Should the NBA have a hard cap?

[DeacKillsaDevil]

For the nba, a hard cap is not a great idea.

You only have 12 players.

While a hard cap will limit what an owner can spend, it also limits the ability of low market teams to compete.

In the game there are about 5 superstars, about 20 stars, etc. Having this luxury tax allows a small market team to get some of these star players and compete with these big teams that get the superstars.

The Celtics and the Lakers and the Knicks will always be able to draw the superstars because of their media market. However, the small teams never will. Even if things were made equal. They won't be able to compete because they are a small market. Right now, the cap allows these teams to gather two or three of the star players and hold on to them and be competitive against the Kobe's. One of the best things I have ever watched was Detroit beating LAL. And the season before that Philly being competitive with LAL. Had there been a hard cap, that Detroit team and that Philly team would not have existed. While I'm sure that LAL would have still had Shaq-Kobe.

It depends on where that hard cap is. I have read that the NHL has the best cap in all of sports but have no idea what the rules of the NHL's cap are.

[AHF]

I mean you can say that you see no correlation between payroll and winning but I'd have to simply question your math skills. I mean you can think that things are uncorreltated (payroll has nothing to do with winning) or indirectly correlated (payroll HURTS your chance of winning) but I can't imagine you want to make that case. Payroll and winning are pretty obviously directly correlated.

I already said payroll and winning are correlated and that payroll is one of several significant factors influencing success.

(I also noted that, for example, many of the worst teams are lowest in payroll because they are terrible teams and not terrible because of their low payroll. You need to account for bad teams shedding salaries and good teams padding salaries in response to their expected finishes if you were doing to do something more meaningful with the math to try to isolate the impact of payroll. Again, this happens more often in basketball than any other sport and should be noted when evaluating payroll v. wins.)

[AHF]

however, i will agree with you on my use of the term "directly proportional" I would have been better off using "closely tied / related" or any phrase that allows for deviation.

My point from the beginning was not that you were off your rocker to think payroll was significant in a team's winning %, but that I thought the "directly proportional" comment materially overstated the role of payroll.

[Diesel]

Sure you can and Detroit did. They were well below the cap. Hard cap or not...below is below.

Detroit was way over the capthe year that they won (2004).

The cap was set at 43.8 Million that year. IF it were a hard cap..... Teams in red are the only teams that would have been under it.

Team Payrolls

Team Payroll

1. New York Knicks $89,444,816

2. Portland Trailblazers $82,905,616

3. Dallas Mavericks $79,286,720

4. Minnesota Timberwolves $70,589,120

5. Sacramento Kings $67,991,504

6. Phoenix Suns $66,550,452

7. Atlanta Hawks $64,372,340

8. Los Angeles Lakers $63,360,448

9. New Jersey Nets $63,273,120

10. Toronto Raptors $63,033,248

11. Philadelphia 76ers $60,411,084

12. Boston Celtics $60,185,916

13. Indiana Pacers $57,774,920

14. Memphis Grizzlies $57,378,320

15. Houston Rockets $55,401,432

16. Chicago Bulls $54,983,480

17. Detroit Pistons $53,317,832

18. Milwaukee Bucks $53,167,328

19. Golden State Warriors $52,934,408

20. Seattle Sonics $52,347,480

21. Orlando Magic $50,209,704

22. New Orleans Hornets $49,037,564

23. Miami Heat $46,764,008

24. Cleveland Cavaliers $46,183,424

25. San Antonio Spurs $46,082,752

26. Washington Wizards $45,114,084

27. Denver Nuggets $39,336,148

28. Los Angeles Clippers $38,351,724

29. Utah Jazz $34,747,67

Edited June 2, 2010 by Diesel

[AHF]

Looking at the cap number and trying to assess what teams were able to do from under the cap is insane to me. Teams are expected to be over the cap but under the luxury tax line as a general rule in the NBA. The luxury tax line is where they are expected to stop their spending and to pay a premium for that point and after. The major function of the cap is to decide when a team can trade for a player without sending back comparable salary. Otherwise, it doesn't have a lot of meaning. - especially as far as competitive balance discussions.

