The NBA is looking for ways to balance the level competition between the top tier teams and the bottom tier team. This movement was essentially brought about back in 2010 when LeBron James made his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, forming the big three. The movement has continued since then, most notably this off-season when Kevin Durant’s elected to sign with the Golden State Warriors and leave his long time team, Oklahoma City Thunder, behind. You can blame Durant all you want from his decision but the NBA made it possible. By increasing the max salary and salary cap, it allowed Golden State the wiggle room in cap space to sign the perennial All-Star.
Now, this is not a knock on the players who are out there making money. These men are entertainers are entitled to compensation for the work/entertainment that they give out. This is a knock on the NBA’s salary structure.
A salary cap is fine. It eliminates the opportunity to set up these mega-teams or super-teams as Adam Silver referred to earlier this week…or it’s supposed to at least. The problem with the NBA salary structure is the fact that each player may only receive a max salary that is set by the league. Thanks to this max salary limit, teams, like the new look Golden State Warriors, have the potential of happening. Depending on the source, the NBA salary cap for 2016 and 2017 will be anywhere from $90-$108 million. The maximum deal for players will land anywhere from $19 million-$27 million depending on years of experience. This gives teams the capability of signing 3 to 4 players on max contract deals, even more if they have young superstars under rookie contracts.This is just preposterous and is exactly what has led the NBA to the precarious situation in which it now resides.
So here is my proposal to the NBA.
Do away with Max contracts.
This will eliminate the disparity between the top teams and the bottom teams strictly for monetary reasons. If there was no max salary, this Golden State Warriors team would never have come about. Kevin Durant, instead of making league maximum, would likely eat up 25% to 35% of a given teams salary cap. This gives owners a lot less wiggle room to maneuver money to sign multiple big-name free agents, while also extending their players on max salary contracts.
Now the salary cap would have to stay in place for this to work because without a cap, any team could sign any player as long as they have the money to back it.
Eliminating max salaries while maintaining a salary cap would be beneficial to the NBA for multiple reasons. First off, the playing field would become much more level as big name free agents may be more inclined to sign with small market teams for monetary reasons. Teams would have to rely more on building around this star than buying multiple.
Players would also benefit from this new salary structure. Elite players get paid as such and so on. NBA players would earn what they deserve, not what the league insists they can.
It’s time to even the playing field
