If you were NBA Czar and could dictate which of the CBA models the league would use...

[sturt]

... would you prefer the current soft cap model used by the NBA?

Or, would you prefer something more like the hard cap model used by the NFL?

Or, would you prefer something more like the no cap model used by MLB?

 

And why do you choose the one you choose?

[sturt]

I choose the hard cap... and with that, the ability of teams in the NFL to cut players and opt out of contracts.

And why... because I believe it's a significant catalyst to allow teams upward mobility, emerging from down times quicker, which in turn also means teams do not have the motivation to tank to the degree that NBA teams do. There is inherently a more robust free agency market that mitigates the necessity of reliance on the draft.

That said, I also think the NBA could do itself a big favor to implement rules that reward deeper teams over top-heavy teams. But that's a whole other (related) discussion.

 

 

[Final_quest]

I'm not advocating for this, but I would love to see what would happen with no cap.  Would some of these guys get $100M/year contracts?  Peak Lebron was almost a Finals guarantee.  What is the actual value of that to the open market?  

[AHF]

4 hours ago, Final_quest said:

I'm not advocating for this, but I would love to see what would happen with no cap.  Would some of these guys get $100M/year contracts?  Peak Lebron was almost a Finals guarantee.  What is the actual value of that to the open market?  

This is why max players are the best value in the game.  You got peak LeBron for like $30-40M when he might get $100M in a totally free market.  It is also why you would see LA, NY, etc. own the league in a scenario with no cap because their payrolls would be out of sight.

[AHF]

My vote was for soft cap but I would make some changes as to how that worked, including eliminating max salaries. 

[Gray Mule]

Balance in the league is my reason for a hard cap.  With no cap, super teams would follow and fans would loose interest because they would know that their team couldn't possibly win.

With a soft cap, have not teams share in the revenue of teams way over the cap.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Keep the soft cap.  It enables teams to keep players and add players even if they're somewhat over the salary cap. Way too much player movement in the hard capped NFL.

Basketball, with only 5 players on the court, will always be slanted toward the team with the superstar talent, or the most overall talent on the court.

A hard cap, in my opinion, would promote even more tanking because teams could predict when a player is about to hit the market, and start cutting/tanking in order to get that star player. 

 

7 hours ago, AHF said:

My vote was for soft cap but I would make some changes as to how that worked, including eliminating max salaries. 

 

Now we're talking!

 

[sturt]

3 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Way too much player movement in the hard capped NFL.

See, I think it's just right, tho. NFL teams seem to be able to recover from a down cycle quicker than NBA teams can. That's actually why I even thought to bring up the topic. At least among those teams that are not "legacy" franchises... biggest markets and/or biggest brand recognition... those teams don't feel like they have much alternative but to tank as they perceive they've hit a wall. So, they dispatch whatever larger contracts they have however they can, sometimes even giving up draft capital in order to achieve that, and they resign themselves to cellar-dwelling for a period of 4-ish seasons.

Takeaway is that more capacity for player movement translates to more capacity to acquire talent necessary to contend. And as you have more teams with more capacity to contend, that inherently also ratchets up parity and reason for fans' belief that their team has a chance to do damage in the post season.

 

3 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Basketball, with only 5 players on the court, will always be slanted toward the team with the superstar talent, or the most overall talent on the court.

While I agree that there's a difference when a team sport requires a minimum of 25 (11+11+3... assuming we don't go back to the days of the 2-way player) versus one that only requires 5, and fairly often only involves 8... football will always be slanted toward the teams with MVP-caliber QBs, ie one player... so the problem you cite, in that sense, is even worse since there are maybe 5 QBs from year to year that qualify.

That said, I do think you have a point insofar as the MVP-caliber NBA players would decide to wholeheartedly embrace ringbratting... coordinating together to manipulate the system so that they can attempt to dominate and manufacture championships.

But so... then... why isn't that a problem in the NFL? What is it about their model that works against the 5-ish QBs rigging the system for their own glory?

Well, of course, it's the hard cap.

But too, circling over to the anti-max-contract theme... teams can pay an individual player whatever they want to pay an individual player, and those contracts can be set for whatever number of years the parties agree to. The best players get big, long-term contracts, and by the time they're back on the market, their star often isn't as shiny as it was when they were in their prime.

