now because you could trade him for about equal money back in the form of multiple players where one of them is expiring. Makes it an easier deal for the other team.

I expected some movement this offseason to get a head start on things and put themselves in position to make better value deals, but I doubt that without the Tatum injury they'd have made the type of heavily focused cost cutting moves I'd expect now. And while Hollinger and others may have pointed to them doing some tinkering, I don't think talks of a more comprehensive teardown were really heavily out there.

[TravisScott55]

This doesn't do anything for that. Owners have a set spend as a group...

It has everything to do with it. A lot of the owners didn't want to go over the tax to have a competing team

They don't really care about going over in general. The issue is there other penalties. The NBA doesn't want the owners to go over. That was the point of all of this.

Of course owners care about that. A lot of them are cheap and didn't want to pay luxury tax. They wanted these rules so they they could keep up with the owners that don't care about paying the luxury tax.