Players now dictate new "super teams"

[AHF]

AHF they aren't going to have a provision that says "in order to stop super teams" because that is outlandish. Their motives and what they negotiated on was in attempt to stop super teams. Clearly it failed but it is NOT as if they did not try because they certainly did. Most of the "provisions" have an intent but sometimes the intent is not satisfied or it actually does something being the intent. Unintended consequences a blazing.

I disagree 100%. They had multiple proposals that were intended to destroy the super team concept and they bagged them all. That is why I immediately complained about that aspect of the new CBA completing failing to address this issue. Whether it is labeled as such or not, there was no provision in the new CBA that was genuinely thought as likely to stop it . The league did not fight for franchise tags which were discussed. They did not pursue rules against player collusion while under contract. They did not bar players from receiving income from other sources contingent on relocating to a big market. They did not do anything that would actually slow down this trend. If you thought the new CBA was going to check this practice you were woefully naive. However, I don't think either you or NBA managment was that naive. This was an exercise in lip service and nothing was done to stop the next super friends story from developing - which is why the first story after the new CBA was agreed upon was how Dwight was going to leverage his upcoming FA to form the next superfriends and that is exactly what he is looking to do. And why is no one saying, "oh, the new CBA was supposed to stop this....booo hooo...how could this have happened?" -- because they never expected it to stop.

[Admin]

I only base that off the Hawks having an All-Star C/PF combination for the past few years and not being able to get out the second round. In today's NBA titles are won in the back court. Well...at least I think so.

Josh Smith isn't even near Love offensively or rebounding wise. It's not even remotely close. Love is a legit All-Star while Josh hasn't even gotten in as a sub. Not saying that we wouldn't need to improve 1-3 but I'd damn sure rather have Love than Smith next to Al.

[Guest]

This definitely sounds revisionist to me. I heard of no story coming out after the lockout claiming Dwight will have the next super friends from leveraging a trade. They did have stories come out about how Dwight and Deron would team up in Dallas through free agency but that is NOT what this scenario is about. This is about S&Ts and letting your potential FA walk. Maybe my memory is rusty.The stories of Dwight leveraging a trade came out after the language of the CBA was told to us. After Coon started explaining what was actually written as opposed to what was told to us through the owners and NBPA. Its all fine and dandy explaining your intent (which the owners and NBPA went on the record with), but their intent wasn't a well formulated idea that can easily be translated into mice type. Someone didn't feed any common sense into this CBA as well. Just wait for the owners to start complaining, the players already have.

[AHF]

This definitely sounds revisionist to me. I heard of no story coming out after the lockout claiming Dwight will have the next super friends from leveraging a trade. They did have stories come out about how Dwight and Deron would team up in Dallas through free agency but that is NOT what this scenario is about. This is about S&Ts and letting your potential FA walk. Maybe my memory is rusty. The stories of Dwight leveraging a trade came out after the language of the CBA was told to us. After Coon started explaining what was actually written as opposed to what was told to us through the owners and NBPA. Its all fine and dandy explaining your intent (which the owners and NBPA went on the record with), but their intent wasn't a well formulated idea that can easily be translated into mice type. Someone didn't feed any common sense into this CBA as well. Just wait for the owners to start complaining, the players already have.

My immediate take on this was that the owners bagged the issue of stopping this. You saw my December 9 post above in this thread right? If I said within a week of the CBA that the owners didn't negotiate for the ability to stop top players from playing these games and lamented that the CBA wasn't use to address this after I spent months blasting the Miami collusion ploy then how am I engaging in revisionist history? This is the reason that I posted over and over during the negotiations that my top wishlist item was a franchise tag that would pay the player above max salary but allow his current team to retain him. I would also like with your suggestion of removing the max salary limit as long as you keep burdensome team cap rules (or a hard cap). But this has been a beef with me for quite a while. I am 100% convinced that the NBA got what they wanted on profit sharing and that there was a split among owners on whether to pursue the super team/holding teams hostage issue (the two concepts go hand in hand) and so they decided to use that issue in the press but concede it to the players. That is why the NBAPA was touting its victory in keeping player flexibility after the CBA was done.

[Watchman]

That makes some sense but isn't that concept already proven wrong in Miami. All three of those guys took less than the max to play together.

not much less.

[Admin]

not much less.

Bosh and James took $14.5 and Wade took $14.2. I'm not sure what the max for each player was but I believe it was around $18 million or so, which means they each took a big cut.

[Watchman]

I saw Kevin Love complaining that Minn. isn't surrounding him with good players. The truth is that there just aren't enough players to go around to make every team a contender or even to make 16 teams contenders. Plus players act like the are entitled to win a championship. To me the real problem is the league and the 'officiating'. Whether you believe there is deliberate fixing or just star calls it amounts to an unfair advantage for star players and their teams. If the officiating was done correctly then balanced teams would have a chance at competing for the title. But this is what Stern and many others believe would result in bad ratings.

The "tampering" rules need to be enforced on both sides. Players should face consequences for orchestrating these superteams, especially when the players are still under contract with different teams.

[Guest]

AHF I read your post as "aw shucks, no franchise tag" (to be real informal). I do not see how [not having a franchise tag] implies [super friends can be formed]. I see how [having a franchise tag] implies [super friends cannot be formed].I simply do not recall the conclusion of the lockout ending with people realizing "hey, look who loses control in all these S&Ts" and I followed negotiations very closely. I may have a fuzzy memory on this, but the easy clear up is having an article from November/December bringing up this issue. I cannot prove that people did not talk about it, that's impossible to do.