So, but of course, this is why young outstanding QBs end up with monster contracts... and yet... also... why when that happens, there's eventually some consequences to the talent level surrounding that QB. Significant talent is going to get traded or let go in order to make room for the monster commitment made.

 

3 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

A hard cap, in my opinion, would promote even more tanking because teams could predict when a player is about to hit the market, and start cutting/tanking in order to get that star player.

Even in the NFL, there are guarantees and cap-hits set in contracts that precludes teams from just willy-nilly cutting players left and right.

Free agency inherently allows teams to strategize and target certain players from off-season to off-season, but the drawback you're citing, imo, is offset by the fact that NFL teams and free agents get to decide for themselves if they want to do a longer term contract than is typical... indeed, the NBA has a major problem in this very situation you're describing because it defines and regulates that vet contracts cannot run more than 4 years if you're a player looking to leave your current team.

Plus, the amount of bonus, and the amount of guaranteed vs. non-guaranteed... all of these factors have created the push-pull that makes outright tanking in the NFL rare by comparison.

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

13 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Basketball, with only 5 players on the court, will always be slanted toward the team with the superstar talent, or the most overall talent on the court.

We'll also see less continuity on court with so much turnover. Teams needing time to mesh and form a cohesive unit will be more difficult to maintain.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

11 hours ago, sturt said:

See, I think it's just right, tho. NFL teams seem to be able to recover from a down cycle quicker than NBA teams can. That's actually why I even thought to bring up the topic. At least among those teams that are not "legacy" franchises... biggest markets and/or biggest brand recognition... those teams don't feel like they have much alternative but to tank as they perceive they've hit a wall. So, they dispatch whatever larger contracts they have however they can, sometimes even giving up draft capital in order to achieve that, and they resign themselves to cellar-dwelling for a period of 4-ish seasons.

Takeaway is that more capacity for player movement translates to more capacity to acquire talent necessary to contend. And as you have more teams with more capacity to contend, that inherently also ratchets up parity and reason for fans' belief that their team has a chance to do damage in the post season.

 

While I agree that there's a difference when a team sport requires a minimum of 25 (11+11+3... assuming we don't go back to the days of the 2-way player) versus one that only requires 5, and fairly often only involves 8... football will always be slanted toward the teams with MVP-caliber QBs, ie one player... so the problem you cite, in that sense, is even worse since there are maybe 5 QBs from year to year that qualify.

That said, I do think you have a point insofar as the MVP-caliber NBA players would decide to wholeheartedly embrace ringbratting... coordinating together to manipulate the system so that they can attempt to dominate and manufacture championships.

But so... then... why isn't that a problem in the NFL? What is it about their model that works against the 5-ish QBs rigging the system for their own glory?

Well, of course, it's the hard cap.

But too, circling over to the anti-max-contract theme... teams can pay an individual player whatever they want to pay an individual player, and those contracts can be set for whatever number of years the parties agree to. The best players get big, long-term contracts, and by the time they're back on the market, their star often isn't as shiny as it was when they were in their prime.

So, but of course, this is why young outstanding QBs end up with monster contracts... and yet... also... why when that happens, there's eventually some consequences to the talent level surrounding that QB. Significant talent is going to get traded or let go in order to make room for the monster commitment made.

 

Even in the NFL, there are guarantees and cap-hits set in contracts that precludes teams from just willy-nilly cutting players left and right.

Free agency inherently allows teams to strategize and target certain players from off-season to off-season, but the drawback you're citing, imo, is offset by the fact that NFL teams and free agents get to decide for themselves if they want to do a longer term contract than is typical... indeed, the NBA has a major problem in this very situation you're describing because it defines and regulates that vet contracts cannot run more than 4 years if you're a player looking to leave your current team.

Plus, the amount of bonus, and the amount of guaranteed vs. non-guaranteed... all of these factors have created the push-pull that makes outright tanking in the NFL rare by comparison.

 

 

 

With me being a Bengals fan, and seeing all of our young guys about to be paid, I would LOVE the NBA soft cap in the NFL.

