AWoj: CBA Progress Updates

Main items:
* MLE strting about $5 million, max 3 years in length
* New "bonus pool" for young (rookie-scale) players to earn more
* 75% cap amnesty rule
* ~50% BRI split
* Tax % and restrictions remain biggest hurdle

7 months ago douglast 21 comments 0 recs |

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

I love the idea of non-money penalties to teams in the tax

money only has shown not to work. Take away the MLE though, and it’s a winner in my book. Make there be a real cost of going into the tax.

"But if Ding Dongs and prime rib were the path to NBA pivot stardom we'd all be wearing the uniform."

by douglast on Oct 20, 2011 12:18 PM PDT reply actions

Any word on your idea of

getting rid of sign and trade and giving up bird rights if a player is traded within a year of free agency?

by JasonT on Oct 20, 2011 1:15 PM PDT up reply actions

nothing in the article

they aren’t my ideas – both have been reported as being part of the owner’s previous proposals. I"m still hopeful both make it, but I’m more optimistic about the end of sign and trades than I am about the bird rights’ restrictions on trading of nearly-ending contracts

"But if Ding Dongs and prime rib were the path to NBA pivot stardom we'd all be wearing the uniform."

by douglast on Oct 20, 2011 1:20 PM PDT up reply actions

but perhaps in it's place

owners seem to want to restrict or severely limit using Bird Rights if you are over the tax limit – this may be a passable alternative. the players will argue that this, plus the punitive tax, plus the loss of exceptions for over-tax teams is effectively a hard cap. They are right of course, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. The whole point of the tax was always an attempt to be as close to a hard cap as possible – it hasn’t worked thus far however.

If the cap comes in at 50% of BRI and is 50 million, and the tax is $60 million, that’s essentially a “hard” cap of 60% of BRI. Is that so horrible for the players? I think they are being disingenuous on this point – a tax that acts like a hard cap does NOTHING to restrict their share of overall BRI. What it does is restricts their ability to both go to a prime team AND get maximum dollars. I think they should have those choices – but unless their choice team is under the tax level, I think they should have to choose whether team or money is more important. This in and of itself should help competitiveness across more teams.

"But if Ding Dongs and prime rib were the path to NBA pivot stardom we'd all be wearing the uniform."

by douglast on Oct 20, 2011 1:25 PM PDT up reply actions

Just like a real hard cap does nothing to restrict their share of BRI

Disclaimer: everything I know about basketball I learned on Blazersedge.

by pualo on Oct 20, 2011 2:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Weirdly enough, I was hoping for more of a reduction than this.

Dumping sign and trade, getting rid of MLE, hard cap, more TV revenue sharing, etc. Looks like if they reach agreement, it’ll be very close to the same old, with a bit lower salaries.

If, after all this, they don’t reach agreement, the ugliness quotient will ramp up to a new level.

by Timmay! on Oct 20, 2011 1:42 PM PDT reply actions

My thoughts exactly

I am not giving up on Greg or Brandon.
#52
#7

by musicdaniel on Oct 20, 2011 2:02 PM PDT up reply actions

I think dumping sign and trade could still be in the deal

im hoping it is. and if the exception restrictions on over-cap teams make it into the final deal, those could be bigger difference makers then you think. Those 2 things, i conjunction with higher tax penalties, could make the tax line a much more effective hard cap.

but i agree – if all that comes out of this is the change from 57 to 50 percent, we haven’t really gained anything in regards to competiveness, market advantages, etc.

"But if Ding Dongs and prime rib were the path to NBA pivot stardom we'd all be wearing the uniform."

by douglast on Oct 20, 2011 2:17 PM PDT up reply actions

It's funny

because most of the things the players are arguing about do nothing to affect to aggregate amount of money they get. Only % of BRI affects that. Most fans don’t understand this and I’m guessing a lot of players don’t either. Some players probably do, and they are trying to tilt things in favor of their own category of player, since these other rules only financially affect how much some kinds of players get vs. other kinds.

Disclaimer: everything I know about basketball I learned on Blazersedge.

by pualo on Oct 20, 2011 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions

exactly

great summation.

"But if Ding Dongs and prime rib were the path to NBA pivot stardom we'd all be wearing the uniform."

by douglast on Oct 20, 2011 2:52 PM PDT up reply actions

It's an issue of 'all players' vs. 'me'

All the players combined might be guaranteed a certain % of BRI, but unless I know that my specific contract gives me certain guarantees, I’m not going to vote yes.

At least that’s how I view the players’ perspective.

by Storyteller on Oct 20, 2011 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions

Kind of doesn't make sense though

If “I” am somehow getting more money out of the deal, that means that someone else is getting less. That’s fine if it’s just “me,” but if all the players are thinking the same thing, they’re just wrong.

