Windhorst: "players have no idea about the capwave that's about to hit them"

[Freighttrain]

In a podcast with Ryan Rusillo, Brian Windhorst talked about next year's cap situation and how players have been living in a world where they see the cap increase year after year after year and they aren't aware of the economic implications the pandemic, China and the decrease in viewership is going to have on the cap situation. He said if the NBA keeps the cap tied to the revenue it might go down from 109 million to 90, which would mean there aren't going to be any free agent signings. The only thing they can do is keep it artificially high.

He also talked about the fact that the NBA would rather postpone the NBA season till fans get into the buildings, because no fans would mean they would go into the red and lose money. Only big market teams such as the Lakers could survive from the local TV money. All very interesting

[Jkam31]

Ratings don’t matter though

[Tor_Raps]

I just hope they do a better job of lowering the cap this year and increasing it the following year once things return to normal. The downturn and spike can lead to other Durant to Gstate like situations in 2021.

[xdrta+]

I'd say a better take would be that Windhorst has no idea what's about to happen.

[Edumacated]

If the cap goes down 20%, and they don't cut players' salaries, we'll see the a lot of trades and small one year deals this off season.

[bisme37]

I've seen many fans say they don't care about ratings and the financial health of the league. And they don't care if players are making less because they make so much anyway.

But I'm wondering how fans will feel when their team suddenly has no money for free agents and starts making roster moves simply to cut costs. That doesn't sound super awesome to me.

[Dr Aki]

they better start releasing numbers and let everyone know how much cap every team can spend then

[VanWest82]

I just hope they do a better job of lowering the cap this year and increasing it the following year once things return to normal. The downturn and spike can lead to other Durant to Gstate like situations in 2021.

One of the concerns I'm positive the NBA has is that things don't return to "normal" for them.

We haven't really seen/felt the full extent of the economic consequences from the pandemic yet. We're six months into an 18 month (or longer) journey, and that's just the safety side of it. Economies can and will hit a point of long-term economic change if recession persists. A lot of the lost commerce will never come back if that happens. Will consumers still be able to afford games when it's finally safe to do so?

We also don't know how many sports fans will still want to be part of a packed stadium now that the public is so much better informed of the manner in which viruses can spread. And further to Windy's point, no fans or way less fans = huge losses.

Then there's the current geo-political landscape with heightened tensions and NBA's battle with cord cutting and an inability to convince their customers to stop stealing their product.

We might see a scenario where there is no NBA for a while unless/until the players make some major concessions. None of these owners are going to sign up to lose tens of millions of dollars per year just to honor their existing payrolls, and no one's going to shell out billions of dollars to buy them out of a business that all of a sudden has so much uncertainty.

[ThunderBolt]

I've seen many fans say they don't care about ratings and the financial health of the league. And they don't care if players are making less because they make so much anyway.

But I'm wondering how fans will feel when their team suddenly has no money for free agents and starts making roster moves simply to cut costs. That doesn't sound super awesome to me.

Making moves to cut costs how? Trading to other teams that don't have cap space? Its going to impact everyone so even bad teams that beforehand might have been willing to back and bad contract won't do so. I could be wrong but it seems like it makes sense that most teams, good or bad, will simply be stuck for a while.

[Jcool0]

Ratings have nothing to do with the cap. It would only matter if the league contract was up and networks were not willing to pay as much. But so far nothing indicates networks won't pay billions for live sports rights.

[shangrila]

I just hope they do a better job of lowering the cap this year and increasing it the following year once things return to normal. The downturn and spike can lead to other Durant to Gstate like situations in 2021.

One of the concerns I'm positive the NBA has is that things don't return to "normal" for them, at least not any time soon.

We haven't really seen/felt the full extent of the economic consequences from the pandemic yet. We're six months into an 18 month (or longer) journey, and that's just the safety side of it. Economies can and will hit a point of long-term economic change if recession persists. A lot of the lost commerce will never come back if that happens. Will consumers still be able to afford games when it's finally safe to do so?

We also don't know how many sports fans will still want to be part of a packed stadium now that the public is so much better informed of the manner in which viruses can spread. And further to Windy's point, no fans or way less fans = huge losses.

Then there's the current geo-political landscape with heightened tensions and NBA's battle with cord cutting and an inability to convince their customers to stop stealing their product.

We might see a scenario where there is no NBA for a while unless/until the players make some major concessions. None of these owners are going to sign up to lose tens of millions of dollars per year just to honor their existing payrolls.

Yeah, I don't think there's any need to worry that we'll see another cap spike similar to a few years back.

The most likely scenario is where they smooth the cap (ironically what the owners pushed for back then and the players rebuked. Wonder how they feel about it this time?) and just keep similar numbers even when (if?) the world returns to normal. As in, maybe the "real" cap is around 90-95mil when looking at revenue but they keep it at 115mil to stop an economic collapse in their league, but then in a few years if the "real" cap is at 125mil they keep it at 115 to recoup those losses.

[dacrusha]

CBA question here: when a player signs a max contract, are they being paid a certain percentage of the cap, or are they being paid a monetary number already predetermined upon contract signing?