Instead, only Burrow, Chase, and MAYBE Higgins will get what they're worth, along with maybe 1 - 2 of the defensive guys.  Everyone else will have to be switched out.

[sturt]

2 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

We'll also see less continuity on court with so much turnover. Teams needing time to mesh and form a cohesive unit will be more difficult to maintain.

Um. But.

Isn't that just a decision a front office makes? And, don't they already do that, regardless?

There's no one forcing them to turnover their roster.

If they perceive their better path to success is to give their team time to mesh and form a cohesive unit (which, btw, there's no bigger fan on this board of that than muah)... that's just what they'll do. Having more opportunity and more options only grants greater flexibility to choose.

[JayBirdHawk]

8 minutes ago, sturt said:

Isn't that just a decision a front office makes? And, don't they already do that, regardless?

a hard cap changes that.

[sturt]

23 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

With me being a Bengals fan, and seeing all of our young guys about to be paid, I would LOVE the NBA soft cap in the NFL.

Instead, only Burrow, Chase, and MAYBE Higgins will get what they're worth, along with maybe 1 - 2 of the defensive guys.  Everyone else will have to be switched out.

Illustrates the conflict well.

What's best for my team is one thing. What's best for the overall league can be another thing.

Left to my own devices, I want my team... NFL or NBA or otherwise... not only to be able to rise up to the upper tier, but stay there for as long as possible... a dynasty that would be recognized for the ages, if possible.

But to the degree that that happens for the upper tier teams, the unfortunate consequence is a league where lesser tier teams feel trapped, and have a longer slog toward the upper tier, if they even have a path at all.

You may recall I'm originally from Bengals territory and still listen regularly to their flagship radio station when I'm in the shower in the morning--so tho not a fan, I'm always plugged-in... to me, Bengals fans suffered about as long and hard as any NFL fans could ever anticipate suffering.

It makes sense that, now that you've finally tasted some glory, you certainly aren't anxious to start regressing anytime soon. But I chalk that up to the egregiously dysfunctional owner... all of the bad of a Jerry Jones type owner (centered on money making), and none of the good (passion to win).

The NFL's hard cap, in reality, has been fundamental to most teams rising up to taste some degree of success far more often than what the Bengals saw. They have been a worst-case scenario. And now that you have a top tier QB, there's reason to be optimistic... and all the more so as Mike Brown almost certainly is on the cusp of aging out and handing authority off to more competent people who have emerged. You may not be able to attain a dynasty... thanks in large part to that hard cap... but you're about to lock-up Burrow for a Mahomes-like contract (10 years? More?)... and you should be able to expect to be relevant for most if not all of that time.

The overall league benefits by that circumstance... Bengals and teams like them can become relevant, but not so dominant that the lower tier teams can't remake themselves enough to reach a place of relevance with some frequency.

[sturt]

10 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

a hard cap changes that.

Oh. Well. Okay then. So damn persuasive. Thank you for helping me see the light.

[AHF]

I don't think you will ever see the dynamic of so many teams tasting great success in the NFL in the NBA because the NBA is a star driven league.  If you have Hakeem, MJ, etc. then you can contend for a title.  If your best player is Steve Smith or Dikembe then you aren't winning a title.  The way to fix that is to force teams to either give up their stars regularly so stars move from city to city or to decimate the rosters of the teams with the stars.  I don't know that either of those is viable.  I do think a soft cap with no max salaries is a middle ground between the NFL model you are suggesting and the current model.  I want the Hawks to be able to hold onto Trae for his career and have him retire as a Hawk if things work out ala Duncan, Bird, Kobe, etc. but making it impossible for Golden State to add Kevin Durant or for LeBron to team up with both Bosh and Wade would be a big step in the right direction.

[sturt]

Waiting for Jay Bird "like" in 1... 2... 3...

 

OH... damn... it's already there!!!!

 

[sturt]

31 minutes ago, AHF said:

I don't think you will ever see the dynamic of so many teams tasting great success in the NFL in the NBA because the NBA is a star driven league.  If you have Hakeem, MJ, etc. then you can contend for a title.  If your best player is Steve Smith or Dikembe then you aren't winning a title. 

Forgive me that I have to short arm this... road trip pending that I need to get started in the next 10-15 minutes.

ALL of that is conjecture.

