Cohan wins, fans lose

[FNQ]

http://www.insidebayarea.com/sports/ci_ ... source=rss

Reponse coming

[Abyss Impact]

It doesn't really matter. Cohan is god.

[warriortone]

I'm not gonna throw Cohan under the bus until either Andris or Monta leaves for money we won't match. Until then, I can't really be too angry at him.

[Sleepy51]

Re-signing the young ones is important, but assumming Baron ops out, we'll still be under the tax after both thier deals. There aren't many good teams competing while colleting the Lux Tax handout.

Utah and NO will both be shelling out max deals in the next year for their franchise PG's. You can be comeptitive at most for 2 years under the tax if you scored an immediate impact player in the draft. Other than that circumstance, if your best player is not on a rookie deal, you should pay paying lux tax rather than collecting it, unless you are ok with sucking. You have to be prepared to get off the welfare rolls to field a good team as you aquire talent and as your picks mature.

[warriortone]

Agreed, Sleepy. The real question is, have we ever been into lux tax territory while Cohan has been the owner?

[floppymoose]

Have we ever had a reason to be? Why go into the lux tax for a 19 win team?

[turk3d]

I can't see how Cohan could have won considering he is losing out on all that playoff money that he was counting on (especially after extending Nellie) that he no longer is going to get. I imagine he's pretty pissed too.

[Sleepy51]

http://www.columbialawreview.org/pdf/Kaplan-Web.pdf

I stumbled across this looking for the current team payolls/lux tax payments. It's a paper by some smart kid at Columbia explaining exactly the unintended consequences of the NBA soft cap/lux tax system.

There's a good history of the various controls sports owners have implemented over the years to protect themselves from their own stupidity, lack of restraint and greed, building all sorts of artifical barriers around the marketplace for athlete's services. All they ever needed to do was just take individual responsibility to not pay someone more than they wanted to pay, or not hire someone they didn't think could make them money. Instead they rig the game so that pretty much anyone who can pull together the scratch to buy a franchise is insulated from any possibility of actually losing money by doing a terrible job.

Specifically it highlights the fact that a team under the tax threshold is penalized FAR harsher for making the decision to pay a player a salary that takes them over the threshold than a team already over the threshold would be penalized for adding additional salary.

The reality is that team that can afford to be profitable in their markets without collecting the tax payments are already over the hump. They pay a much smaller real price on an individual salary decision than a team that has been operating under the tax. It hurts the knicks less to re-sign thier own promising talent than it does Milwuakee.

The tax is terrible, or at least distributing the tax revenue to sucky teams is terrible. Millionaires sure do love thier welfare systems.

[Sleepy51]

Have we ever had a reason to be? Why go into the lux tax for a 19 win team?

We're certainly had a number of rosters not worth paying for, but I have to wonder how many times the specter of future lux tax has limited our actions in the trade marketplace, preferring instead to move on from our poor signings by taking the path of cheaper resistance with the next unproven draft pick on a rookie deal?

And the lux tax absolutely killed this season. No two ways about that.

[FGump]

http://www.columbialawreview.org/pdf/Kaplan-Web.pdf

I stumbled across this looking for the current team payolls/lux tax payments. It's a paper by some smart kid at Columbia explaining exactly the unintended consequences of the NBA soft cap/lux tax system.

That paper's conclusions are woefully out of date, because the NBA tax rules (and effects) changed significantly in 2005 after it was written.

[floppymoose]

And the lux tax absolutely killed this season. No two ways about that.

yeah, that was my prediction at the beginning of the season (no Jason = no playoffs). I really didn't want to be right about that.

[turk3d]

http://www.columbialawreview.org/pdf/Kaplan-Web.pdf

I stumbled across this looking for the current team payolls/lux tax payments. It's a paper by some smart kid at Columbia explaining exactly the unintended consequences of the NBA soft cap/lux tax system.

There's a good history of the various controls sports owners have implemented over the years to protect themselves from their own stupidity, lack of restraint and greed, building all sorts of artifical barriers around the marketplace for athlete's services. All they ever needed to do was just take individual responsibility to not pay someone more than they wanted to pay, or not hire someone they didn't think could make them money. Instead they rig the game so that pretty much anyone who can pull together the scratch to buy a franchise is insulated from any
possibility of actually losing money by doing a terrible job.

Specifically it highlights the fact that a team under the tax threshold is penalized FAR harsher for making the decision to pay a player a salary that takes them over the threshold than a team already over the threshold would be penalized for adding additional salary.

The reality is that team that can afford to be profitable in their markets without collecting the tax payments are already over the hump. They pay a much smaller real price on an individual salary decision than a team that has been operating under the tax. It hurts the knicks less to re-sign thier own promising talent than it does Milwuakee.

The tax is terrible, or at least distributing the tax revenue to sucky teams is terrible. Millionaires sure do love thier welfare systems.

Great post Sleepy, kinda makes up for your calling me "turkey", you buttwipe.

[Sleepy51]

-= original quote snipped =-



That paper's conclusions are woefully out of date, because the NBA tax rules (and effects) changed significantly in 2005 after it was written.

The point wasn't the minutia of the tax & CBA. If they are still having one group of teams pay tax and distributing that tax to teams that arent paying it (has that changed?) then there are consequences to a competitive system inherent in that. You are discouraging one behavior and encouraging another withing the system. The conclusion's I'm specifically noting are the ones about the general principles at work in a redistributive system. If you take from producers and give to non producers you hurt the efficiency of the system in addition to it not being fair.

[iowarrior]

Sleepy, you never cease to amaze.

One minute you call someone a d-bag or "asshat" in a post and the next minute you are referencing the Columbia Law Review.

Who is fetching your smoking jacket?

[Sleepy51]

Sleepy, you never cease to amaze.

One minute you call someone a d-bag or "asshat" in a post and the next minute you are referencing the Columbia Law Review.

Who is fetching your smoking jacket?

I was looking for the lux tax payer list, and that just caught my eye. Google is the shizzle

[mistatwo mayn]

it goes back to my complaint (the Realgm shot out to 1self post) about... if you factor in max contracts for Paul + D. Will, Golden State had the smallest payroll out of all the playoff teams.

[Sleepy51]

it goes back to my complaint (the Realgm shot out to 1self post) about... if you factor in max contracts for Paul + D. Will, Golden State had the smallest payroll out of all the playoff teams.

I wsa definitely referring back to your point. It was a good one, I just didn't remember who said it or in what thread.

[FGump]

-
The point wasn't the minutia of the tax & CBA. If they are still having one group of teams pay tax and distributing that tax to teams that arent paying it (has that changed?) then there are consequences to a competitive system inherent in that.

Sorry but apparently you didn't read or comprehend the article.

First all of his data came from the 1999 CBA. His point was that the tax wasn't working as intended.

Then he proposed things to fix. Specific items listed.

And those items he listed were the very adjustments the NBA made in the 2005 CBA.

So everything about the article is completely irrelevant now. And in fact, the things he said weren't working before about the tax, are now working.

Your attempt to then say "somebody wrote a paper saying the system is broken" and pulling some of his statements out of context, is pretty bogus.

[Sleepy51]

Your attempt to then say "somebody wrote a paper saying the system is broken" and pulling some of his statements out of context, is pretty bogus.

I'm not going to go around in circles with you Gump, but that's not at all what I said. There was a prior conversation that you may have not followed. We're not talking about the same thing at all.

[Sleepy51]

I know you know the CBA inside out.

This was not about the details of the CBA it was about the economic principles of a redistributive system.

If the lux tax is still redistributive then the select elements of the article I was pointing out are still relevant. I wasn't borrowing his thesis.