What changes would you make to the new CBA?

[knicksfan84]

What changes to the CBA would you guys like to see? Some fans, especially smaller market teams want to see a "franchise tag," some want a hard cap and some like the current system. So just list a few things you guys want to see and things you definately don't want to see.

- Revenue sharing. I'm not sure how much the NBA makes annually (I've seen about 3.3 billion), but revenue sharing is a must. It leads to a better product on the court and this is a major concession to smaller market teams as opposed to a franchise tag (which I'm 100% against).

- Hard salary cap. Is a must imo, the Lakers have a 90 million dollar payroll and when you include the 20 million they'll pay to the luxary tax, they have a 110 million dollar pay roll. That's 190% of the current salary cap. Compare that to Sacremento which has a payroll of 44 million. I don't know what I'd set the salary cap at (hard cap will raise it to atleast the luxary tax threshold), but the salary floor should be were the cap is know at roughly 58 million. With the addition of a hard cap that means no more luxary tax payments (too much incentive to dump salary if you aren't a championship caliber team) and no more MLE, LLE or Bird Rights.

- No rollbacks on current player deals. No contracts should be effected by the new CBA, teams with high player salaries like NYK, LAL, MIA or BOS should have to manuever under the cap to keep these teams, but with a higher cap, it should be easier. However, I would tinker with player raises on "max deals". With a hard cap, 10% raises while the salary cap doesn't always increade annually makes no sense. If a player signed a "max deal" or the raises in the current deal go beyond that of a "max deal", all raises should be equal to the increase in the salary cap.
Obviously I'm proposing a drastic change to the salary cap, so for the sake of the argument, since I proposed that the current salary cap is the new salary floor, "max deals" will be based of the salary floor.
So let me break down the player raises further. Players who sign less than "max deal" will get the annual increases that they signed for. Players like LeBron James who signed deals less than the max, but have increases that carry them beyond 30% of the salary floor, will have the contracts increase annually, but will halt once it reaches 30% of the salary floor (since he had 7 years experience at the time the deal was signed, he's only eligable for 30%) and only increase as the salary floor increases. Players like Amar'e Stoudamire will have no annual increase unless the cap goes up and the increase will be equal to the raise in the salary floor.

- Future player contracts. Right now players with 10+ years in the league can sign for up to 35% of the salary cap (20.3 million) and that's too much imo. I would knock down each "tier" by 5%. Players with 10+ years experience can sign for up to 30% of the salary floor ($17.4 million). Players with 7-9 years experience can sign for up to 25% of the salary floor ($14.5 million currently). Players with 4-6 years experience can sign for 20% of the salary floor ($11.6 million). Also only the first 3 years of a contract can be garunteed (total 5 years offered). With a hard cap, there has to be some way to get out of contracts.

- Incentives to resign with old club. With the ability to go over the cap to resign a player gone as well as the ability to give 10% raises on "max deals" gone, it does seem as clubs will have less of an advantage in resigning the own free agents. I believe revenue sharring is a huge concession and I would also give the old clubs the ability to garuntee a 4th year (total 6 offered)

[Big Shamrock]

I hope you're getting some college credits for that essay

[rumdiary]

The Orlando Magic are owned by the same family who owns Blackwater Mercenary Ops, who are guilty of multiple crimes against humanity.

I would ban UN recognized war criminals from owning teams!


edit: realistically though, I would go for revenue sharing and not making the players take a 1/3rd hit in their salaries.

edit2: and naked cheerleaders.

[taurophobia]

let you go pro right out of 8th grade lol j/k

[KevinMcreynolds]

1) Naked cheerleaders
2) Remove Stern
3) Remove all refs and replace them with robots
4) Naked cheerleaders

[The Explorer]

-Increase age limit to 20. I think 19 is fine for the NBA, but the college game has been suffering in recent years. It would have helped a guy like B. Jennings to go to college and learn about the world for a couple of years.

-Less guaranteed money for contracts that are not superstar players. I think more incentive based contracts would aid.

[HumbleBumbleBee]

What ever breaks up "superstar teams" - yes I am a hater....

