This CBA sucks

[Tor_Raps]

Signing blank checks are a day of the past... have smarter management to find how to build a sustainable winner. These automatic max deals for rookies and non stars should be a thing of the past.

If you aren't a top 20 player in the NBA, you should start expecting less than the max in a few years. NBA teams/players haven't figured out the right price points yet.

[FarBeyondDriven]

I think it's great. It only seems onerous because so many teams got caught with their pants down. Once the dust settles and everyone figures it out it'll be much better than the old system. I'm kinda surprised the players agreed though since it's pretty clearly meant to dissuade overpaying players.

[Raps in 4]

Signing blank checks are a day of the past... have smarter management to find how to build a sustainable winner. These automatic max deals for rookies and non stars should be a thing of the past.

If you aren't a top 20 player in the NBA, you should start expecting less than the max in a few years. NBA teams/players haven't figured out the right price points yet.

Picks are also going to become a lot more valuable. I suspect we won't be seeing a lot of those crazy trades where a team gives up a decade of picks anymore.

[dhsilv2]

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.

The richest or at least most willing to spend owners are the ones cutting back due to these changes. And the biggest drives are the penalties. They're crippling far more than just the costs.

[celtics543]

As a Celtics fan the only part that sucks is that they did build the right way and now they're being penalized for it.

Drafted Tatum, Brown, Pritchard, Hauser

And even then, they can't really pay Brown and Tatum while affording to have anyone else. If you can be great at drafting and can't afford to keep the guys you picked then there's something wrong.

I would love to see a system that was set up to help teams keep the players they drafted, whether some kind of cap exception or whatever because someone like Giannis in Milwaukee helps the league. Dallas never should have felt like they couldn't afford Luka because of the supermax. Players being incentivized to stay where they were drafted and owners being helped to keep them would be nice.

[sp6r=underrated]

The NBA’s CBA has had three major problems dating back to the nineties, accepting the general NBA framework of a closed cartel, salary cap and set revenue split between management and the players. The three issues are:

A. Rookie scale contracts.
B. Maximum individual salaries.
C. Maximum Individual contract lengths.

Maximum individual and rookie salaries ensures the median veteran is overpaid because the players are guaranteed a set percentage of revenue. Since team can’t negotiate with rookies at all or offer superstars their true market value the money that would have gone to other players flows to veteran free agents.

The players like this arrangement because the average member of the players’ union is an older veteran. The owners like this because the union was willing to accept a lower share of basketball revenue. But it makes the free agency market very dicey and loaded with potential overpaid players. The CBA guarantees most free agents perform below production.

The NBA now has maximum contract lengths of five years for re-signing your own players and four years for free agents from other teams. This was a demand of the owners who hated when they signed players to contracts that didn’t work out and were stuck with them for years. Fans liked it too but it created enormous problems.

First, due to short contract lengths the top level players have massive leverage over teams. It was short-sighted of the owners not to realize that if you underpay superstars on short contracts, they will have leverage over their team. Since all top player players will become free agents multiple times throughout their prime, they can credibly threaten to leave and they can threaten in extreme cases not to play until their contracts end. This angers fans but it was the logical outcome of not paying the top players what they are worth. Since they can’t receive maximum financial compensation, they expect compensation in the form of amenities. In the NBA this means playing with their preferred potential teammates, having their preferred coach, living in their preferred city, etc.

The second apron had made all these problems worse because it is a de facto hard salary cap. The appeal to owners of a hard salary cap is obvious, it discourages owners from going all out in targeting free agents. Even though the NBA guarantees players a set percentage of basketball revenue, the owners still want to discourage owners who are willing to spend from spending. A lot of fans like it because they are obsessed with parity.

First, different sports have different levels of parity. Basketball is inherently a low parity sport because it is a five on five sport, played on a small court, in which players can play 75-85% of the game, fast possessions and relatively easy scoring.

Second, American fans obsess with the NFL, which is America’s most sports league. The NFL is America’s most popular sports league because it sells football not basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. The NFL has more parity because the sport is riddled with injuries, careers are shorter, superstars matter less and they play a single elimination tournament which leads to more upsets. The CBA doesn’t impact parity much relative to the points above.

Third, parity may be fans stated preference but their revealed preference is for dynasties. The NBA’s popularity tends to go up when you have a dynasty in a large city built around a dynamic superstar and goes down when parity is higher. So even if NBA fans claim to like parity the evidence isn’t even clear they want it.

Accepting parity as an objective in basketball requires extreme measures. Most dynasties throughout NBA history have been built around two elite players, one of whom is an MVP level player and a good supporting cast. The second apron will require most teams to gut their supporting cast and maybe losing the lesser of their elite players if they overpaid one of their supporting cast members. KG in Minnesota situations in which superstars are stuck playing on awful teams will become more common.

I’m not certain this is true but I could see the salary cap acting as a hard cap except for the Los Angeles and New York City teams because teams in these cities have much more secure revenue streams. So I am skeptical this will really help competitive between the mega markets and the small markets.

That said I’d prefer keeping the second apron if the choice is keeping the second apron and getting rid of maximum contract lengths, salaries and the rookie scale or keeping all the above but getting rid of the second apron. The second apron does way less damage to team building than the points I identified above.

[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.

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.

again, are they worth it or do we have an over inflated value for a lot of different categories of players?

Is two current Jrue Holidays worth one Tatum? If you combine MPJ and Murray, are they worth more than Jokic on his own?

The market value for fringe all-stars/good starters has always been over inflated bc they know not every team can nab a true superstar so they have to settle.

[Chuck Everett]

As a Celtics fan the only part that sucks is that they did build the right way and now they're being penalized for it.