Being 17th of 29 teams in the league for payroll shouldn't be considered being a high dollar player in the payroll side of things.

[dlpin]

And you are not hearing me. I am not talking about a median salary range. I am talking about NO ONE being allowed to go over the cap. And chances are it will be lowered this year. That is not "they can get to the luxury threshold" . It is they cannot go over the cap.

That is what a hard cap is BTW. And the NBA should do what he needs to do CAP wise to ensure no more than one Max contract can be on one team at a time. The NFL usually pays just one to four max type contracts out per 22 starting players. That would workout to be the same proportionality to 1 per 5 starters in the NBA.

You keep citing all these teams that are not paying the luxury tax but are over the cap. A hard lowered cap would put a end to all that; and ensure the only way Lebron-Shaq-Jamison, Kobe-Odom-Gasol, Garnet-Peirce-Allen, Howard-Lewis-Carter, etc...could get on the same team would be with significant reductions in yearly salary on their part.

This is not about what is being done. This is about what we think should be done. Some think nothing; others like myself think the NBA has become boring and stagnant with all these all-stars playing on just four different teams. This may be just what you and some others enjoy every year. Personally I do not even know why the NBA has a 1st round playoff; the 2nd round is plenty bad enough....

They would never set a hard cap at the current cap level. 28 teams would have to cut payroll if they did.

not fair. The Spurs and Pistons would muck up all the math. More sports/larger sample size and a longer duration of time would prove me right.

You are ignoring the02 lakers and 06 hear. they were only 13th and 15th in payroll.The only time that 2 top 5 payroll teams are in the finals is this year.

Of course its the norm. Of the top 8 teams; best 4 from each conference, only we were out of the top 10 in payroll (resign JJ and Horf and we will move up no doubt) ; and of the top ten only the Knicks did not make the playoffs.

Maybe this is what you need to look at to become convinced. Instead of finding the two teams, San Antonio and the Pistons, who throw things out of skew. Just go look at the top ten in payroll and see how many make the playoffs vs how many in the top ten in payroll do not make it....

Again, THIS YEAR.

02-03 top 4 teams in each conference:

east: Pistons (25th in payroll), Nets (8th in payroll), 76ers (5th in payroll), Pacers (13th in payroll)

West: Spurs (15th in payroll), Mavs (4th in payroll), Kings (3rd in payroll), Wolves(8th in payroll)

http://www.insidehoops.com/nba-team-salaries.shtml

03-04:

East: Pacers (13th), Nets (9th), Pistons (17th), Heat (23rd)

West: Minnesota (4th), Lakers(8th), Spurs (25th), Kings (5th)

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries04.txt

04-05:

East: Heat (15th in payroll) Pistons (18th), Celtics (8th), Bulls (19th)

West: Suns (28th) Spurs (23rd) Sonics (17th) Mavs (2nd)

http://www.insidehoops.com/nbasalaries.shtml

05-06

East: Pistons (17th) Heat (15th) Nets (9th) Cavs (26th)

West: Spurs (10th) Suns (24th) Nuggets (22nd) Mavs (2nd)

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries06.txt

06-07

East: Pistons (24th) Cavs (17th) Raptors (28th) Heat (14th)

West: Mavs (2nd) Suns (7th) Spurs (9th) Jazz (20th)

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries07.txt

07-08

East celtics (6th) Pistons (15th) Magic (27th) Cavs (4th)

West: Lakers (9th) Hornets (22) Spurs (11th) Suns (10th)

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries08.txt

08-09

East: Cavs (3rd) Celtics (5th) Magic(15th) Hawks (19th)

West: Lakers (6th) Nuggets (16th) Blazers (4th) Spurs (20th)

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries09.txt

So in the last 7 years, you have 30 teams on the bottom 20 payrolls on the top 8 and 26 top 10 payrolls on the top 8.

