NEW CBA....

[Diesel]

The NEW CBA Rules will (as I previous thought):

Include a Hard Cap.

That being the Case, the owners will also push for an Alan Houston Rule... which allows a team to get rid of high paid player or players in order to fix their cap situation.

BYE BYE Marvin!!!

If it's two players, we may be able to restructure Joe's contract too.

Somebody says.. the Players Association won't let that happen??

This is not football. The PA for basketball will do what they always do. They will fold.

[AHF]

It depends on how they structure it. If the Allen Houston rule means the player gets paid and it just doesn't hit the cap, then the players won't fight that too hard. If it means the player loses out on his contract after he is cut, they will fight the bejesus out of that proposal.

[Admin]

I agree with AHF on that point and I doubt the NBA will try and do anything to force the players to take a hard stance against them with the bad publicity that the NFL is getting right now.

Here's the real question to ask ... does Diesel hate Marvin enough to pay his contract for him? Well at least a percentage of it anyway. Diesel how much would you be willing to come out of pocket to not have Marvin on the Hawks anymore?

[Diesel]

It depends on how they structure it. If the Allen Houston rule means the player gets paid and it just doesn't hit the cap, then the players won't fight that too hard. If it means the player loses out on his contract after he is cut, they will fight the bejesus out of that proposal.

I think just like the original Allan Houston rule, the players can be cut and paid the sum of their contract.

For Joe, I would make his contract incentive based. I wouldn't take away the 123 Million. However, I wouldn't guarantee all years. Each year would have an incentive placed on it.

[Diesel]

I agree with AHF on that point and I doubt the NBA will try and do anything to force the players to take a hard stance against them with the bad publicity that the NFL is getting right now.

Here's the real question to ask ... does Diesel hate Marvin enough to pay his contract for him? Well at least a percentage of it anyway. Diesel how much would you be willing to come out of pocket to not have Marvin on the Hawks anymore?

If I had the money, I would pay to have Marvin not be on this team any longer. I would subsidize him like a corn farmer... and I don't believe in subsidies.

I hope that the new CBA comes with the power to automatically negotiate a buyout (one time) Maybe at 50% of the leftover. So instead of paying Marvin the 24 Million he's due, we buy him out at 12 Million. The good news for Marvin is he gets 12 Million and can still go out and be picked up by another team. The good news for us is that we take him numbers or nimbers off the books and we can go out and find a better Sf replacement for cheap. It would also stop the inflation of these new contracts. Now Smoove won't be able to say.. I'm 10 times better than Marvin and he's making 24 Million over the next 3 years.

[MaceCase]

I think just like the original Allan Houston rule, the players can be cut and paid the sum of their contract.

For Joe, I would make his contract incentive based. I wouldn't take away the 123 Million. However, I wouldn't guarantee all years. Each year would have an incentive placed on it.

It would be nearly impossible for us to renegotiate Joe's deal unless he had and was to exercise an ETO. His deal is most likely grandfathered in and if the team was to utilize the amnesty clause on him then it would most likely come with a provision that you cannot resign said player just like with the Allan Houston rule. News also has it that the hardcap would be retroactive to the new CBA which means it will kick in at a time when Marvin's, Zaza's Kirkland's and Smoove's deals all would have expired This means that we have to work our cap around Joe's and Al's deals really..

[Diesel]

It would be nearly impossible for us to renegotiate Joe's deal unless he had and was to exercise an ETO. His deal is most likely grandfathered in and if the team was to utilize the amnesty clause on him then it would most likely come with a provision that you cannot resign said player just like with the Allan Houston rule. News also has it that the hardcap would be retroactive to the new CBA which means it will kick in at a time when Marvin's, Zaza's Kirkland's and Smoove's deals all would have expired This means that we have to work our cap around Joe's and Al's deals really..

I know that the owners are pushing for a Hard cap. That means that they have to push the Allan Houston rule up again. I think they are also pushing for non-guaranteed contracts. All they would have to do is allow for restructuring in the new CBA..

Just because his contract is grandfathered doesn't mean that you can't find a way to invoke clauses such as Incentives. Like I said, I wouldn't change the figure amounts, but if the new CBA is going to be given with more non-guaranted years and a hard cap, a team has to be able to find a way to stay within the hard cap this year for the future.

That means that there will be some players in the league that will be given nonguaranteed deals.

For the players sake, there will probably be a franchise label given. That means that a franchise player gets a guaranteed deal.

I think Stern knows that Football has set the table for him to ask for whatever he wants and cry broke. The PA is usually very weak anyway because they do get a good deal of the profit. However, I think the owners will go for keeping the BRIs where they are as long as they can put in a hard cap with non-guaranteed deals.

