dlpin

Huh? Crawford is one year and a half younger than than Jermaine O'neal. So the difference between a league blocking the trade and a league allowing it to go through is one year and a half? As a reminder, the Chris Paul deal fell through because Stern wanted younger assets, and Dragic, Martin and Scola are 25, 28 and 30, respectively.

The report is that the deal is falling through because New Orleans couldn't find anyone to take on JO's deal. They wanted the trade exception the trade was going to create, but they knew the nba was going to block any trade for more contracts and older players. I think it is safe to say the hawks would have the same problem.

Again, why would the NBA block the West trade to the celtics but not the hawks? The Hornets can sign Crawford outright, so why would they help out the hawks and why wouldn't the nba block that? And why would Crawford sign up to go to New Orleans?

Considering the main issue with this deal is getting NBA approval, how would the hawks succeed where the celtics failed? Crawford may be a better player than JO, but would then be signed to a longer deal, while JO is a free agent at the end of the year. How would they justify a trade to the hawks for a 30+ years old player after nixing the lakers and celtics trade for not bringing in enough young talent back and for not giving them enough cap flexibility? Not to mention, why the hell would Crawford sign up to that? Why would he willingly go to a franchise completely in distress?

I doubt the lakers would have enough to land Howard. And I think people are considering the lakers a dynasty way too early if they land Paul. First, their frontcourt will be thin as paper. Second, does anyone think Kobe will really let Chris Paul have the ball in his hand when it matters?

Actually this is more like: 1) Bad team gets a high draft pick 2) Bad team takes great young talent and helps them develop 3) Bad team becomes good and goes deep into playoffs 4) Owners start dumping contracts like crazy because they want to sell the team, forcing the team to take several steps back 5) Owners go bankrupt, team is sold to the league, tries its best to avoid spending more money. If we were talking about Deron WIlliams in Utah, or Mello in Denver, it'd be one thing. But Paul has done nothing but play hard for the hornets, even when they were trying like hell to become a worse team. Remember, this was a 56 win team that started Chris Paul, Mo Peterson, Peja, David West and Tyson Chandler, with Chris Andersen and Jannero Pargo off the bench.Then they tried to deal Tyson Chandler to clear salary, traded Peja to save money, let Chris Andersen walk for free, gave away Darren Collison in order to get rid of James Posey's contract, traded down from their lottery pick last year to save money, and have been doing everything in their power to get out from Okafor's deal.

But the reason this was a good trade for the lakers was because the rockets were the ones getting fleeced. It was actually a pretty fair deal for New Orleans. And as the owners of the Hornets, the league should care about how New Orleans fares, not if the trade benefits the lakers too much or hurts the rockets too much.The only team that was really losing out here was houston, for god knows what reason.

How is this a great decision to back out? Certainly they won't be making another deal for him now (Boston was the next best package, and I doubt they'd veto a trade to the lakers but not the celtics). So Paul will walk for free. And a franchise that has trouble filling its arena on the way to the playoffs will be in even more financial problems. This veto essentially guarantees that the Hornets will either fold or relocate. At least Adande and others say that the Clippers didn't offer a deal because they didn't want to give up Eric Gordon and what will be a top lottery pick.

And yet they did make offers. And sign and trades are still in place next year.

How did he strong arm them and limit their options? He didn't want to sign an extension at this point, but the Hornets got plenty of offers from teams that Paul reportedly didn't want to sign with, so that didn't stop anyone. He didn't force a deal, and he never coasted. He simply didn't want to sign an extension. The only reason he was going to end up with the Lakers, instead of, say, the warriors or the celtics (teams that he reportedly didn't want to resign with, but were making offers anyways) is because for god knows what reason the Rockets were willing to get screwed over to help the lakers. Now Paul will leave as a free agent at the end of the season, and pick whoever he likes.

But in the case of a franchise like the Hornets, they have no one to blame but themselves. If there is a place where players SHOULD be trying to get away from, it is the franchise that is so problematic no one wants to buy (or, to put it more correctly, people want to buy and move, but the nba won't allow them to move). In the end, Paul will still get his wish. 66 games from now he will pick where he wants to go. Meanwhile, the New Orleans franchise, already in deep trouble, will be in even deeper trouble. What Paul has done is not even in the same league as what Carter, Kobe, Lebron, Melo, etc. have done.

