Since it’s a hard cap, no team would ever exceed it. While it’s true that there would only be three, maybe four teams that could approach or be at the cap every year, that’s not what’s important. Because of the gap between the 53% guarantee and the 65% hard cap, you don’t really want more than a small handful of teams close to the hard cap each year.

The question is how many team could theoretically approach it. Since 2002, 21 of the 30 franchises have had payrolls that would have been at or above the 65% hard cap. Three more franchises have had payrolls within 5% of it, and only two franchises haven’t had a payroll that would have been at least 90% of it. One was the Bobcats, who operated under a lower cap figure early in their existence, and the Clippers, who are, well, the Clippers.

Looking at last year, the Pacer’s payroll was $65mm, and the hard cap would have been somewhere between $77-80mm (depending on estimate vs. actual for BRI). If you look at gate over the last couple of years (around $15mm) vs. gate from back in 2005 ($40mm), there is plenty of opportunity for the Pacers to more than cover that gap – assuming you’re spending that to contend or compete at a high level.

At least in the short term, I think almost every market could approach the cap and remain around break even. This cap is high enough to allow the possibility of keeping teams together (like Miami and Oklahoma City), but low enough for most markets to reach. It’s also low enough to force the big dollar teams to make some hard choices. The Lakers would never be able to laugh off Luke Walton signings, or be OK with Andrew Bynum’s contract.

Teams will hit their heads on this, and because it’s hard, they’ll have to plan for it. It will be very difficult – perhaps impossible -for teams to live right at the cap.

As to Eddy Curry contracts – the hard cap, even this high, will probably have a somewhat chilling effect on guarantees in the 5th and 6th years. You might see more partial guarantees, or team options, or perhaps even “mutual options” where the contract could be terminated by one or the other.

The thing to remember about all of these deals is that they’re little more than bets. You can do your due diligence, and good FO’s will mitigate their risks, but there’s risk nonetheless. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way to really address issues like Curry properly without some kind of vesting process or pre-arranged buyout agreement. Both would receive huge amounts of resistance from the players. I have built a few different programs, but nothing I’d be confident the players would accept without a long lockout.

On the MLE, etc I think there’s work that could be done on shortening MLE’s, but two years wouldn’t be accepted. I believe the max is 5 now, so maybe target 3, and expect 4.

Regarding trades, taking on salary loses its importance with a hard cap. In fact, from a global perspective, the discontinuation of matching (an idea suggested by Jared Wade, by the way) would be the owner’s preferred way for a team to take on salary. Such a deal wouldn’t introduce any more money into the market.

Further, while there would still be the occasional salary dump, most trades could become much more rational. No more filler. No more Base Year compensation. No more Poison Pill contracts. No more Trade Exceptions.

Also, it would encourage teams to keep some room under the hard cap. A team right up against the cap would have to do some measure of matching salaries, which would hurt them as a trading partner.

Instincively, I’d agree with abolishing Sign & Trades, but I can’t quite pull the trigger on something like that. Have to think on it more.

wayne_a,

I think what I proposed the first time around might be more to your liking:

http://www.eightpointsnineseconds.com/2011/06/the-cba-my-last-best-offer/

And while I generally agree with what you’re trying to do, I think if the owners tried to do even half of what you propose, the players would go to the matresses.

Thanks for reading guys. This was not comprehensive, but it touches the high points. It’s just important to note that if I didn’t specifically include or exclude something here, that doesn’t mean it is off the table.

could also deal with guaranteed contracts by guaranteeing a smaller percentage with each year…say 75% the second year, 50% the third, and 25% the fourth to protect players while still removing those who do not perform whatever the reason.

Also think a better way to determine the cap is to use the BRI from 2 years previous, letting it grow as it will, or shrink if necessary, but providing the information soon enough so both players and teams can anticipate. Thus if there’s growth the players will be better paid maybe as a fraction of each team’s cap rather than as absolute dollars, or possibly with a floor and ceiling and then a fraction of Cap.

I’m not sure if you explained this before, but your statement here “This is as good a time as any to say that I consider it pointless to implement a hard cap without sensible revenue sharing, and I only consider it marginally less so to implement revenue sharing without some kind of ultimate lid on spending.” kind of confused me. How different is revenue sharing with no lid compared to revenue sharing with a lid so high that maybe only 3-4 teams will ever exceed it? And that’s historically – with Buss and Dolan writing out hefty revenue sharing checks, they might not be so eager to underwrite $90m+ payrolls anymore. Is it the cost certainty aspect?

I think shorter contract lengths are something that can get done – for owners it’s less guaranteed years, for players they get FA sooner. Instead of a hard cap (albeit a high one), I’d favor limiting some of the exceptions, particularly the MLE (same size, but reduce max contract length to 2 years). Take away sign and trade altogether (a frequently abused provision, viz. Van Horn in the Kidd trade). Reduce the allowable yearly increases in contracts, which is a big cause of salary inflation – but I can see the players fighting this hard though. For trades, I think it’s too easy to take on salary with the 125% rule – what if instead of +/-25% of total salary, salary matching is an absolute +/-$3m? I.e. every team in the trade should come out no more than $3m greater than the salary they started with. Under this system, lesser players can get traded easily, while big salary dumping becomes harder. Of course, you’d need safeguards so that a 3 player trade doesn’t get broken up into 3 individual trades that allows you to add $9m in one go.

But your main point stands. There’s plenty of middle ground regarding the cap system as long as neither owners nor players are too fixed in their thinking. Here’s hoping they can find that middle ground.