[Guest]

With the current construction of team's and the amount of salary they have committed, the only way to make a Hard Cap feasible is to slowly transition from the Soft Cap to the Hard Cap. But then by the time we make the transition to a Hard Cap completely, then the CBA will probably expire and we start this over again.

I seriously doubt we see a Hard Cap.

[MaceCase]

I know that the owners are pushing for a Hard cap. That means that they have to push the Allan Houston rule up again. I think they are also pushing for non-guaranteed contracts. All they would have to do is allow for restructuring in the new CBA..

Just because his contract is grandfathered doesn't mean that you can't find a way to invoke clauses such as Incentives. Like I said, I wouldn't change the figure amounts, but if the new CBA is going to be given with more non-guaranted years and a hard cap, a team has to be able to find a way to stay within the hard cap this year for the future.

That means that there will be some players in the league that will be given nonguaranteed deals.

For the players sake, there will probably be a franchise label given. That means that a franchise player gets a guaranteed deal.

I think Stern knows that Football has set the table for him to ask for whatever he wants and cry broke. The PA is usually very weak anyway because they do get a good deal of the profit. However, I think the owners will go for keeping the BRIs where they are as long as they can put in a hard cap with non-guaranteed deals.

You missed my point, Diesel. Like Fanatic has touched on if there is a hard cap then it would not take effect until a few years AFTER the new CBA is inked. That means that most of the non-negotiable and fully guaranteed contracts would have expired allowing the 90% of the league that is above the cap to actually have flexibility. Teams would probably only have to work around deals negotiated around 2010. Those deals are all likely to be grandfathered in underneath their previous terms as it's doubtful the player's union would allow you to all of a sudden make them unguaranteed. This is why the concession of the amnesty clause has also been brought up. If a team is in a position where they don't have enough expired or manageable contracts to have flexibility underneath the hardcap they would now have the option to essentially waive a player. Just maybe a clause is set up where older contracts can renegotiate but that would be dependent on the individual players themselves being willing to compromise on money but it's doubtful that they'd willingly risk their financial security.

[mrhonline]

Did you miss my thread on this, or did you just wait a week so that you could claim it as your own idea?

[NineOhTheRino]

New CBA...did I miss something?

[Diesel]

With the current construction of team's and the amount of salary they have committed, the only way to make a Hard Cap feasible is to slowly transition from the Soft Cap to the Hard Cap. But then by the time we make the transition to a Hard Cap completely, then the CBA will probably expire and we start this over again.

I seriously doubt we see a Hard Cap.

When we ushered in a LT from a completely soft cap with Bird Rules, we brought in the Allan Houston Rule. What we have been doing since the last CBA has been the slow transition. Even the Knicks don't spend like they used to. Now is the time for the hard cap. I say around either 75 or 80 million. But to do that, you still need an Allan Houston like provision and you need to be able to renegotiate some grandfathered contracts. After that, you're on your own. However, you can't just drop down a hard cap and not have a way for teams to fall within it's bounds.

[Diesel]

Did you miss my thread on this, or did you just wait a week so that you could claim it as your own idea?

One week a go?? Try 3 months ago...

And even back in Dec. I remember talking about the owners getting a hard cap.

However, I would still like those things mentioned in that post. Plus a 33 team minor league. (NY, LA and Texas gets an extra team).

[Guest]

When we ushered in a LT from a completely soft cap with Bird Rules, we brought in the Allan Houston Rule. What we have been doing since the last CBA has been the slow transition. Even the Knicks don't spend like they used to. Now is the time for the hard cap. I say around either 75 or 80 million. But to do that, you still need an Allan Houston like provision and you need to be able to renegotiate some grandfathered contracts. After that, you're on your own. However, you can't just drop down a hard cap and not have a way for teams to fall within it's bounds.

The LT came before the Houston rule. D, you need to brush up on your history a little bit before throwing out these ideas.

[Wurider05]

To me no one on this team is untradeable right now with the possible exception of Teague. Diesel your hatred for Marvin is well known. Its a fact that doesn't play up to his potential but you are talking as if Marvin caused us the championship this season or something. How can the 5th or 6th best player be responsible for a team's lack of success. I am just saying if the Hawks trade or get rid anyone Marvin Williams shouldn't be the last one or the first one. The Hawks problems don't begin or end with Marvin Williams. He is one of many problems.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Wurider05

[Diesel]

The LT came before the Houston rule. D, you need to brush up on your history a little bit before throwing out these ideas.