Still, what is the use of Nene and Gasol if the rest of the team is Johnny Flynn, Courtney Lee and Terrence Williams. They would have zero flexibility, no draft picks, and a a couple of old players signed long term.

Not that Paul needs defending, but how has he been this disloyal player everyone is talking about? While there are a lot or rumors about him wanting out, has he ever done an interview demanding a trade? Has he ever coasted? The guy has played hard and carried a team single handedly for a long time. He didn't coast like Carter did when he wanted a trade. Or like Melo did. He didn't force a coach out like Deron Williams did. He didn't publicly demand a trade like Kobe did. Sure, he wasn't going to resign with New Orleans. But why should he resign with a franchise that is deeply troubled and candidate number one for contraction?

This is actually great for the Rockets. I really don't understand the rationale behind their actions.

This would have been a bad deal for the lakers as well. Bynum is not enough to get howard, and the lakers would be completely thin. Not to mention that I doubt Paul and Kobe would coexist well.

Yeah, I don't know why the NBA killed the deal. This was a great deal for the Hornets. The rockets were getting royally screwed in this (what did they think they were going to do with a declining and expensive powerforward signed longterm when the rest of the line up was going to be johnny flynn, terrence williams, courtney lee and jordan hill? while giving away a 1st round pick?). The lakers would have been a Bynum injury away from starting Derrick Caracter, Ron Artest and Devin Ebanks in the front court. Meanwhile the hornets were getting a top notch scorer in KMartin, a near double double machine in Scola, a very decent starter in Dragic, and a solid player in Odom.

No, the heat didn't win the championship (I thought mavs but typed heat - the heat were not even in the top 15 in speending).. They are the team that would benefit the most from the hard cap. Their main challengers would be broken up. The celtics were not top 5 in total salary, which is what is relevant for hard cap discussions. The 08-09 has a different total salary reported in other places: http://www.eskimo.co.../salaries09.txt In any case, the point is the same. Very few of the multiple winners of the past years would be affected by a hard cap. A supertax creates more revenue sharing, which helps a lot more than a hard cap.

I think a supertax would probably be the best solution, as it would increase revenue sharing while not forcing a hard cap that makes no sense in a league with such revenue disparities. I don't think a hard cap will improve competitive balance at all. The 90-91 Bulls team that would go one to win several more championships was 23rd out of 27 in salaries (they moved up the rankings when Jordan's salary went to the stratosphere, something that would not be possible with today's max salary.) The Houston Rockets were 19th and 24th in salaries in their 2 championship years. The lakers that won the "threepeat" in 01-02 were 12th in spending and spent less than the Nuggets and Wolves. The 02-03 Spurs were 17th in spending, the 04-05 were 24th, and the 06-07 were 9th. In fact, the only teams to win the championship and be top 5 in spending were the 09-10 lakers and 10-11 heat. The big winners of a hard capt system right now would be the heat, who are 22nd in spending as is. They wouldn't really have to get rid of anyone, just some of the more expensive role players. The biggest losers would be the Lakers and Mavs, on one had, and the Thunder and Bulls, on the other, as the thunder and bulls would not be able to resign a lot of their players on rookie contracts. In basketball superstars dominate even with cheap teams around them. A hard cap may do many things, but it won't improve competitive balance.

I think that the idea that owners get starstruck is silly. These aren't amateurs out there.