So you have more teams out of the top 10 in spending finishing among the top 8 than teams in the top 10 in spending.

In terms of champions, the payrolls are 15th, 17th, 23rd, 15th, 9th, 6th, 6th. So you have more teams ranked 15 and below winning the championship than teams ranked 10 and above.

So how many times has the team with the highest payroll won the championship over the last 30 years? From 1980 on. If payroll is directly proportional with wins, we should see something over 50%, right?

Number of times the top payroll has won the championship since 85-86:

http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/index.html

2. 2 times in 25 years the top payroll won the title. And that was the bulls in 97 in 98 because Jordan was making 30 million a year.

Sure you can and Detroit did. They were well below the cap. Hard cap or not...below is below.

No, they weren't under the cap. Only 2 or 3 teams a year are under the cap, if that.

Edited June 2, 2010 by dlpin

[Guest]

The difference I see is that all teams can hire superior management, come up with cutting edge ways to evaluate and value players, etc. and succeed or fail on that basis. You see this all the time with small and large teams (some good ones in recent years have been the Yankees and Twins or Lakers and Oklahoma City and some bad ones have been the Mets and the Royals or Knicks and Timberwolves) Clubs like the Twins, Royals, T-Wolves, etc. will never be able to spend like the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, etc.

You and I agree that there are a lot of variables. We just disagree on the ultimate significance of salary. I see 8 of the top 10 payrolls in the NBA in the 2009-10 playoffs and 2 of the bottom 10 payrolls in the playoffs. I see 7 of the top 13 payrolls in MLB in the 2009 playoffs and none of the bottom 13 teams in the playoffs. We agree there are a host of factors and that money is in no way determinative but we just disagree on the degree of significance that finances play.

Very true. I don't think we will ever agree on this topic. For me to guess at why would be that I believe in regression analysis on the topic and that we find low correlation between payroll and wins. On the other hand you claim more of an anecdotal type of response. Which is better? Of course I say mine but then you counter argue. It would be pointless for us to continue because we both know the path it will lead down. I must say thought that (I believe it was Aristotle) "an educated mine is one that can entertain an idea without accepting it." So we might as well just move on, it is evident we both can understand the other point of view but we will just continually disagree about the same points.

On this topic though, a lot of people are just flat our wrong about arguments on whether the cap will help teams or hurt teams. Dlpin is right on with his analysis on who it will help and who it will hurt (a cap will actually help the high revenue teams because then you limit their costs but their revenue is still high = big profits). Many posters aren't seeing this. But at the same time, I think dlpin is just ignoring the fact of how biased the NBA is towards Boston. The NBA is geared towards helping Boston, hell you just have to look at their first exception to the salary cap to see this (the BIRD rights). So he is arguing correctly in this case, but wants to ignore that Boston gets so much benefit from the NBA. It sickens me how the NBA is that biased, they come in and implement a cap but then say "oh wait, Boston wants some help so lets do that for them." I believe he understands it, but just doesn't want to bring it up because then he would sound like a homer.

[spotatl]

I already said payroll and winning are correlated

Sorry for somehow taking this to mean that you thought there was no direct correlation.

If what you are saying is that you agree with me and there is no direct correlation

[Guest]

Sorry for somehow taking this to mean that you thought there was no direct correlation.

There is certainly a degree of correlation. Just saying something is correlated isn't the same as actually attaching a number to the correlation. If only there were a number to quantify it...

[AHF]

Sorry for somehow taking this to mean that you thought there was no direct correlation.

I thought this made it fairly clear that I viewed payroll as a factor with a significant impact on wins:

In my mind, payroll is a significant contributing factor and not close to something where the correlation is "directly proportional."

What you are describing is not directly corresponding to payroll as was stated earlier. Saying that the highest 33% of teams in payroll constitute 80-90% of playoff teams is a correlation - not a something where payroll is directly tied to wins which is what we were discussing. I think payroll is a significant factor, which goes along with what you are saying.

