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NBA Statement: NBAPA will not agree to smoothing the salary cap

Ellis269 said:
2016 is when the Cap Increase is expected to spike. . .

Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors will both be UFA, but the Jazz have their Bird Rights and can offer them more money than anyone else. . . I'm expecting a 4 or 5 year extension for both of them.

Rudy Gobert will likely command a 4 or 5 year max deal in 2017.

Dante Exum will likely command one in 2018.

The Jazz will still have their rookies from this year under cheap contracts, as well as any European players (Tomic/Pliess/Neto) that they might bring over this offseason. Guys who will come cheaper on their first contract with the Jazz than they would if they were operating as UFA on the open market (especially Tomic).

And no matter how much money gets thrown around over the next two years, there will always be super teams. The simple fact is that when the market stabilizes, the stars will command a larger percentage of the cap and there's only so much money to go around for one team. There might be a small window for teams to either stockpile players or hoard cap space to draw stars in FA down the road. . . but counting on that is not as easy as I think some people believe it will be.

Winning teams have an advantage, no matter what the market.
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Hayward has a player option that he will opt out of in 17-18. Favors is not a free agent until 18-19.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/UTA.html
 
JAZZGASM said:
The NBAPA are a bunch of ****ing morans. There will be more players under contract under the current CBA than players not under contract. By not "smoothing" players open for a new contract will get paid more and those under existing contracts will be penalized. The NBAPA is supposed to represent all the players interests equally. Smoothing would be by far the most equitable approach and avoid a very chaotic year or two as salaries adjust. I definitely see a prolonged strike in the near future. What a shame.

Similarly, they push back against minimum age increases, which again does not advocate for the current union members. Having an age cap protects current members interests by keeping more positions in the league available.
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Who is the major player in negotiations? Lebron. Michele Roberts wants a completely free market with NO cap and players able to just go to the highest bidder. She's polishing LBJ's...well, you get the picture. Whatever the big name players WANT, they'll get from her. And many have positioned themselves to become FA's in 2016 for precisely this reason. There was never ANY chance the union was going to accept smoothing.
 
"Smoothing would have avoided a substantial Salary Cap spike in 2016-17. Under the league's smoothing approach, the salary shortfall resulting from more gradual Cap increases would have been paid directly to the Players Association for distribution to all players, and thus the total compensation paid to players in any given season would not have been impacted."
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Had smoothing happened, the value of Utah's current contracts drop. All our players would have gotten automatic raises, instead of having to wait for their next contracts. This will put us in a great situation for making trades. It's true that it puts us at a bigger disadvantage FA wise, but I consider it to be negligible, as Utah needs to win to have any chance of attracting FAs, anyway. If Utah is as good as we all hope next year, we could still have a chance of luring a player looking to contend.
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Otherwise, there's no doubt that our FO has been operating in anticipation of this exact situation, so no need to worry that this is going to hurt Utah. I believe the pros in this outweigh the cons for Utah. It may/may not hinder our ability to sign FAs for the next few years, but the trade value of our contracts increase, and in the long run, Utah may find opportunities to acquire assets due to other team's mistakes, which should be plentiful. I'm sure that some small market teams will be hurt by this, but I don't believe Utah will be one of them.
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Finally, for anyone who's still skeptical as to the importance of building through the draft for a team like Utah, hopefully this helps put things in perspective a little. The draft is easily the single best tool Utah has to build with.
 
NAOS said:
I understand what you're saying, and I'm sympathetic to many of your points. But you yourself admit that the ripple effect this has will take time to stabilize. I've been implying that that period of stabilization will directly correspond to the high-point of productivity for certain players. Those could be our players' windows. For the players, teams, and fans who are kept out of the glory land because of this instability: do you think they'll care if the market will eventually stabilize?
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I think you make some good points. There will probably be some deals that will be made that wouldn't have happened otherwise if not for the sudden increase in the salary cap. I just don't think the overall impact will be that severe. Right now they are estimating that the salary cap will jump from around $63 million this year to $88-92 in 2016. No doubt that is a huge jump and some teams that are well over the salary cap now will suddenly have some money to spend. The problem for those teams is that everyone will have that money to spend. Teams that are over the cap now will have some money to spend. Teams that are under or close to the current cap will have a ton of money spend. Clearly, the large market teams will have their advantages as they always do, but the teams with Bird rights still hold that 4th year option which is going to be worth even more with the increasingly inflated salaries.