<p> Yeah, sorry, I rushed that last part and wrote things poorly. I meant to say that the first thing Stern said was negotiable was going from a team based cap to a league one again, which is essentially the soft cap position. Since this is going to drag on, the PR part of it becomes important, so both sides have to pretend that this is about something other than money. On the owner's side, that means talking about competitive balance and pointing to overpaid players (which is completely misleading, since there is a fixed share of revenues that go to players, overpaid players are hurting other players, not the owners)

The owner's stance on hard cap is basically a PR move to be able to say that this is all about competitive balance and the like, and not money. I guarantee that if the players accept whatever percentage the owners want of the revenues, the owners will take it and not hold out for a hard cap. As evidence for that I point to the owners essentially giving up on the hard cap when there was a chance of a deal in june: http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/30170072 On top of which, Stern has recently proposed a team based hard cap http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/32015/ready-to-negotiate-that-hard-cap-david-stern Which pretty much would be a soft cap by another name. The renewed emphasis on hard cap and non guaranteed contracts is nothing more than a PR move by a league, since saying that it is all about giving the small markets a chance is a more popular proposition than saying it is all about the money. So regardless of whether you think the players make too much or too little, issues like hardcap and guaranteed contracts are window dressing to pretend that this isn't about money.

1st, the reason the NFL is successful is not diversity. It is simply that football is vastly more popular than basketball. A college football game between a powerhouse and a 1-aa team gets better ratings than any nba regular season game. There is a reason why the detroit lions, the poorest team in the nfl, has higher revenues than all but 2 teams in the nba (lakers and knicks). If anything, recent history shows that the NBA is at its most popular when the big market teams are dominating. There is a reason the finals involving the spurs are the worst rated in recent history. You could have 10 straight Patriots-Cowboys super bowls and the nfl would still be more popular. And I am sorry, but lowering the cap so that teams can be profitable without income sharing makes no sense. Revenues are so concentrated on the bigger markets that you'd still have two tiers, only with players making a lot less money. The solution to disparity is not to make the bigger markets even more profitable while the small ones still struggle to break even. It is to spread the wealth around. The lakers signed a local tv deal of 150 million a year, while the kings make 11 million a year.

I am sorry, but your "proposal" is still insanely convoluted and extremely unlikely to yield the desired results. Take away the two all star teammates and players will still want to flock to the biggest markets. And having 1/4 of the salary vary is nowhere near enough to ensure that doesn't happen. This whole "#1" idea is silly. How many NBA players are true number 1s? Which would mean a bunch of players getting overpaid. And voting on salaries? That is a recipe for destroying chemistry and endless bickering. Not to mention, of course, that players with more visibility would benefit, creating another incentive to go to a big market. Not to mention, of course, that it would destroy teams that do well on drafting, like OKC. There is a much simpler and more efficient way of dealing with stuff like this, which is the free market. Put a cap on team salaries and let owners and players vote with their wallets. Much simpler, much more straightforward, and much less likely to lead to unintended consequences. I won't keep at it because this proposal is too convoluted and too unlikely to be adopted. But I guarantee that if anything like that came to pass, the unintended consequences would be much more serious than the occasional bad contract in the nba.

Let me repeat myself for the third time, since it has apparently escaped you: there is a difference between team salary restrictions (the cap) and individual salary restrictions. I didn't say anything against the cap. I am for a cap. A cap takes care of the differences in money between Denver and Phoenix and NY. But once you have a cap in place, I am completely against standard contracts with fixed compensation, like max contracts, performance based contracts, etc. The only times a small market team will beat a big market team is when the small market team outbids the big market team. Now, with a cap in place they will end up spending relatively the same. But it should be up to the franchises if the want to spend half their cap on one player or not. If cleveland wanted to spend 30 million on Lebron and fill the roster with a bunch of role players, they should be able to. It would have been the only way they would have kept him. This is a terrible idea: - All else the same, the top stars will still be in the top markets - There is no objective measure of performance. Base it on stats and you will have players stat padding. Base it on votes and it becomes a popularity contest, especially since it takes at least a couple of seasons for everyone to really realize that a player's game had declined or improved.

Which is why I differentiated between salary team restrictions and individual contract team restrictions. Would Bosh and Lebron have gone to Miami if instead of leaving a couple of million on the table, they were leaving 5 to 10 million a year? People talk about Jordan not leaving the bulls, but a good part of that is that the bulls were able to make him the best player in the nba by far. Would Amare and Anthony have gone to the knicks if their former teams were allowed to offer as much as they wanted, provided the total bill game under a teamwide cap? Small market teams only beat big market teams for free agents when they can offer more money or other incentives.