tidho wrote:I think the owners come out on top. Here's my crystal ball version....
The MLE is as good as gone but I'm guessing that will be the only change to the cap. The LLE and vetmin exception will be retained and the luxery tax will continue.
I think they'll fail to get any franchise player type structure in place, but they will get partial guarentees (75%) starting in the 3rd year of contracts and extended Bird Right benefits.
In exchange they won't cut the player's share of revenue that creates the cap. The only other victory the players will get will be that the owners won't move further toward the NFL model.
If they don't cut the players BRI then the owners don't win anything. Thats what they are mainly going for. Also this talk about making the league more "fair", being able to replace players underperforming players, etc are just red herrings by the league to win the minds of the public.
All they really care about is how much they have to give the players. They don't really care who they have to pay or what the breakdown is, the real argument for the owners is how much in total they have to pay and how much they get to keep.
They don't care if they overpay for some players just that they underpay overall.
tidho wrote:Automatic team option gives teams an opportunity to drop guys that are significantly underperforming their contracts.
I won't speak to what a guy 'like LeBron' would do because there are about 5 guys like LeBron in the entire league. It doesn't really matter what they do because of it. For everyone else they sign a longer deal for the security then know they have to earn it. It minimizes situations like Travis Outlaw.
Take a look at the top 10 highest paid players in the league. By my count 5 of them have no business being among the top 25 highest paid. That isn't good for the league.
So why would anyone sign a contract with an automatic team option? If its a team option after 3 years, everyone will just sign a 3 yr contract. Having a team option offers the player no extra security and limits their options.