I think you can argue that the inflated salaries actually benefit a team like the Jazz. The bigger these contracts get, the more money these players have to leave on the table if they bolt to a bigger market team. Human nature would dictate that unless they are a superstar and really want to move, they will take the money where they can get it. Sign and trade has almost become a thing of the past at this point. The Jazz are in the good position of having cap space to spend and (likely) players that won't want to leave that much money on the table just to get out of Utah.

On the plus side, the advantage that you've been talking about could definitely cause the larger market teams to put themselves in a worse position. If a team like the Lakers were to go out and try to attract one or two big stars with their new found cap space, they could end up causing big problems for themselves. As I mentioned before, the salary cap is just a number. All salaries get bigger when the cap goes up. If they quickly fill up that cap space with huge contracts, they could quickly end up more hamstrung than they are now. They could end up being hard pressed to sign their up and coming players and lock themselves out of future free agent deals. I can totally see this happening with at least the Lakers and the Knicks that seem to have more money than sense these days.

I do think there will be a ripple, but I think that ripple only lasts for this one signing period. Every team will again have to get up to 90% of the salary cap and then it's back to business as usual.
 
mrob said:
I do think there will be a ripple, but I think that ripple only lasts for this one signing period. Every team will again have to get up to 90% of the salary cap and then it's back to business as usual.
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I think you are missing a few things here. I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the implications, but this has already impacted signings imo.
  • I think it played a big part in Hayward getting matched/maxed.
  • Now that teams know that the jump will take place, there will be more players overpaid this summer
  • Teams will be willing to pay the tax for a year that wouldn't have otherwise
  • Expiring contracts will have way less value
  • Players under contract will have way more value
  • Teams will end up out of cash again after the jump and won't be able to resign some FAs under old contracts that will be due pay raise ala Harden/OKC. (esp old rookie contracts)
 
vegas said:


I think you are missing a few things here. I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the implications, but this has already impacted signings imo.
  • I think it played a big part in Hayward getting matched/maxed.
  • Now that teams know that the jump will take place, there will be more players overpaid this summer
  • Teams will be willing to pay the tax for a year that wouldn't have otherwise
  • Expiring contracts will have way less value
  • Players under contract will have way more value
  • Teams will end up out of cash again after the jump and won't be able to resign some FAs under old contracts that will be due pay raise ala Harden/OKC. (esp old rookie contracts)
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Agreed, players like Knight, Dragic, Leonard, Butler and all will most certainly get maxed out because "hey, that 15 o 16m per year contract looks expensive now, but in 2016 or 17 it will look like a bargain, so let's overpay upfront to get the discount later". This means that FAs already this summer will benefit hugely from it.
 
veji1 said:
Agreed, players like Knight, Dragic, Leonard, Butler and all will most certainly get maxed out because "hey, that 15 o 16m per year contract looks expensive now, but in 2016 or 17 it will look like a bargain, so let's overpay upfront to get the discount later". This means that FAs already this summer will benefit hugely from it.
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Yeah, but the players and certainly the agents are not that stupid. Some will want the security of a long term guaranteed deal, but will likely go for players options in the post jump years. Like I said still wrapping my head around it.
 
My impression is that this decision reflects a disproportionate influence of stars at the expense of role and bench players, as they clearly appear to benefit most from it.

I would also guess that there are several role and bench players who object to this decision, but, as is often the case where power asymmetries exist, they are intimidated from speaking up and voicing their concerns. What lowly bench player is going to take on LeBron or CP3, either in private or public?

If any of this is true, then in my opinion, the head of the Union (what's her name?) is not doing her job, which is to represent the interests of ALL players, not just, or disproportionately, the stars.

I understand that stars are what drives the league and its success, but I don't see that as all that relevant here.
 
jimmy eat jazz said:
My impression is that this decision reflects a disproportionate influence of stars at the expense of role and bench players, as they clearly appear to benefit most from it.

I would also guess that there are several role and bench players who object to this decision, but, as is often the case where power asymmetries exist, they are intimidated from speaking up and voicing their concerns. What lowly bench player is going to take on LeBron or CP3, either in private or public?

If any of this is true, then in my opinion, the head of the Union (what's her name?) is not doing her job, which is to represent the interests of ALL players, not just, or disproportionately, the stars.

