Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
7/17/2022 4:56 PM
With the direction college athletics are going, I’d say do away with the pro drafts (football and basketball) altogether. Every player is all for themselves, at any age, as a free agent to the highest bidder. After all we are either for a completely free market in sports or we aren’t. That way we can watch everything crash and burn as far as fan interest goes for many.
I actually think that would help with parity in the NBA. The salary cap and the notion of max contract ends up undervaluing certain stars.
If it was a free market, somebody like Giannis would be worth 70% of the cap instead of 25% of it, and talent would end up spread more thoroughly across the league.
Could you explain further?
Sure, with the caveat that I used to know the ins/outs of NBA cap math years back, but haven't paid that close attention since the last CBA was negotiated. So some specifics might be off.
But basically the NBA's salary cap creates a few different salary bands. The first is for rookies entering the league; their salaries are dictated and basically non-negotiable. It varies based on where you're drafted (Top 3, top 15, etc) but salaries are banded. That's also true as players progress in their careers; the max contract's defined in the sense that it's a fixed percentage of the salary cap. There are a few variations, and players can earn kickers and increases, but by and large max salaries are a fixed amount of the cap.
The result is that young players end up being a huge bargain because they're on a fixed rate contract. For instance, next year there are two guys in the draft that project to be very, very good. One's the French guy -- Victor Wembanyama -- and the other is Scoot Henderson. The number one pick's salary is about $10,000,000. On an open market, both Wembanyama and Henderson would get much larger salaries. They may even demand the max.
Luke Doncic only earned about 10,000,000 last year, for instance. His next raise is also dictated by structured increases and capped by a max. He'll end up signing a 5 year/$205 million dollar extension. And as crazy as this is, he's underpaid at $37 million. There are years in Bradley Beal's extension that will pay as much as $60 million, given his seniority. If a team could offer that, or more, to Doncic they would.
Because the top players' salaries are artificially kept low, that means teams who have a player of that caliber are getting a bargain and have more money to add other star players to the team. I think the NBA cap's at 150m next year. Capping Doncic's pay such that he only takes up 25% of available cap space makes "super teams" possible.
Last Edited: 7/18/2022 2:32:13 PM by Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame