Lockout

[Sleepy51]

It's a tradeoff. You say the current CBA isn't fan friendly, but it depends on the fan. League attendance and tv viewership is pretty healthy given the overall economic climate, so I'm not seeing concrete proof the current cba is failing the league for fans.

If you go all NFL/NHL and get a hard cap, you are going to have the same situation they have: Sure, teams won't be doomed to suck for years and years. But they won't be good for years either. Much of the work you do putting together a good team is out the window the next season. You get more player movement, which to some fans (like me) is a bad thing.

It really depends on what you want. Hard cap is not objectively better. Bird Rights are something a lot of fans will miss, whether they realize it or not.

Not having Bird rights does not mean you can not retain quality players. It means that you have to make intelligent decisions and keep dry powder ready so that you CAN retain those quality players. Did you know that Bird Rights were't originally even really used on Larry Bird? He had already signed a 7 year deal in 83.

The flaw in Bird rights is (as always) the unintended consequences. It's an enabling device that encouraged poor risk assessment and escalates spending. The fact that you CAN get it wrong on a contract and not be handicapped by it inevitably means that you WILL make more mistakes on contracts. The lack of consequences encourages risk taking. The dampening impact of a hard cap on overall contract offers can actually make it EASIER to retain your own players because others will be less willing to make risky bets on paying a premium to bribe players to leave good situations.

[510TWSS]

Stern: Nothing to be encouraged about in NBA talks

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-nbalabor

“From where we sit, we’re looking at a league (NFL) that was the most profitable in sports that became more profitable by virtue of concessions from their players,” Stern said, “and with an average salary of $2 million. Our average salary is 5 million, we’re not profitable and we just can’t seem to get over the gap that separates us.”

Translation: the nfl players caved to make a bunch of rich owners even richer, so we want that too. And nfl players are only paid 2 mil instead of 5. Of course, we won't mention that there are about 1700 nfl players and only a bit over 400 nba players, because that undermines our already irrelevant point. Plus we'll lie about being profitable, because the dumbass public will buy it and maybe even the players.

Because Ammurrica loves them their corporations...I mean "job creators".

Great quote!

[floppymoose]

The problems with the system are about the varied NBA markets and owner capitalization creating non-competitive teams with no way out other than lucking out every 10 years in the lotto.

The flaw in Bird rights is (as always) the unintended consequences. It's an enabling device that encouraged poor risk assessment and escalates spending. The fact that you CAN get it wrong on a contract and not be handicapped by it inevitably means that you WILL make more mistakes on contracts. The lack of consequences encourages risk taking.

Ok, I gotta admit I'm not following you at all now. You started off by saying the current cba dooms teams to being non-competitive, and then later you are saying that instead there are a lack of consequences for poor decisions. I think I must be misunderstanding you somewhere.

I think the current system absolutely does handicap you for poor decisions. And reward you for good ones.

[cellomac1212]

The problems with the system are about the varied NBA markets and owner capitalization creating non-competitive teams with no way out other than lucking out every 10 years in the lotto.

The flaw in Bird rights is (as always) the unintended consequences. It's an enabling device that encouraged poor risk assessment and escalates spending. The fact that you CAN get it wrong on a contract and not be handicapped by it inevitably means that you WILL make more mistakes on contracts. The lack of consequences encourages risk taking.

Ok, I gotta admit I'm not following you at all now. You started off by saying the current cba dooms teams to being non-competitive, and then later you are saying that instead there are a lack of consequences for poor decisions. I think I must be misunderstanding you somewhere.

I think the current system absolutely does handicap you for poor decisions. And reward you for good ones.

Just chiming in... With a hard cap every team is on an equal playing field similar to the NFL. And like the NFL not every team plays near the cap giving them an opportunity to make more money in profit. The teams that have the best business sense (not market) will strive with a hard cap. Right now with all the exceptions the NBA has, they might as well say there is no cap. Playing 20-30 million over the cap should in no ways be allowed. There's a reason the highest payed rosters are the most competitive (just like baseball). In terms of the Bird rule, with a hard cap, there should be no max contract rule. This would force the player to choose to stay in the current situation for good money, go to a bad situation for great money, or go to a better situation for okay money. Extend the contracts out to 5-7 years like good players get in the NFL, and that gives the team an ample amount of time to win with that player or keep that player. I would like to see every team have a chance and the owners be accountable for their decision making. A true hard cap is needed badly in the NBA. I just don't think it's going to happen because that would force the NBA to break up their new baby (the Miami Heat). In a business sense, imagine every game being competitive... I'm sure more fans would watch more often allowing for better TV deals, advertising, and everything else that helps create more revenue.

I'm sure the players are against a hard cap as well as it might be grounds to them losing some money or having to go else where to get it. But hey, it's the only way to make the league more competitive, which should in turn make the league more profitable.

[Sleepy51]

The problems with the system are about the varied NBA markets and owner capitalization creating non-competitive teams with no way out other than lucking out every 10 years in the lotto.

The flaw in Bird rights is (as always) the unintended consequences. It's an enabling device that encouraged poor risk assessment and escalates spending. The fact that you CAN get it wrong on a contract and not be handicapped by it inevitably means that you WILL make more mistakes on contracts. The lack of consequences encourages risk taking.

Ok, I gotta admit I'm not following you at all now. You started off by saying the current cba dooms teams to being non-competitive, and then later you are saying that instead there are a lack of consequences for poor decisions. I think I must be misunderstanding you somewhere.

I think the current system absolutely does handicap you for poor decisions. And reward you for good ones.

It's not about there being "no" consequences. It's about the unintended impact of diminishing those consequences.

The market for free agent signings amongst bad teams is smaller, and pricier than for good teams. It will always be that way to some degree, but the bigger the contracts are, the bigger that margin will be. Under the soft cap system, risk taking is being encouraged, while accurate risk assessment is being discouraged. That results in more bad decisions and poor allocation of resources. The intent may have been to help the weakest by letting them play within more "tolerate" rules, but the effect is to create market dynamics which hurt them even more ... by increasing the frequency with which they get things wrong.

The lack of a hard cap prevents a stupid team from decimating their salary structure completely in one fell swoop, but it encourages a bad team to keep making more frequent marginally bad signings which keeps them in a perpetual state of digging out from under your own feces. The current system INVITES a bad team to keep making mistakes, because "no one mistake will make you lose your franchise player." So you keep f ing up everything around that franchise player (often misidentifying one to begin with.)

It's a death by a thousand cuts.

[Sleepy51]

The problems with the system are about the varied NBA markets and owner capitalization creating non-competitive teams with no way out other than lucking out every 10 years in the lotto.

The flaw in Bird rights is (as always) the unintended consequences. It's an enabling device that encouraged poor risk assessment and escalates spending. The fact that you CAN get it wrong on a contract and not be handicapped by it inevitably means that you WILL make more mistakes on contracts. The lack of consequences encourages risk taking.

Ok, I gotta admit I'm not following you at all now. You started off by saying the current cba dooms teams to being non-competitive, and then later you are saying that instead there are a lack of consequences for poor decisions. I think I must be misunderstanding you somewhere.

I think the current system absolutely does handicap you for poor decisions. And reward you for good ones.

It's not about there being "no" consequences. It's about the unintended impact of diminishing those consequences.

The market for free agent signings amongst bad teams is smaller, and pricier than for good teams. It will always be that way to some degree, but the bigger the contracts are, the bigger that margin will be. Under the soft cap system, risk taking is being encouraged, while accurate risk assessment is being discouraged. That results in more bad decisions and poor allocation of resources. The intent may have been to help the weakest by letting them play within more "tolerate" rules, but the effect is to create market dynamics which hurt them even more ... by increasing the frequency with which they get things wrong.

The lack of a hard cap prevents a stupid team from decimating their salary structure completely in one fell swoop, but it encourages a bad team to keep making more frequent marginally bad signings which keeps them in a perpetual state of digging out from under your own feces. The current system INVITES a bad team to keep making mistakes, because "no one mistake will make you lose your franchise player." So you keep f ing up everything around that franchise player (often misidentifying one to begin with.)

It's a death by a thousand cuts.

[Sleepy51]

Bird rights and soft cap exceptions encouraged us to overpay for and overcommit to Dunleavy, Foyle,Murphy, Fisher, Maggs and Lee ... Pretty much all of whom were our "best" attainable option at the time. I am not seeing the appeal.

[floppymoose]

Bird rights and soft cap exceptions encouraged us to overpay for and overcommit to Dunleavy, Foyle,Murphy, Fisher, Maggs and Lee ... Pretty much all of whom were our "best" attainable option at the time. I am not seeing the appeal.

It let the Lakers keep Kobe. It let the Celtics keep Pierce. It let the Heat keep Dwyane Wade.

It cuts BOTH ways. It doesn't just punish stupid teams. It helps smart teams.

Chris Cohan would have found a way to screw the pooch with a hard cap too. That doesn't prove anything about the CBA.

[cellomac1212]

Bird rights and soft cap exceptions encouraged us to overpay for and overcommit to Dunleavy, Foyle,Murphy, Fisher, Maggs and Lee ... Pretty much all of whom were our "best" attainable option at the time. I am not seeing the appeal.

It let the Lakers keep Kobe. It let the Celtics keep Pierce. It let the Heat keep Dwyane Wade.

It cuts BOTH ways. It doesn't just punish stupid teams. It helps smart teams.

It also allowed those teams to play 20 million dollars over the cap... What about the teams that don't have a player worth that amount of money? I'm not going to pretend to understand how the cap is hit by this Bird rule, but if I'm correct, the player doesn't count against the cap. Seems a bit unfair that if you satisfy an exception (or a few) you can play 20-30 mil over the cap, but a team like the Warriors (with no players deserving of a Bird rights player) cannot meet an exception that allows them to play at that same 20-30 mil over the cap. It just justifies keeping good teams good and bad teams bad. It's an uneven playing field. The exceptions keep teams from going way overboard (like the Yankees), but also prevent the teams that don't have any exceptions to compete. You do realize only the good teams use the exceptions. We had a MLE available and couldn't fulfill it...