Let's see. How does this work. Oh, here you go...

In 2005, the NBA agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The most striking innovation grants NBA teams a one-time exception to waive a player without paying any further luxury tax on the player's contract, regardless of how long or how rich the contract was. The provision did not negate the player's contract, a team's obligation to pay the player, or the impact on the salary cap; it merely removed the player's salary when computing the luxury tax. This rule benefited teams that were in danger of facing the "luxury tax" penalty, a tax paid on salaries spent above a certain threshold of total team salary. The correct term is "amnesty clause," but because the team with the worst problems was the Knicks, and their worst financial liability was Houston, it was quickly dubbed the "Allan Houston Rule." Ironically, the Knicks chose not to use the exception for Houston, but for forward Jerome Williams instead, since the Knicks correctly predicted Houston would retire due to lingering injuries over his last two seasons. As a result, Houston made $40 million for the last two years of his contract even though he did not participate in any games for the Knicks.

For the historians...

The LT has been LAW since the CBA of 1999. It had it;s first run 2002-2003. What they found is that it was too hard on teams because of excalating salary demands because of the Bird Rules and the lack of a rookie cap. Remember Big Dog 100 Million dollars ? In 2005, all that changed. The Allan Houston Rule... Amnesty Clause is simple a "one time" correction so that teams would have a fair start to dealing with getting under the LT. The LT was the first vehicle to get a harder cap. Now is the time for a complete Hard cap. I think it would help the low market teams the most. You would still need a rookie exception and maybe some type of vet exception but I say vets who have been with the team for about 5 years are the only ones who could use this exception.

To me no one on this team is untradeable right now with the possible exception of Teague. Diesel your hatred for Marvin is well known. Its a fact that doesn't play up to his potential but you are talking as if Marvin caused us the championship this season or something. How can the 5th or 6th best player be responsible for a team's lack of success. I am just saying if the Hawks trade or get rid anyone Marvin Williams shouldn't be the last one or the first one. The Hawks problems don't begin or end with Marvin Williams. He is one of many problems.

Imagine if we had.... Chris Paul over Marvin.

Imagine Caron Butler over Marvin.

Imagine Rudy Gay over Marvin.

[Wurider05]

Imagine if we had.... Chris Paul over Marvin.

Imagine Caron Butler over Marvin.

Imagine Rudy Gay over Marvin.

That;s irrelevant and moot. We don't have Caron Butler, We don't have Rudy Gay, and we don't have Chris Paul. What we have is a team with problems. I am not defending Marvin at all but I am defending the fact that we have bigger problems than Marvin Williams. Again I am for trading anyone on this team that will make us better.

[Trueblood]

I've been thinking about this for awhile and the best compromise I could think of is that if the new cba is for 10 years, the owners should have the right to terminate one deal during the first 5 years and one in the next 5 years. For the players sake, I'd make a rule saying that you can't terminate a deal unless the player has played 2 years on it so that if they get hurt, they at least have 2 years of salary to fall back on.

FWIW, the Allan Houston rule still allowed the players to get paid even after they got cut but the salary wouldn't count against a lux tax payment. Great for the player, good for a luxury tax paying owner and BAD for owners who keep their payroll low and expect a nice lux tax payout only to now not see it due to it being wiped off the lux tax books.

My thinking is this. Owners are making way too big a deal out of guaranteed deals. When you get down to it, it's rarely more than one deal that really sticks out as a bad one either because a player slacks off or gets hurt. If you give the owner the right to terminate one per every 5 years, that should be enough. If he has to do more than that, you have to consider the possibility that the GM is no good and that HE should be the one getting fired.

Also, if you're someone who thinks that guaranteed deals need to go away because all players slack off, then this is still good because nobody knows whose deal will get terminated. Therefore, it's in their best interest to try as hard as they can so that they don't become that guy.

To allow for more competitive balance, the league needs to do away with allowing teams to pay the MLE if they are already in the lux tax. Boston and the Lakers kept taking advantage of this. The Lakers got Fisher, then Artest 2 years later and this year they got Blake and Barnes to split it. My new rule would only allow teams in the soft cap to lux tax window to spend on the MLE. For example, the cap was $58 million and the lux tax was $70 million. The majority of the league was in that range. As long as you can exceed the $58 million but stay below $70 or whatever the lux tax is for a given year, you can spend the MLE. Basically, I'm saying that the lux tax becomes a hard cap of sorts if you're spending the MLE or any portion of it.

