An NFL version of the Warriors and Cavaliers would never be able to meet in four straight Super Bowls. That league operates with much more restrictive salary cap rules, which means veteran players frequently hit the open market as their current teams decide they are no longer affordable.
The NBA has a much softer cap structure, utilizing Bird rights that give great leeway in allowing teams to exceed the cap to re-sign their own free agents and providing yearly exceptions for teams that choose to use them.
Not coincidentally, only six franchises — the Mavericks, Heat, Thunder, Spurs, Warriors and Cavaliers — have reached the finals in the past eight seasons, as teams that amass talent tend to find a way to keep it. Over that same stretch, 11 teams have played in Super Bowls.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended his league’s cap system during his annual pre-Finals press conference this week. He pointed out differences between the two sports and noted the importance of continuity in basketball.
“Now [the hard cap is] something that we’ll continue to look at,” Silver said. “There are pros and cons to doing it. Historically, one of the issues in our league was we didn’t necessarily want to break up teams. There is a different sense in the NBA than the NFL, and the chemistry and dynamic that comes together with a group of players.”
This year’s salary cap is set at $99MM, but only a handful of teams operate below it. Even the $119.2MM luxury tax threshold hasn’t been much of an impediment for organizations that believe they have a shot at a championship. Both the Warriors and Cavaliers have payrolls that exceed $137MM, and a few other owners have expressed a willingness to pay whatever tax is necessary to get to their level.
Continuity may be important, but it also has a downside as eventually fans get tired of seeing the same teams in the Finals every year. If LeBron James stays in Cleveland and Golden State keeps its crew of All-Stars together, it’s easy to envision this matchup again next year, and possibly for several more seasons to come.
Any cap changes would have to be negotiated with the players’ union, which would take a strong stance against anything that lowers salaries, but do you believe that’s the direction the league needs to take? Please jump into the comments section below and give us your thoughts on how stricter cap rules would affect the NBA.
The NBAPA will never agree to a hard cap.
The NHLPA did. Eventually it will happen and salaries will come down because otherwise all of this goes away.
Hockey was in the dumps and teams didn’t have the value that the NBA teams do.
There’s plenty of money to go around in the NBA and if my team is worth 3 billion than I can afford luxury tax.
The NHL both sides had to come together for the health of the league. Ratings were down team values did not grow as hoped.
No. The NBA does not need a hard cap. No league should have a cap. If your ownership is willing to invest the money into winning, then so be it.
So your answer is that the richest teams always have the advantage?
The Yankees, Sox, and Dodgers are always atop the spending. They don’t always win. Dodgers have not been successful at spending to win like the Yankees and Sox. The salaries players get is the ridiculous part, like Steph curry getting 40M a year makes Mozgov at 16M look like a bargain, which is the worst contract outside of Noah. Tickets and concessions for games are also obsene. The networks really screwed the pooch influxing the leagues with cash. Not smart investing as more viewership goes streaming which can be done for free or multiusers for 1 package. They paid for old tech basically.
As an active trader, we are all pretty much waiting for the market tank bc itd si far over extended. Luxury spending is the 1st to go, cable packages get cut back, etc…
Yeah, but when was the last time either the Dodgers or Yankees had a top 5 pick? Or finished last in their division? In the 50 years of divisional play, the Dodgers and Yankees have only finished last in their division once, NY in 1990 and LA in 1992. And some of that time, there were only four teams in the West. That is not just good management, that is an inherently unfair system. That is the problem with the big money teams. Money doesn’t guarantee winning it all, but it does guarantee never being the worst around.
A richer person can always buy the team and spend what the previous owner refused to spend.
And the previous owner will always be handsomely compensated.
Even if the new, richer owner has more money, maintaining a New York-sized payroll in a Utah-sized market would kill any profit for the owner and not make it a worthy investment. So if they had more money, they would lose a ton of they had a 250 million dollar payroll or something nutty like that.
No, what it needs is more flexibility for teams stuck with bad contracts. As an example, the Knicks should be able to release Noah and just bypass the cap hit or something.
The same teams are in the finals every year because half the league is hamstrung.
Absolutely disagree….when teams make stupid decisions like signing Noah to such an inflated contract, then they should face the consequences of their actions when it doesn’t pan out.
I agree in a way, but I also there should be some way to fix a mistake once you are aware of it. Your argument is punishing franchises for not being perfect. Nobody’s perfect, that’s why pencils have erasers, or to update the cliche that’s why keyboards have backspace keys. I don’t believe team should just get a pass like the OP says, but how long should you punish a team for a mistake made by the previous regime?
I think the stretch provision provides for this somewhat, but I think the requirements for that should be relaxed a bit.
No one is perfect but not everyone is a winner. Today’s generation needs to learn this life lesson
Exactly.
But that just makes the league worse. Is the goal to punish stupid teams or is the goal to put the best possible basketball product on the field? I prefer the latter.
It would have to be something where they erase the cap hit from the salary book, but still have to pay Noah(they agreed to a contract). But then teams could sign anyone for any amount, wipe their cap hit but still pay them. That would just render the cap useless since teams could easily work around any cap space shortage.
Is there really any reason to have the cap?!
It’s set at $99m, yet majority of the teams have exceeded it and pay the luxury tax. Why not just increase the tax level to the luxury tax level. It may help level the playing field
NBA team values have grown through the roof. This puts some of the money of appreciating team values back into the league itself. Fantastic system.