Hard cap
Non guaranteed contacts

[Cammo101]

-Get rid of age limit/one and done rule.
-Contract the Kings and Bobcats.
-Move the Hornets to Vegas.
-Institute a hard cap.
-Dis-allow sign and trades of free agents (aka, Bird rights circumventing)
-Have re-signed free agents only cost 80% toward the salary cap. Players traded for or free agents from other teams count 100%.
-Stop allowing the league to openly cheat for Boston and LA.
-Add a one team per franchise true minor league system.
-Expand the NBA draft to 4 rounds.
-Put a system in place that grades NBA refs based on performance and is visable to the public at the end of every season.

[Kosar86]

If you are going to keep fully guaranteed contracts, eliminate player options after 3 years. If a player wants only a 3 year contract, fine. All 4 year deals would include a team option for the 5th year (at a 110% raise or something similar).

[Soupman]

I hope you're getting some college credits for that essay

Add a franchise tag,hard cap,better protection of coaches,better revenue sharing, better national tv rights deals/packages for non-elite/small market teams.

[Curmudgeon]

I posted this elsewhere, so here it goes again.

"Why completely overhaul the current system? If the owners attempt to do that, there will almost certainly be a lockout, if only because it takes an incredible amount of time and effort to reinvent the wheel.

I'd leave the current system pretty much in place with 3 relatively modest changes:

1. Guaranteed contracts are limited to three years. I see no need to change the current rules on signing bonuses, although you may want to permit modest bonuses for players who sign for the vet minimum.

2. Modest reduction in the percentage of BRI that the players share. The various salary caps come down a bit, along with the rookie scale. I like the idea of putting the difference into a pool to be distributed to "have not" teams along with the luxury tax money. But owners would be required to reinvest both this money and the luxury tax distributions in their teams. There wouldn't be this bull where the owners just pocket the money, which happens all the time in baseball. Yes, that's "socialism." So what?

3. A non exclusive franchise tag on one player per year for a maximum of two years per player (it's 3 years in the NFL). A team that franchises a player would be forced to insure that player's salary for three years. That protect's the player if he suffers a career-ending injury during his franchise year, since he would have received three years guaranteed as a free agent. As in the NFL, a tagged player could negotiate with other teams, sign an offer sheet, etc. It would work just like NBA restricted free agency, except that there would be a compensatory draft pick if the team that franchised the player elected not to match an offer sheet. IMO this should be an extra "sandwich pick" between the first and second rouinds like the ones in baseball. One is enough, since individual picks are worth much more when your draft is only two rounds."

[D21]

Hard cap
Non guaranteed contacts

No need of hard cap if :
- owners did not make stupid contracts, but they did and will do unless it's not allowed
- create a rule for at least x% of the contract being Team Performance Bonus.

It's not the worst case, but does anybody think serious that Hinrich has a bonus of 100,000k if his team make it to the second round ? On a 9,000,000 season ?

That's just awesome.
Players contracts should look more like that :
6,000,000 if no playoffs
+ 500,000 if first round
+ 600,000 if second round
+ 700,000 if CF
+ 800,000 if NBA Finals
+ 400,000 if NBA Champions

Total : 9,000,000

Maybe the proportion need to be adjusted (start at 5M and end at 10M), but let's just be realistic, teams make more money by winning, so it should be the same for players contract.

When you think that at least 90% of players are more interested by what brings a basketball player life, than by the game itself and winning a championship (see Benson's blog on Hoopshype), how can you hope that your players will make everything they can to make the team winning more games ?
By money, and nothing else.

And this way, goodbye tanking for higher chance of a better pick.

And since most owners are making bad contracts unless they can't, don't just allow them to make contract like that, but make it a rule they always have to follow.

[Curmudgeon]

I'm shocked to see so many people here who think the owners are going to get all kinds of givebacks from the players. The owners will get a few concessions, but nothing like what is being discussed here. The NBA isn't the NFL. NBA players (and agents) have much more power than their counterparts in football. If the owners push too hard and lock the players out, the first step the players will take is to decertify the union and sue the league for anti-trust violations. They could also threaten to form their own league-- one in which the players have part ownership of the franchises and will therefore work for less. There is a ton of venture capital money sitting on the sidelines in this economy, and I'm sure the players could get financing. And they wouldn't need that much money, just enough to rent a gym and buy uniforms, sneakers and a ball.

What will the owners do then, hire replacement players from the USBL? All it would take is a dozen or so players and agents with cojones to put the NBA effectively out of business. They'll have a dead league, and franchises now worth many millions will become worthless.