Drafted Tatum, Brown, Pritchard, Hauser

And even then, they can't really pay Brown and Tatum while affording to have anyone else. If you can be great at drafting and can't afford to keep the guys you picked then there's something wrong.

Why can't they keep the guys they drafted? Kornet, Horford, Porzingis, White and Jrue were not drafted by the Celtics. There's nothing stopping the Celtics from keeping the guys they drafted only. Now how good the team would be is a totally different thing.

[ChumboChappati]

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.

This should be the norm. Currently players not even top30 are getting supermax

[JujitsuFlip]

I love the new CBA, it requires much more than simply giving out large contracts left and right, when even if you end up with a meh player, you simply trade him as a salary filler with a couple of picks for a starter-level contributor on the same large contract.

- Drafting an older, but ready to contribute player in the 2nd round / end of the 1st round might become a must for many teams (on 3-4 years minimum or low AAV contract)
- Giving out 25M+ AAV contract (or adjust it to whatever % of the cap) to a meh player not sniffing being one of top-50 players in the league should become a rare occasion.
- Much less players should get max or near-max salaries. I'm not talking about Luka - I'm talking about the likes of Garland (no offense, Cavs fans), Lavine etc

Exactly what i want the Cavs to do this summer. Draft high floor guys with pick #49 and #58 in this season's draft.

[Beethoven]

I dont really follow all this cba and salary topic of the NBA much, but from what I remember in the past, I recall the NBA announcing that they will be increasing the salary cap by a certain amount (this was years ago like in the 2010s or something) and then I felt hopeful that that would add more value to the team by being able to add additional valuable players...

However what Mitch kupchak did (and others Im sure) was just automatically add that increased amount to the max contracts (or any) of any new player. Thus just basically inflating everyone's contract so thus really just nullifying the salary cap increase. So what was the purpose of the increase then? Just to inflate everyone's salary??

I think the difficulty aspect of manouvering around this new cba with the aprons and such (not sure what they really entail but will leave it all to you) actually sort of rewards those organizations/GMs who use more critical thinking in the process of building or structuring their teams. So in that sense, even though let say, my team may not benefit at the current moment and etc, I still fully support this new structure.

[EricAnderson]

For the overall health of the league and parity, it’s a great thing. This current iteration of the league no longer feels like a 2-3 contending team version. Any team can win now seemingly

Ehh we’ll see

If OKC wins this year then under the new rules while you have a new champion every year it’s still basically been one of the regular season favorites winning it all like Boston last year

If we start to see 4-7 seeds win titles then I’ll say that anyone can win and it’s wide open but until then I don’t agree

[Mrakar]

This CBA is almost perfect, only thing they should do is do minmal reduction at cap space for drafted players. For example, Tatum/Brown for Celtics or Edwards/Mcdaniels or Jokic/Murray or Curry/Green should count at 85/90% of their salary. In that way you still stop ridiculous spending by rich guys like Ishbia and Balmer, but dont punish teams for drafting well and paying their guys.

[Ainosterhaspie]

It seems like the system is set up so your best chance at competing is to have a young team full of underpaid players and as soon as you can pay them what they're actually worth the team falls apart.

The whole thing reminds me of decades of pain as an A's fan only intead of it being one team, it's the whole league. You watch your team draft well and make clever signings and the team grows for three years. Just as you can be excited as they are truly competitive, the team is blown up because it costs too much. You never get to see the potential of the core that was built.

The system is set up to prevent us from seeing the full potential of any particular group.

[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.

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.

On the May 16th episode of Hollinger and Duncan he said “Boston is definitely going to trade one of their core guys this off-season and this is something I’ve been hearing for 12 months just because the repeater kicks in and the repeater is harsh”

How true this is? I’m not sure. Hollinger does seem plugged into given he’s actually worked in an NBA front office somewhat recently.

[Ambrose]

This is the Simmons argument and I fail to feel any sympathy for the team that 'did things the right way' by trading for multiple all stars.

[celtics543]

As a Celtics fan the only part that sucks is that they did build the right way and now they're being penalized for it.

Drafted Tatum, Brown, Pritchard, Hauser

And even then, they can't really pay Brown and Tatum while affording to have anyone else. If you can be great at drafting and can't afford to keep the guys you picked then there's something wrong.

Why can't they keep the guys they drafted? Kornet, Horford, Porzingis, White and Jrue were not drafted by the Celtics. There's nothing stopping the Celtics from keeping the guys they drafted only. Now how good the team would be is a totally different thing.

Fair, they could keep them. But there are teams that can't. What happens when Chet, Jalen Williams, and SGA are all max guys? They can't possibly keep them all.

I guess if the NBA wants that kind of league then fine but I think the CBA needs some changing to help teams stay together. Personally if you don't care about players staying with the teams that drafted them I'd eliminate the max contract and put in a hard cap. Open market, superstars get a lot and then everyone else basically takes a pay cut.

[ConSarnit]

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.

Yeah, the owners did this because the the Clippers and Golden State were making them look bad. The new CBA was never about "spending to get titles".

Average league rank in salary for title winning teams over the past 10 years: 5.7

Spending insane amounts of money is no guarantee for success. The highest spending team wins the title maybe once every 5 years. The owners just wanted to give themselves an excuse to say "we can't spend the money the penalties are too severe!"

[Ssj16]

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.

I agree about the prevention of super teams forming but as a GM, if you hit on your draft picks, once they're off of their rookie salary, you're going to have a hard time building a team if you are handing out 2/3 max contracts to those players.

I agree with posters stating there should be leeway for paying your home grown guys or guys that have been on your team for 3 years or more and have it not be such a drain on your team's cap.

[jpengland]

The league should have a hard cap.

I like this CBA. Reward smart financial planning, developing talent and identifying margins.

It’s also opened up the league and allowing smart teams to quickly rise.