a_sensei wrote:Out of curiosity, what does the MLE project to be once the cap expands? This would give me more context when it comes to hypothetical contracts.
it's 5.464 million this season with a 70 million cap
if the cap goes to 90 million next year and the MLE goes up proportionally, it would be 7.025 million. That would mean that a max, 4 year MLE would average about 7.5 million, not 9-10 million
the thing is, I'm not sure the MLE will increase at the same rate....it might already be set within the CBA framework at a lower increase, year to year. For instance, in 2012-13 the MLE was a flat 5 million dollars under a 58.044 million cap. That's about 8.6% of the cap. This year, the cap is 70 million, so between 2012-13 and this year the cap increased 20.5%; in the same time frame, the MLE only increased 9.3%, and is now 7.8% of the cap, so it's losing ground every year
both RealGM and the CBA FAQ seem to imply the MLE is fixed for the life of the CBA:
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q25http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/info/salary_capit may be that the MLE is becoming a less relevant gauge of what a salary should be on rookie extensions, or any salary for that matter. But for extensions, it might be better to think in terms of a percentage of the maximum eligible salary for a player. IIRC, Batum got over 80% of the max; Terrance Ross, got about 70% of max. Parsons and Tobias Harris got max deals. Kanter got a max deal; Brandon Knight got about 88% of the max; Alec Burks, an injury prone player got around 63% of max; Iman Shumpert got about 60% of max.
but all those players got their contracts when there were only a half dozen teams with sufficient cap-space to pay them, and there was about 1/3 of the total league-wide cap-space there will be this coming off-season
expecting somebody like Crabbe to get less then 60% of max may be unrealistic....it may be unrealistic to expect less then 70-75% of max. Next year, the max for Crabbe-Harkless-Leonard will be 21-22 million. 60% of that is over 12 million; 75% of max would be at least 15 million. And keep in mind, that's just the first year salary. If the Max next year is 21.5 million, and Crabbe gets a contract of 70% of his max, then his average salary in a 5 year deal would be over 17 million a year; if he gets 60% of max, then his average salary would be 14.84 million. In order to only average 12 million a year, Crabbe would have to get about 50% of max.
Does that seem likely?
the bigger question is CJ, IMO. His max salary may be right around 25 million. If he gets 85% of max (very possible), then his average salary over a 5 year deal would be about 24.4 million
as I've said before I could be all wrong about this and the Blazer players will sign for considerably less then comparable players have entering their rookie extensions. But history doesn't make that a realistic outcome. I tend to think people are really underestimating what's headed Portland's way in terms of keeping all their players. I mean, will Crabbe sign for less of the max then Iman Shumpert? Will CJ sign for less then Brandon Knight?