[Sleepy51]

Bird rights and soft cap exceptions encouraged us to overpay for and overcommit to Dunleavy, Foyle,Murphy, Fisher, Maggs and Lee ... Pretty much all of whom were our "best" attainable option at the time. I am not seeing the appeal.

It let the Lakers keep Kobe. It let the Celtics keep Pierce. It let the Heat keep Dwyane Wade.

It cuts BOTH ways. It doesn't just punish stupid teams. It helps smart teams.

I would disagree only in that it didn't "let them keep those stars." What it let them do was to stack up monster payrolls AROUND those stars prior to extension time so that they were playing by a completely different set of rules by the end of this CBA.

Under a hard cap good teams absolutely still could keep those stars, they just would not be able to increase their overall payroll ahead of contract extensions. As you acquire salary above the cap, you expand your "shelf space" for talent. And a team with a great core player, or a team in a great national market has a huge advantage in terms of what kinds of players are actually available to them to fill that shelf space later. The table is tilited beyond any semblance of parity and the only thing that equalizes it is generational luck in the draft. Good decisionmaking alone can not solve it. You also have to pick up a Kevin Durant along the way and if you don't get that luck first, all you are left with is signing the Chris Mills'es of the world. That is a stupid way for a sport to operate.


A hard cap would squeeze the teams with true franchise players out of the market for other very good players, and expand the pool of truly available talent to teams that are trying to change for the better. Instead, the league has this soft cap structure which inflates salaries and exacerbates all the problems and challenges that weak teams face through the unintended consquence of trying to be forgiving of, and thereby enabling continued ineptitude.

I agree that Cohan would have screwed up the hard cap as well. But he would have screwed up bad enough to damage this insane fanbase ten years ago and would have had to sell a long time ago. That would have saved us all a lot of wasted time and money.

[floppymoose]

How do good teams keep players who blow up? Player value can change upward dramatically. Where is the reward for teams that did a great job with their second round pick and got a Monta Ellis or Gilbert Arenas? How do they keep those guys? Sometimes you can't see a big contract coming down the pike when you are building your team and arranging your cap usage for the future. Don't pretend that teams won't lose players under a hard cap. They will. It happens in the NHL all the time.

[Sleepy51]

How do good teams keep players who blow up? Player value can change upward dramatically. Where is the reward for teams that did a great job with their second round pick and got a Monta Ellis or Gilbert Arenas? How do they keep those guys? Sometimes you can't see a big contract coming down the pike when you are building your team and arranging your cap usage for the future. Don't pretend that teams won't lose players under a hard cap. They will. It happens in the NHL all the time.

I know teams will lose players under a hard cap. I want them to lose players. That is how parity works.

[cellomac1212]

How do good teams keep players who blow up? Player value can change upward dramatically. Where is the reward for teams that did a great job with their second round pick and got a Monta Ellis or Gilbert Arenas? How do they keep those guys? Sometimes you can't see a big contract coming down the pike when you are building your team and arranging your cap usage for the future. Don't pretend that teams won't lose players under a hard cap. They will. It happens in the NHL all the time.

I know teams will lose players under a hard cap. I want them to lose players. That is how parity works.

And that's how all 30 teams have a chance at competing...

[floppymoose]

Screw that. I want to build some connection with my players. The league is already mercenary enough.

[Sleepy51]

Screw that. I want to build some connection with my players. The league is already mercenary enough.

Players that are worth building a connection with will get retained. Guys that want more money than they are worth to a good team will bolt. That's your litmus test for who is worth giving a crap about to begin with.

[Twinkie defense]

If players don't believe that a lot of teams are losing money in their day-to-day operations, that will just insure that there is no season this year. Because the owners would rather sit out than run their teams as loss leaders supporting the Lakers, Bulls, Knicks, and Clippers (even if they have to pay the players a chunk of their TV lockout insurance).

To me it's absurd that any company would pay out over 50% of their revenue on staff. Players have had it good, but now they're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

[floppymoose]

Screw that. I want to build some connection with my players. The league is already mercenary enough.

Players that are worth building a connection with will get retained.

You can't have it both ways. If losing them is going to create parity, then they were worth retaining.

[floppymoose]

To me it's absurd that any company would pay out over 50% of their revenue on staff. Players have had it good, but now they're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Have you checked out hedge fund manger pay? The nba isn't just any ole employer. They are employing people who are creating almost 10 million of revenue per year, a piece. And they can't be replaced with just anyone and secure the same revenue for the league.

[Twinkie defense]

The League is still getting most of their revenue, without the players!

[Left*My*Heart]

The current CBA does not punish teams equally for stupid mistakes; because some owners have deep enough pockets to pay for them. It doesn't reward a team for managing their cap, but instead creates an environment where mismanagement is the rule.

I don't want a new CBA that protects owners from themselves, but I want one that hurts owners for their mistakes equally. I think a hard cap does that.

To win under today's CBA, you need to be paying the Luxury Tax.

There needs to be more player movement, but a team needs the ability to put a franchise like tag on at least one player.

As a fan, I want to see parity.