How do I know that?

We all know that. We all know that

(a) because there has not been any way to test whether a paradigm change in how the cap functions would, in fact, either prove or disprove "If you have Hawkeen, MJ etc, then you can contend for a title. If your best player is Steve Smith or Dikemebe then you aren't winning a title"... and indeed, without re-rehearsing it all again, the NFL's outcomes are evidence that greater roster flexibility creates more opportunity for upward mobility; and,

(b) because there is some self-fulfilling prophecy and circular logic involved in the assertion... to wit, Steve Smith, once he would ever be the lead dog on an NBA title team, becomes a "star"... we don't know what he's capable of doing until he's put in a position (by virtue of what surrounds him) to demonstrate that. Now, maybe, Steve Smith's capacity to be a star only barely gets him across that line... as we might think of a, say, Tony Parker, for instance... whereas MJ's capacity to be a star is far across that line. But the point remains that it's a subjective judgment of individual performance capacity that gains objective evidence based on team achievement.

 

31 minutes ago, AHF said:

I want the Hawks to be able to hold onto Trae for his career and have him retire as a Hawk

And had we been able to offer him a Patrick Mahomes like contract, that would be more than possible, of course. (I know I'm preaching to the lead singer in the choir on that, btw.)

 

31 minutes ago, AHF said:

making it impossible for Golden State to add Kevin Durant or for LeBron to team up with both Bosh and Wade would be a big step in the right direction.

Funny thing. You don't have the upper crust other players interested in taking pay cuts to play with Pat Mahomes.

There's a reason for that.

 

I'm outta here. Enjoy your day.

 

 

[AHF]

8 minutes ago, sturt said:

 

Funny thing. You don't have the upper crust other players interested in taking pay cuts to play with Pat Mahomes.

There's a reason for that.

This is why I think simply eliminating max salaries gets you what you want without requiring the roster turnover that NFL rosters see under a hard cap. 

I'll definitely concede that we are untested as far as how a hard capped system impacts the results in the NBA but I think it would be foolish to not recognize the differences between the NFL and NBA in terms of how much roster depth matters.  We've seen a lot of different builds win NBA titles but very few have not been led by an MVP candidate plus 1-2 other All-NBA or All-Star players.   That just isn't the case for the NFL because you need so many more contributing players.  You can have an elite line on both sides of the ball, an amazing QB, RB and WR, etc. but if you have a grossly incompetent set of CBs and safeties you are going to get crushed.  In the NBA, you can have that singular superstar and his Robin(s) and fill in with role players.  I just think this is a fundamental difference that cap dynamics is not going to change.  So with all due respect to Steve Smith, he is never, ever, ever going to be confused with Michael Jordan.  The elite talent in basketball carries an outsized impact relative to football.  Again, I'll concede we haven't seen this play out in a  hard cap environment for the NBA but I'm just giving you my honest view that this is hard wired into the nature of the sport.

I do think the outsized impact of talent would fundamentally differentiate between the NFL and NBA on the number of guaranteed players and the amount of guaranteed salaries.  In the NFL, only a relatively small % of contracts are guaranteed.  I think in an NBA system where teams were free to guarantee contracts that you would see more guarantees offered because the talent pool is more limited and replacement value is much lower relative to the NFL.  So I'm not convinced that even using the exact same rule set as the NFL that you would see an environment of largely unguaranteed contracts like in the NFL.  Again, this is just speculation since none of us have seen it play out but I think there are reasons to be skeptical that this would play out the same way.

[sturt]

On 5/23/2023 at 9:45 AM, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Burrow

Heard this morning that he's pursuing a contract that will dictate his salary as a PERCENTAGE OF ANY GIVEN SEASON'S SALARY CAP... and the number 25% was tossed out as an example.

I've had that thought cross my mind that that would make a lot of sense of NFL players to pursue, but had argued with myself that it just must not be something the current agreement allows for whatever reason.

Related to this topic, I'm made to wonder if this might also be something NBA players could adopt in their negotiations (?).

[Gray Mule]

Super Stars in the NBA make mega $$$ and all their teammates gets whatever is left over.  They have 15 players and if that Super Star makes enough then all the remainder 14 get the NBA minimum salary allowed.