I understand that stars are what drives the league and its success, but I don't see that as all that relevant here.
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I guess they figure that eventually all players will benefit and that there is no reason to artificially hold down salaries. It doesn't seem that the huge bump in the salary cap favors stars. It seems like it favors those who are in the position to be a free agent that year ... star or otherwise. Players that are locked down for a year or two into the new salary cap will lose a lot of money in this deal.
 
mrob said:
I guess they figure that eventually all players will benefit and that there is no reason to artificially hold down salaries. It doesn't seem that the huge bump in the salary cap favors stars. It seems like it favors those who are in the position to be a free agent that year ... star or otherwise. Players that are locked down for a year or two into the new salary cap will lose a lot of money in this deal.
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In the nicest way possible you need to read about this more before posting. If smoothing happened, all players would get more money. So take Favors who is under contract for ~$12 mill. If smoothing happens he gets his $12 mill, but there is another 30% more salary that the players get. With smoothing the NBAPA would divvy out the extra 30%. If everybody got a 30% raise he gets an extra $3.6 mil. There's some assumptions there, but those dollars must go to the players one way or another.

As for Lebron without smoothing. Here is an article that explains he will earn another $43 mill over the course of his upcoming 4 year contract. So ~$10 mill/yr extra. Over $30 mill per year.
https://www.businessinsider.com/lebron-max-contract-tv-2014-10
 
vegas said:
In the nicest way possible you need to read about this more before posting. If smoothing happened, all players would get more money. So take Favors who is under contract for ~$12 mill. If smoothing happens he gets his $12 mill, but there is another 30% more salary that the players get. With smoothing the NBAPA would divvy out the extra 30%. If everybody got a 30% raise he gets an extra $3.6 mil. There's some assumptions there, but those dollars must go to the players one way or another.
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I understand that the money would go to the players. I hadn't heard any specifics about how it would have been divided up. I'm just trying to understand why the NBAPA rejected the plan. I would like to hear more specifics about what they found objectionable. Right now, I can only suspect that it was money now vs. money later.
 
zman1527 said:
Why would you hope for that? So the billionaire owners can gain even more?
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...two very good reasons! 1) Less NBA basketball to watch means less pain on my eyeballs! 2) Less money the players get....the more they will have to cut back on all those disgusting jailhouse tats they put on there bodies! Of course, since they already have them tatted to the max.....they probably couldn't put another one on themselves even if it was done for free!
 
vegas said:


I think you are missing a few things here. I am still trying to wrap my head around all of the implications, but this has already impacted signings imo.
  • I think it played a big part in Hayward getting matched/maxed.
  • Now that teams know that the jump will take place, there will be more players overpaid this summer
  • Teams will be willing to pay the tax for a year that wouldn't have otherwise
  • Expiring contracts will have way less value
  • Players under contract will have way more value
  • Teams will end up out of cash again after the jump and won't be able to resign some FAs under old contracts that will be due pay raise ala Harden/OKC. (esp old rookie contracts)
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Yep. Agreed on all, makes the Faves/Hayward contracts absolute bargains. Although expirings haven't had much value for a while now.

Actually think this is the offseason where guys get overpaid the most. Middleton is going to get 12+ a year, Dray's gonna get close a max offer, ditto tobias, heck demarre's gonna get paid too.
 
It is crazy how much the money has changed compared to inflation over the last 30 years.
 
New salary cap projections sent out to NBA teams:
2015-16: 67.1 million, tax 81.6
2016-17: 89 million, tax 108
2017-18: 108 million, tax 127
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Jonathan Givony, Draft Express

Not a huge change from earlier projections. Recalibrate your salary impact by a factor of 1.6. A 2017 $16 million dollar contract=$10 million under the current cap. I expect to see a lot of 1 yr deals.
 
New salary cap projections sent out to NBA teams:
2015-16: 67.1 million, tax 81.6
2016-17: 89 million, tax 108
2017-18: 108 million, tax 127
Click to expand...
vegas said:
Jonathan Givony, Draft Express

Not a huge change from earlier projections. Recalibrate your salary impact by a factor of 1.6. A 2017 $16 million dollar contract=$10 million under the current cap. I expect to see a lot of 1 yr deals.
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It's kind of a shame that this post will go largely unnoticed/ignored/underappreciated on this board, while people talk about making offers for RFA's that we have no chance of stealing.
 
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