I will note, however, that money is not spent equally on good and bad teams. More payroll goes into teams that are believed by their owners to be good enough to contend. That is why the Wizards' payroll was high this season - because they miscalculated and thought they were in a window where they could spend some extra dollars and contend in the East. They will be among the lower payrolls the next few years but that won't be a function of the team's changing ability to pay so much as a function of where management sees a good investment opportunity. Conversely, most really bad teams shed payroll so they can rebuild on the cheap and maximize their draft position. I don't view that aspect of team budgeting as a function of disparate markets presenting disparate payroll opportunities.

nineoh continued arguing the point after this post so my debate has really only been with him. I think it is too much to say what he did and I also don't think payroll directly correlates with winning. I think payroll is one of a number of significant factors that influence wins on a team.

How is that a direct connection between payroll and winning? If the connection is direct, should we see the highest payroll teams dominating?

2008-09

Top 5 Payrolls

New York Knicks - 100M - Missed playoffs

http://thehoopdoctors.com/online2/salaries/

Cleveland - 90M - Out in ECF

Dallas - 86M - Out in second round of playoffs

Portland - 81.6M - Out in first round of playoffs

Boston Celtics - 80.6M - Out in second round of playoffs

If there was a "direct" correlation here, one of the top 5 teams would have made the finals and won it. Instead, none of them made the finals. Moreover, 80% of the top 5 payrolls failed to finish among the top 4 teams. 80% did not do any better than the Hawks.

Again, I see payroll as a significant contributing factor and not something with a direct correlation/proportion/etc.

In basketball, I'd take landing a top 3 player in the draft with a middle of the roll payroll over no top 10 player and a top 5 payroll. In baseball, I would take the opposite stance.

If what you are saying is that you agree with me and there is no direct correlation/propostion/etc. then I would term salary as one of several significant factors and not one that directly is responsible for a team's success.

Edited June 2, 2010 by AHF

[Joker]

If we had a hard cap, we couldn't have Smith, Horford, and Joe on the same team.

[dlpin]

Very true. I don't think we will ever agree on this topic. For me to guess at why would be that I believe in regression analysis on the topic and that we find low correlation between payroll and wins. On the other hand you claim more of an anecdotal type of response. Which is better? Of course I say mine but then you counter argue. It would be pointless for us to continue because we both know the path it will lead down. I must say thought that (I believe it was Aristotle) "an educated mine is one that can entertain an idea without accepting it." So we might as well just move on, it is evident we both can understand the other point of view but we will just continually disagree about the same points.

On this topic though, a lot of people are just flat our wrong about arguments on whether the cap will help teams or hurt teams. Dlpin is right on with his analysis on who it will help and who it will hurt (a cap will actually help the high revenue teams because then you limit their costs but their revenue is still high = big profits). Many posters aren't seeing this. But at the same time, I think dlpin is just ignoring the fact of how biased the NBA is towards Boston. The NBA is geared towards helping Boston, hell you just have to look at their first exception to the salary cap to see this (the BIRD rights). So he is arguing correctly in this case, but wants to ignore that Boston gets so much benefit from the NBA. It sickens me how the NBA is that biased, they come in and implement a cap but then say "oh wait, Boston wants some help so lets do that for them." I believe he understands it, but just doesn't want to bring it up because then he would sound like a homer.

The Bird rights were created 25 years ago, and Bird was just the biggest name free agent that year, not the only one. After the exception was created, Boston was only the 5th largest payroll, almost 1/4 lower than the lakers'. That is your evidence for the "league helping Boston?"

I mean, of all teams, you are going to pick Boston as the beneficiary?

The team that was absolutely irrelevant from 92 to 07?

Did you know that when Reggie Lewis died the celtics still had to have his salary count towards the cap?

Did you know that when the celtics cut Vin Baker because he was showing up drunk to practice, they still had his salary count towards the cap?

I mean, if your example of the league fixing everything is the Boston Celtics, which, since the lottery was created, has never had a top 2 pick, and which has won 1 championship the past 24 years, then the league is absolutely incompetent in fixing things.

