GetBuLLish wrote:DanTown8587 wrote:When players take less, it throws off competitive balance in an uncontrollable way.
What does this mean, an "uncontrollable way"?
when players take drastically less, they create a system that is unfair to the rest of the league because it creates a situation unique to the player and the team he's going to. In a system with max contracts, players at the top make the same. If Chris Paul in July goes to say the Spurs for five million dollars so that they can sign Gordon Hayward, that's a deal that Paul ONLY gives to the Spurs to create a team outside of the "normal" range in how teams spend money and the talent they can acquire. The Spurs don't have the cap space to sign Paul and Hayward to fair market deals so if one of them accepts drastically less, that's unfair to the rest of the league. If the Spurs sign Paul and Hayward to max deals, they have to make moves either with lack of depth or pay massive luxury taxes; players taking less allows the benefit of a player's talent with the negatives of his salary taking up cap space. THATS an unfair advantage; LeBron James or Kevin Durant being exceptionally good at basketball isn't unfair.
Does Durant joining a 73 win team not throw off competitive balance? Does LeBron joining 2 other top 10 players not throw off competitive balance?
The same James-led team that lost two finals and was a missed FT away from winning one and might not have even won the 2012 Finals if Jeff Green didn't have surgery?
And the same Warriors team that LOST the Finals?
What would you have the Heat and Warriors do, not try and sign them? Tell those players they can't play with other stars? If the league wants to ban star players, allow star players to make the money. They don't ban them because it's better for the union to spread the wealth and the league can guarantee marketable superstars in their Finals, which pays them the most money. As much as we hate "competitive balance", the league isn't at a point where it feels better with 30 stars on 30 teams. I tend to think they're wrong but I'll assume a bunch of billionaires can accurately access their league's best revenue streams.
And haven't you and Mark been trying to debunk the idea of competitive balance? Isn't that what this whole conversation has been about?
No, I'm against saying that it falls on players and organizations to create balance. You're basically saying that teams and players should basically be restricted at some level from signing players of a certain level to a fair deal; that being either supremely good at basketball or supremely talented at roster construction should somehow punish you.
And once again, you didn't answer my hypothetical with a no-cap league and the 10 superstars joining each other on one team.
You mean the hypothetical "what if the owners decide they don't like money"? It's beyond ridiculous to even comment because it's an impossible scenario that would never happen, ever.
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next year as a result.