The soft cap rewards teams that can keep players on their team. GSW drafted curry, Thompson and Green. Durant came in at a discount.
Philly is in the same boat.
Cavs sorta.
Soft cap is the perfect middle man that rewards both money making teams and good grass roots team building. Teams can maybe clear up cap space and buy 2 players tops, they can’t do what the Yankees do
I agree with everything you said, except for the last sentence. “Buying” 1 or 2 players in the NBA still makes a significant difference, like the Warriors getting Durant.
It when you have a home grown core, ie Curry, Green, Thompson, you can “buy” a player or two to push your team from maybe winning the conference finals(Warriors won in seven against OKC in 2016, lost championship) to a legitimate title contender(warriors won title in 5 next season with Durant).
I feel like a hard cap would bring more balance and competition to the league.
A hard cap would be a socialist system. Either Tristen Thompson would make the same amount as LeBron James, or he would make the minimum.
There would be no middle class. You get two Max guys and everyone else minimum salaries.
You’d have the Kings and the paupers.
Or just the Sacramento Kings
>Over that stretch, 11 teams have to the super bowl.
Well if we take that comparison to baseball, there’s be 13 teams in the world series in that same stretch, and baseball’s true “cap” in any sense is the luxury tax that starts at 197 (!) million dollars this.
You can’t really compare sports in those kinds of things, owners will cause they’re the ones who benefit. Lebron can take the ball up the court and shoot every shot, but Mike Trout can only bat 1/9 times. There’s also ten less people on that roster, why shouldn’t he get paid? I mean, if it’s not him getting the money, it’s the owner.
this year*
You should be comparing it based on price per player. MLB 4.9M/ppp 197M/40-man roster. NBA 7.9M/ppp 119M/15-man roster. NFL 3.1M/ppp 177M/56-man roster. The most violent sport and most profitable allocates the least price per player. The only difference is the arbitration in baseball, that keeps salaries down so much more than the other sports for stars. Look at all the lottery Top-3 busts in NBA and NFL. Don’t know why get why you give all this money to someone that hasnt actually earned it. Playing NCAA isnt earning it, you get a free education, room, and board typically 60k+/year and loads of other fringe benefits that come hour glass shaped.
The most violent and dangerous sport also does not have guaranteed contracts. So when you get a few years into a deal and you are older, you can just be released.
That was the only correction you found?
GSW’s best player is playing on a discount, as players routinely do to play for contending teams. A hard cap won’t do anything to stop that.
NBA needs to end the max salary. It’s easy for KD to take 25M from the warriors instead of 30 elsewhere; it would be harder for him to take 25 if other teams are offering 50.
Curry is going to be making 40M. He signed a discounted contract bc his ankles are made of 1ply toilet paper. They held up for most of the last 3 years, that is the only reason hes been elite, hes stayed healthy finally. Best ability needs to be availability.
He’s talking about KD
Agreed take away the max all together
I think is good some sort of cap… but do not like the idea of a hard cap, to me is not very interesting if every year 2 different teams reach the finals, you need to build some rivalries, that is what makes the league & fans tick. I always remember the 80’s where basically where always the Lakers & Celtics, with a couple shows from Sixers & Rockets, & at the end the Pistons… but everyone was always looking forward to see if LA & Boston would make it to the finals, that rivalry in my opinion is what save & made this league, so changing the system to stop having dynasties or dominating teams is not good, not all the teams deserve the right to be in the finals, that you have to earn either through throwing lots of money to the team, drafting & building well, been very clever in the FA market… just please stop messing with our sport, NBA is the best pro league in the country followed by the NFL, so why change, specially to do things that the next best league does, they should be copying the NBA instead.
End of the rant.
No
I’m all for guaranteed $ In nba like nfl. Shit happens, you want out of the last two years of the contact? You should be allowed to since you already paid the guaranteed portion
I think we may see a lot more partially guaranteed contracts
Just get rid of max contracts
So LeBron makes 80 million and 11 other guys total 19 million?
I think if you have a team salary cap then you need a Max salary cap for playets as a portion of the total.
And if there is no salary cap at all, then the players make an exorbitant amount of money which the owners cannot sustain and teams begin folding.
A salary cap of some kind keeps things competitive… at least a little.
The way it is now you can only afford two Max guys everyone else has to take a little less.
It’s a decent system in place right now.
At the end of the day teams are willing to pay players these “bad” contracts. Undesirable free agent locations have to pay more for even mediocre talent. Basketball is a sport where one player really matters. This is going to continue happening.
One of the reasons only the Mavs, Heat, Thunder, Cavs, Spurs, and Warriors have made the finals is because basketball is such a centralized sport. Only a few good players playing 40 minutes in the Finals will get you a championship. In football, all 11 players are involved and in baseball all 9 are, compared to 5 in basketball. And even with the 5 players, one player can control the whole game unlike other sports. Mavs, Heat, Thunder, Cavs, Spurs, and Warriors had Dirk, Wade, Bron, Bosh, Durant, Westbrook, Bron again, Leonard, Duncan, Curry, Klay, Green, and Durant again. These “stars” are what brought them to the finals. And for the most part,(9 out of 11, excluding KD and LeBron) these “stars” stayed with their respective teams for most of their career if not all, and at least their prime. So the effect star power in-game and franchise players not moving has a huge effect on the Finals.