Not to mention, of course, that is completely unrelated to a hard cap.

[lethalweapon3]

Nothing of worth to add here, just thanks to all of you for the civil, substantive, and insightful debate.

~lw3

[Guest]

The Bird rights were created 25 years ago, and Bird was just the biggest name free agent that year, not the only one. After the exception was created, Boston was only the 5th largest payroll, almost 1/4 lower than the lakers'. That is your evidence for the "league helping Boston?"

I mean, of all teams, you are going to pick Boston as the beneficiary?

The team that was absolutely irrelevant from 92 to 07?

Did you know that when Reggie Lewis died the celtics still had to have his salary count towards the cap?

Did you know that when the celtics cut Vin Baker because he was showing up drunk to practice, they still had his salary count towards the cap?

I mean, if your example of the league fixing everything is the Boston Celtics, which, since the lottery was created, has never had a top 2 pick, and which has won 1 championship the past 24 years, then the league is absolutely incompetent in fixing things.

Not to mention, of course, that is completely unrelated to a hard cap.

Wow, such irrelevant discussion to why BIRD RIGHTS were created. Oh there were other free agents during that time? Cool, well why is it that the NBA created BIRD RIGHTS that allowed the Celtics to go over the cap to protect their golden boy? It wasn't about the Celtics, it was all about the Bulls resigning Reggie Theus, thats the real reason why they created BIRD RIGHTS.

Talking about how the Celtics absolutely sucked has nothing to do with favoritism with the NBA. I am not claiming the NBA goes out of their way to help the Celtics win everything. I am claiming that BIRD RIGHTS were used as an effort to help the Celtics. Anything trying to dismiss this fact is pure bliss on your part. Failure to understand this just epitomizes that you are a Boston homer and the board sees right through your veil arguments. The NBA didn't want Bird to sign somewhere else than Boston, so in order to protect Boston they created the BIRD RIGHTS. If you don't see how that is blatant favoritism then I don't know what to say. The NBA can't help correct Boston for having God awful management from 92-07, but they certainly can help create a new made up rule that directly helps Boston at the instance of creation.

Your other arguments are sound and solid. But you are barking up the wrong tree trying to defend Bird rights. It was intended to help the Celtics, the fact that Bird rights now have a bearing on who can offer more money to a free agent was an unintended consequence. The NBA wanted Bird in Boston and so they created a new rule to help out Boston.

[dlpin]

Wow, such irrelevant discussion to why BIRD RIGHTS were created. Oh there were other free agents during that time? Cool, well why is it that the NBA created BIRD RIGHTS that allowed the Celtics to go over the cap to protect their golden boy? It wasn't about the Celtics, it was all about the Bulls resigning Reggie Theus, thats the real reason why they created BIRD RIGHTS.

Talking about how the Celtics absolutely sucked has nothing to do with favoritism with the NBA. I am not claiming the NBA goes out of their way to help the Celtics win everything. I am claiming that BIRD RIGHTS were used as an effort to help the Celtics. Anything trying to dismiss this fact is pure bliss on your part. Failure to understand this just epitomizes that you are a Boston homer and the board sees right through your veil arguments. The NBA didn't want Bird to sign somewhere else than Boston, so in order to protect Boston they created the BIRD RIGHTS. If you don't see how that is blatant favoritism then I don't know what to say. The NBA can't help correct Boston for having God awful management from 92-07, but they certainly can help create a new made up rule that directly helps Boston at the instance of creation.

Your other arguments are sound and solid. But you are barking up the wrong tree trying to defend Bird rights. It was intended to help the Celtics, the fact that Bird rights now have a bearing on who can offer more money to a free agent was an unintended consequence. The NBA wanted Bird in Boston and so they created a new rule to help out Boston.

I am not going to engage the whole "benefit boston" thing, as this is a thread on hard caps. To address the issue of Bird rights:

Once again, Bird rights were NOT created for Bird. Bird re-signed with the Celtics on September 28th, 1983, 7 years for 12.6 million dollars:

http://www.nba.com/celtics/history/TheYear198384_121203.html

On September 28th, the team signed superstar forward Larry Bird to a multi-year contract and on October 13th agreed to an extension to durable center Robert Parish's contract.