For example, with long guaranteed contracts. Having these makes players who’s value deteriorates unexpectedly get payed more than they would have otherwise, but it also makes players who’s value doesn’t deteriorate get payed an equal amount less than they would have otherwise.

Disclaimer: everything I know about basketball I learned on Blazersedge.

by pualo on Oct 20, 2011 9:51 PM PDT up reply actions

It's an issue of 'all players' vs. 'me'

All the players combined might be guaranteed a certain % of BRI, but unless I know that my specific contract gives me certain guarantees, I’m not going to vote yes.

At least that’s how I view the players’ perspective.

by Storyteller on Oct 20, 2011 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions

My guess is that with reduced MLE also comes elimination of BAE

And also elimination of sign and trade.

by Storyteller on Oct 20, 2011 4:12 PM PDT up reply actions

Eliminate sign-and-trade deals and keep Bird rights intact is a fair compromise.

"I Am Mine"

by AK1984 on Oct 20, 2011 4:18 PM PDT up reply actions

Yep, keep Bird Rights. Eliminating Bird rights would not be in the best interests of the league.

Do the owners really want their Star players leaving because they can’t go over the cap to re-sign them. I think fans would be terrified by this prospect. I don’t see how anyone wins by eliminating Bird Rights.

In our own case, in 2012 Felton (not eligible for Bird Rights anyway), Oden (if he takes the QO), and Batum (if his rookie contract isn’t extended prior to this season – assuming that can still be done under the new CBA) would all be unrestricted free agents and the Blazers salaries would be at about $50M without any of them. In that case we probably couldn’t re-sign any of them and stay under the cap unless we amnesty Roy, which would free up enough for one of them or a replacement at equal salary.

If the CBA eliminates Bird Rights it would logically also eliminate a teams right to go over the cap to re-sign 4th year rookies too. It’s the same situation.

Eliminating sign and trade also seems like a bitter pill to swallow when your super-star walks away and you get nothing in return. That doesn’t do much to promote parity in the league. Sign and trade gives the losing team some chance to recover from their loss.

"You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man." - Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981)

by BlazerFanSince1970 on Oct 20, 2011 5:15 PM PDT up reply actions

I think they only discussed eliminating Bird rights if a team was over the tax threshold

So, if we amnestied Roy, we’d have almost $19 million to spend on resigning our guys.

With the rookie scale in place, the financially smart way to go would be to trade Batum (before his contract expires) to the Clips for either their own unprotected 2012 first rounder or Minnesota’s, or ship him to San Antonio for Kawhi Leonard. There’s also the Denver option, as they’ve shown interest in Batum and have some interesting pick assets and young players, but Masai seems to be way too good at getting other teams to make bad trades.

Rookie scale guys generally outperform their contracts, so smart cap management in the future will involve some degree of rotating them out every 3 or 4 years, rather than resigning them to bloated contracts.

Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit!

by HailOden! on Oct 20, 2011 7:21 PM PDT up reply actions

The latest proposal was to grant 75% relief for amnesty. So under that proposal

we only save about $12.4M in 2012. But we have to get rid of him in 2011, and we would probably add someone in 2011 to “replace him”, who will have a contract extending into 2012. So how much of the $12.4M would still be there to sign our own free agents in 2012 is problematic.

I fear that this new CBA and its soft-hard cap or its hard-soft cap, is going to make teams do some very dumb things with regard personnel decisions, at least from the standpoint of fans that rightfully become attached to “their players”. I believe one reason for the success of the NBA and devoted fan bases (such as in Portland) is because teams stay relatively constant personnel-wise compared to say baseball. If players move from team to team too freely, or if teams start dumping players just to play the salary cap game, the fans may not remain so devoted.

"You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man." - Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981)

by BlazerFanSince1970 on Oct 20, 2011 8:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Yeah, the NBA as a league isn't built to have a high turnover rate like the NFL.

"I Am Mine"

by AK1984 on Oct 20, 2011 10:15 PM PDT up reply actions

5 hours later, the ugliness quotient is already ramping up.

Wow.

by Timmay! on Oct 20, 2011 10:30 PM PDT up reply actions

Thanks for posting this for discussion about the issues other than amnesty

1) Sounds like we’re getting rid of the ridiculous 8% raise mechanism built into calculating the ‘average player salary’ to determine the MLE amount. Instead, the MLE would be much closer to the actual mean salary. That 8% increase every year just artificially increased overall player salaries for medium level talent. I like it.

2) So I’m guessing the youth pool money would be considered unlikely incentives, thus not actually counting against the cap unless actually earned. Good idea.

3) Woj continues to mix up ‘salary cap figure’ and ‘tax threshold figure’……

by Storyteller on Oct 20, 2011 4:11 PM PDT reply actions