Seems to me certain contracts tied to the cap (rookie contracts, max contracts etc) are not a problem for teams to deal with; it’s the contracts that are sums of money that don’t shift relative to the cap that are a concern.

[bisme37]

I've seen many fans say they don't care about ratings and the financial health of the league. And they don't care if players are making less because they make so much anyway.

But I'm wondering how fans will feel when their team suddenly has no money for free agents and starts making roster moves simply to cut costs. That doesn't sound super awesome to me.

Making moves to cut costs how? Trading to other teams that don't have cap space? Its going to impact everyone so even bad teams that beforehand might have been willing to back and bad contract won't do so. I could be wrong but it seems like it makes sense that most teams, good or bad, will simply be stuck for a while.

Teams up against the lower cap dumping players to cut salary. Or not signing players they would have liked to sign. Or trading players to teams with lower salary for cash.

Yes I know it impacts everyone. That's why I think everyone should care. I like when teams operate for basketball reasons instead of money reasons.

[zimpy27]

CBA question here: when a player signs a max contract, are they being paid a certain percentage of the cap, or are they being paid a monetary number already predetermined upon contract signing?

Seems to me certain contracts tied to the cap (rookie contracts, max contracts etc) are not a problem for teams to deal with; it’s the contracts that are sums of money that don’t shift relative to the cap that are a concern.

Cap % at time of signing.

So yeah, probably increases chance that Giannis signs extension this off-season

[pipfan]

I personally think they should just let it ride out, and let the cap drop. Do we really care that owners and players will "lose money"? This is millionaires vs. billionaires. Let the cap go down, but they should keep the lux tax where it is.

As a Bulls fan, I am just bummed (but understand) if we don't see NBA ball again until March or April.

[zimpy27]

I've seen many fans say they don't care about ratings and the financial health of the league. And they don't care if players are making less because they make so much anyway.

But I'm wondering how fans will feel when their team suddenly has no money for free agents and starts making roster moves simply to cut costs. That doesn't sound super awesome to me.

A lot of damage was caused by that one Morey tweet. The one where he just tweeted and didn't actually follow up with some action plan to help those in trouble.

Yet it was the players that were financially affected by this error that ultimately led to no change at all for the people affected by china. People even got upset with the players for being annoyed by this.

[zimpy27]

I personally think they should just let it ride out, and let the cap drop. Do we really care that owners and players will "lose money"? This is millionaires vs. billionaires. Let the cap go down, but they should keep the lux tax where it is.

As a Bulls fan, I am just bummed (but understand) if we don't see NBA ball again until March or April.

It's pretty unfair for teams trying to ascend to a championship. It extends the window for the best teams and locks out those trying to get to that tier.

[fianchetto]

Ratings have nothing to do with the cap. It would only matter if the league contract was up and networks were not willing to pay as much. But so far nothing indicates networks won't pay billions for live sports rights.

I’m honestly not in the know about this but if the contracts are all signed I guess you’d be right. But I don’t know if they are.

Ratings matter a lot for syndication though and the NBA probably leaves room for more of that. Also, contracts can be contingent on things like ratings. It’s not always black and white.

But again, all speculation. Don’t know the facts.

[NZB2323]

I personally think they should just let it ride out, and let the cap drop. Do we really care that owners and players will "lose money"? This is millionaires vs. billionaires. Let the cap go down, but they should keep the lux tax where it is.

As a Bulls fan, I am just bummed (but understand) if we don't see NBA ball again until March or April.

NBA owners care if they lose money, and there’s no guarantee we get NBA ball in March or April. There’s no guarantee we get a 2021 season. Players don’t want to do a bubble and lots of owners can’t afford to pay the salaries with no revenue from ticket sales. COVID-19 spreads worse in the winter and as cases get better we loosen restrictions and then cases get worse.

[BoogieTime]

I just hope they do a better job of lowering the cap this year and increasing it the following year once things return to normal. The downturn and spike can lead to other Durant to Gstate like situations in 2021.

One of the concerns I'm positive the NBA has is that things don't return to "normal" for them.

We haven't really seen/felt the full extent of the economic consequences from the pandemic yet. We're six months into an 18 month (or longer) journey, and that's just the safety side of it. Economies can and will hit a point of long-term economic change if recession persists. A lot of the lost commerce will never come back if that happens. Will consumers still be able to afford games when it's finally safe to do so?

We also don't know how many sports fans will still want to be part of a packed stadium now that the public is so much better informed of the manner in which viruses can spread. And further to Windy's point, no fans or way less fans = huge losses.

Then there's the current geo-political landscape with heightened tensions and NBA's battle with cord cutting and an inability to convince their customers to stop stealing their product.

We might see a scenario where there is no NBA for a while unless/until the players make some major concessions. None of these owners are going to sign up to lose tens of millions of dollars per year just to honor their existing payrolls, and no one's going to shell out billions of dollars to buy them out of a business that all of a sudden has so much uncertainty.

18 month journey? I dont think the people/economy will stand for that