The NBA salary cap was only implemented for the 1984-1985 season.

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q9

So Bird resigned with Boston a full year before there even was a salary cap.

The reason people started calling it the "Larry Bird exception" is simply because he was the most recent major free agent resigning when people started debating the new CBA, but it was not created for him or used on him.

And the real reason there was the soft cap instead of the hard actually had nothing to do with Boston. The Lakers and the Knicks were already over the 3.6 million dollar cap when it was created, and since contracts are guaranteed, there was no way for them to get under the cap, so the NBA allowed them to stay at that level, and made the exception that teams could go over the cap to keep their teams together.

But, again, it had NOTHING to do with Bird and the celtics. The first time Bird benefited from the "Bird Exception" was when he renewed his contract again after the 1988 season. The first player the celtics resigned with the "Bird Exception" was actually Cedric Maxwell, not Bird, and the celtics only went over the cap in 1985, after contracts with Ainge, Dennis Johnson and Walton were signed. If back then they had implemented hard caps like some wanted, the teams that would be broken up would be the Lakers and Knicks. And even then they allowed the soft cap not because they wanted to benefit the lakers and the knicks, but because in order to create a hard cap they would have to make contracts non-guaranteed (so the knicks and lakers could cut players) and the players were opposed to that.

Edited June 3, 2010 by dlpin

[Diesel]

Looking at the cap number and trying to assess what teams were able to do from under the cap is insane to me. Teams are expected to be over the cap but under the luxury tax line as a general rule in the NBA. The luxury tax line is where they are expected to stop their spending and to pay a premium for that point and after. The major function of the cap is to decide when a team can trade for a player without sending back comparable salary. Otherwise, it doesn't have a lot of meaning. - especially as far as competitive balance discussions.

Being 17th of 29 teams in the league for payroll shouldn't be considered being a high dollar player in the payroll side of things.

During the 2003-2004 season, there was no luxury tax. That didn't start until the 2005-2006 season under the new CBA.

[spotatl]

I like the soft cap. I think that if a team manages to draft 2 superstars then they should be allowed to keep them if they are willing to pay the luxury tax to do so. In general I do enjoy capped leagues more than uncapped leagues but for the NBA I think they get it mostly right. Have one threshold where you can't just cut a check for a player. Then start charging dramatically more for teams that greatly exceed a certain level. I would have thought 2:1 was enough. If you are willing to pay 10 million dollars for a MLE type player and another team is only willing to pay 5 then I think you should be allowed to do so. I don't like the idea of how often teams would have to be broken up if there was a completely hard cap- I think for a few seasons you should be able to pay dearly to keep your core together if you want to.

Edited June 3, 2010 by spotatl

[AHF]

During the 2003-2004 season, there was no luxury tax. That didn't start until the 2005-2006 season under the new CBA.

The cap was set at $43.84M in 2003-04.