I don't have a problem with a hard cap as long as there are layers below. For instance, you have a minimum cap of 75% of the actual salary cap. That's how it is now. Then you have the cap. $58 million this year. Then the lux tax at $70. I would then have no problem if you put in a hard cap at $82 million as that $12 million is the same window between the soft cap and lux tax. Therefore, you have a system where you can exceed the soft cap to sign MLE players, can only exceed the lux tax to sign your own bird or early free agents and then you can't exceed the hard cap. Period.

From there, it's pretty simple. I'd probably lower the max to 20%, 25% and 30% depending on years in the league as opposed to the current 25%, 30% and 35%. Maybe extend the rookie cap a year or 2 so that owners don't have to pay the big bucks after 4 years but now maybe 5 or 6 and still have the ability to get rid of rookies after year 2 if they don't pan out.

Limit raises to 10% for players signing with their own team and make it 5% if you leave as a free agent as opposed to the current 12.5% and 8.5% which are high, bad for the owner and hard to calculate in your head. 10 and 5 is easy.

Also eliminate trade exceptions when a player is signed and traded. Players took advantage of this by getting their cake and eat it too by resigning with their own team and then got traded which allowed them to get the max raise AND bolt their team. If we can get a franchise label, this becomes moot but if not, let's throw it in the new cba as well.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Trueblood

[Diesel]

That;s irrelevant and moot. We don't have Caron Butler, We don't have Rudy Gay, and we don't have Chris Paul. What we have is a team with problems. I am not defending Marvin at all but I am defending the fact that we have bigger problems than Marvin Williams. Again I am for trading anyone on this team that will make us better.

Your original question is how can your 5th or 6th player be responsible for us not winning the championship.

The answer is that we have invested so much in him and he doesn't even do the little things that a serviceable Sf can do. Our investment in him is NOT MOOT....

That's like you buying a house that is a money pit... and then asking the question how can a house which is only so much of our living responsible for our bankruptcy. Well, we have put up so much, traded away so many good players, missed out on so many good trades... all in order to see Marvin Develop... Well, right now, having Donta Smith would have been about the same as having Marvin. I'm tired of everybody excusing Marvin saying it's not his fault. Just like the team had to make up for Bibby's lack of defense, we go into games having to make up for what Marvin doesn't bring. That's how he's responsible.

I've been thinking about this for awhile and the best compromise I could think of is that if the new cba is for 10 years, the owners should have the right to terminate one deal during the first 5 years and one in the next 5 years. For the players sake, I'd make a rule saying that you can't terminate a deal unless the player has played 2 years on it so that if they get hurt, they at least have 2 years of salary to fall back on.

.

That's too much for the owners. IF they have an amnesty clause, I say let it be for 2 players this year (if we have a true hard cap).

I say the only exception to the hard caps are for Rookies and for vets who have been with their teams over 6 years.

GMs have to be brought back to being responsible. If you blow all your cap on 3 players, then damnit, that's your team and you have to figure out a way to make it work.

[Trueblood]

I agree. The GM's need to be held responsible to a certain extent. I briefly mentioned that at the end of the paragraph 3. The problem is that the owners are hell bent on getting their way this time and I think the players are better off making a deal now as opposed to missing half or all of the season and then getting that same bad deal later, only this time they have lost an entire year's worth of salary.

I even think that for a lot of players, allowing for 1 or 2 guys to be whacked who aren't playing up to par is actually a good thing. Here's why. Let's say you have a team like the Hawks. They want to resign Crawford but just don't want to go over the lux tax to do so. It's not just the Hawks who get hurt if JC leaves. JC now has to find a team that will pay him what he feels is fair market value and with the MLE most likely being compromised in the next cba, he is going to have a hard time finding it. Not to mention the fact that he's gonna be over 30 as well. With my rule in place, they can take out Marvin or Hinrich and then have plenty of breathing room to bring back JC. Now, this is just a hypothetical example. I'm not necessarily suggesting that the Hawks are better off with JC over Marvin or Hinrich but you get the idea. If Marvin or Hinrich were truly under performing at the level that some guys in the league are, then being able to get rid of one of them works to the advantage of an upcoming free agent who wants to stay but can't due to said bad salaries.

The league in general would be better. You wouldn't have as many Euro departures. The Hawks wanted JChildress back but were up against it financially and had to let him go. Lot's of teams have found themselves in that boat. Getting rid of 1 lame brain every 5 years helps everyone. The fans win because the team is better, the owner wins because he saves a boat load of dough and the upcoming free agent who deserves a pay day as opposed to floating over to Greece win as well. The only loser is the overpaid jake. The key is getting the players to understand the above. Don't hold out on a good deal for a new cba for overpaid underperformers.