http://www.nba.com/news/cap_030715.html

NBA Team Salaries

2003-04

1. New York Knicks $85,567,169

2. Portland Trail Blazers $85,863,014

3. Dallas Mavericks $78,732,381

4. Minnesota T'wolves $71,350,351

5. Sacramento Kings $66,950,968

6. New Jersey Nets $64,098,727

7. Los Angeles Lakers $64,073,016

8. Phoenix Suns $63,592,270

9. Memphis Grizzlies $57,868,017

10. Indiana Pacers $57,543,052

11. Toronto Raptors $57,502,941

12. Boston Celtics $57,062,919

13. Atlanta Hawks $54,259,528

14. Chicago Bulls $53,750,716

15. Detroit Pistons $53,581,322

16. Philadelphia 76ers $52,780,193

17. Milwaukee Bucks $51,819,645

18. Seattle Supersonics $50,577,210

19. Golden State Warriors $50,269,883

20. Houston Rockets $49,146,421

21. Cleveland Cavaliers $46,747,271

22. Miami Heat $46,347,962

23. San Antonio Spurs $45,553,568

24. Washington Wizards $44,787,867

25. Orlando Magic $44,569,481

26. New Orlean Hornets $44,548,602

27. Los Angeles Clippers $34,247,188

28. Denver Nuggets $32,871,701

29. Utah Jazz $29,544,229

********************

The luxury tax is the only thing that teams were actually expected to stay under. As you point out, in the 2003-04 season, 26 of the 29 teams exceeded the soft cap. It is insane to me to argue that teams were expected to stay under the cap. There was no such intention. Nearly everyone was expected to exceed the cap and, in fact, did exceed the cap.

You are right about the implementation date for the luxury tax but that in no way changes my point. It doesn't make sense to use the soft cap as a bench mark for where spending is expected to be by the league, teams or the players. It has long been everyone's plan to exceed the cap.

[Diesel]

The luxury tax is the only thing that teams were actually expected to stay under. As you point out, in the 2003-04 season, 26 of the 29 teams exceeded the soft cap. It is insane to me to argue that teams were expected to stay under the cap. There was no such intention. Nearly everyone was expected to exceed the cap and, in fact, did exceed the cap.

You are right about the implementation date for the luxury tax but that in no way changes my point. It doesn't make sense to use the soft cap as a bench mark for where spending is expected to be by the league, teams or the players. It has long been everyone's plan to exceed the cap.

Well, my reference was for "Disappearing Acts Buzzard". He kept saying that Detroit was well under the cap. Ridiculous because only three teams made it under the cap the year that Detroit won it all. Even the Luxury tax which runs 9-10 million above the "soft cap" was still unattainable by that Piston team. The NBA's implementation of the LT was done pretty fairly when you consider the Allan Houston rule... still, I say that it's very difficult for a team to remain competitive with a star or two if we had a hard cap.

The best possible outcome is that it would change the way teams negotiated with FAs. FAs would be lowballed unless they were worth bidding over. I like the soft cap because it gives a team the chance to choke their future away or to build something worth keeping. Do you realize that just 3 years ago, we spent more on our team than the Lakers did? And we were not great. However, it was getting Bibby that allowed us to taste playoffs. I honestly don't think we could have gotten this good without Bibby. Had we had a hard cap, this would have never been.

About the thinking that Deep pockets will run basketball like they do Baseball and now football.. I say that even Paul Allen had to back off from the luxury tax. NY has been a big spender all these years and haven't won a championship.

[Joker]

Well, my reference was for "Disappearing Acts Buzzard". He kept saying that Detroit was well under the cap. Ridiculous because only three teams made it under the cap the year that Detroit won it all. Even the Luxury tax which runs 9-10 million above the "soft cap" was still unattainable by that Piston team. The NBA's implementation of the LT was done pretty fairly when you consider the Allan Houston rule... still, I say that it's very difficult for a team to remain competitive with a star or two if we had a hard cap.

The best possible outcome is that it would change the way teams negotiated with FAs. FAs would be lowballed unless they were worth bidding over. I like the soft cap because it gives a team the chance to choke their future away or to build something worth keeping. Do you realize that just 3 years ago, we spent more on our team than the Lakers did? And we were not great. However, it was getting Bibby that allowed us to taste playoffs. I honestly don't think we could have gotten this good without Bibby. Had we had a hard cap, this would have never been.

About the thinking that Deep pockets will run basketball like they do Baseball and now football.. I say that even Paul Allen had to back off from the luxury tax. NY has been a big spender all these years and haven't won a championship.

People say the Hawks are cheap but the only year they were at the bottom on the cap market was when they had that 13 win team and the season before that one. The Hawks aren't really cheap, just financially conservative. They are willing to spend if they are making money or have a championship caliber product on the floor. Paul Allen wanted to rebuild once the Blazers became a poor product on the floor. NY is an exception because they make money no matter what.