[AHF]

AHF I read your post as "aw shucks, no franchise tag" (to be real informal). I do not see how [not having a franchise tag] implies [super friends can be formed]. I see how [having a franchise tag] implies [super friends cannot be formed].

I simply do not recall the conclusion of the lockout ending with people realizing "hey, look who loses control in all these S&Ts" and I followed negotiations very closely. I may have a fuzzy memory on this, but the easy clear up is having an article from November/December bringing up this issue. I cannot prove that people did not talk about it, that's impossible to do.

The modifications to extensions does absolutely nothing to stop super friends from forming. My frustration with the league's negotiation was they completely abandoned all the discussions of proposal that would block repeats of the Miami collusion. They didn't try because the BRI was the priority.

Here are some other commentators:

New Contracts

The Gist: Teams can re-sign their own player (who has been on the roster for at least three seasons) for five years with 7.5% raises versus only four years with 4.5% raises to poach another team's player via free agency.

How this affects the Nuggets: As we all know, in 2010 the Nuggets were able to offer Carmelo Anthony more guaranteed years than any other team in hopes of retaining him. That wasn't good enough for Melo, and he forced a trade to New York last February. So even though the NBA has reduced the number of guaranteed years and altered the raises, we will still see stars hijack their franchises for greener pastures elsewhere.

Extend-and-Trade

The Gist: A team can extend its own veteran player by four seasons but in an extend-and-trade situation (like we saw with Melo going to the Knicks), the receiving team can only extend them for three seasons.

How this affects the Nuggets: Had this been in effect last year, Melo still would have forced his way to New York.

http://www.denverstiffs.com/2011/11/29/2596054/the-new-cba-good-or-bad-for-the-denver-

Here is SI discussing the inadequateness of the CBA proposals before they went into place:

None of this is to say the league’s proposal is fruitless. The plan would give incumbent teams a bigger edge in raw dollars and years than they had under the old deal (though not by much), and the extend-and-trade rules will make it harder for teams to pounce on unhappy stars in the final year of their contracts. But I’m not sure there’s enough to tilt the balance in a meaningful way. Big markets, beaches, glamour and successful teams are always going to be more attractive, and the “psychic value” (as economist Andrew Zimbalist puts it) that stars attach to those kind of benefits will often outweigh the years/dollars advantage incumbent teams will have.

The safest way for small-market clubs to keep their own stars is still to keep them happy by (through luck and skill) acquiring the right mix of players around them.

Whether the league should do more and perhaps adopt a restrictive NFL-style franchise tag is a different question — one that touches on the ethics of controlling labor’s ability to work where it wishes. That question is at the center of the debate over the “system issues” holding up a deal now — whether taxpaying teams can use the full mid-level exception or have access to sign-and-trades, for instance. But the players have already fought off the prospect of an NFL-style franchise tag.

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/11/23/does-nbas-franchise-tag-do-enough-to-help-incumbent-teams/

Etc.

Like I said, this was not unforeseen that nothing in the CBA changed the dynamic that led to the super friends celebration in Miami.

[Guest]

Denver link didn't work for me, but that is the closest to actually fitting the scenario. Your second link is just referring to a player accepting less $$$ because of non-monetary benefits, which does not apply here. This is an S&T issue as far as I am concerned, which is a harm to Orlando and reduces what they can benefit from.It is also something to note that your second scenario mentions the intent of these provisions is to stop super friends from forming. I have tried to make a distinction between what is intended and what the actual result is. I believe that is what I said this CBA has intended to do, no? (we can quibble over if this is cheap talk later...and probably will eventually)

Edited July 10, 2012 by hawksfanatic

[AHF]

Denver link didn't work for me, but that is the closest to actually fitting the scenario. Your second link is just referring to a player accepting less $$$ because of non-monetary benefits, which does not apply here. This is an S&T issue as far as I am concerned, which is a harm to Orlando and reduces what they can benefit from. It is also something to note that your second scenario mentions the intent of these provisions is to stop super friends from forming. I have tried to make a distinction between what is intended and what the actual result is. I believe that is what I said this CBA has intended to do, no? (we can quibble over if this is cheap talk later...and probably will eventually)

There was lip service given to stopping super friends but I disagree that the actual intent was to do so because they quit on all the effective enforcement measures. That has all the resonance for me of saying that our immigration laws are intended to deter illegal immigrants and then noticing that they aren't being enforced and government is actively making the decision not to enforce them. When you enter into something for a purpose and you know it is going to fail (which is what both links said), that isn't legit. Edited July 10, 2012 by AHF

[Guest]

So because it fails, the intent of the CBA to deter the super teams is not there? I don't get the immigration law aspect, each owner has an incentive to ensure the others are playing fairly while also trying to game the system. If they can game it, they do. No one is gaming the immigration laws, it just is not enforced. With the CBA this isn't an enforcement issue, it is a language issue (that and not recognizing some economic issues on the side of how a players incentives are aligned).I think its obvious we both see this as a failing measure. You are saying its failing on purpose while I say it fails because its intent is not met with the functionality of the CBA terms.

[AHF]

I am not saying it is failing on purpose. I am saying the owners talked about tools that would have prevented this and conceded on that issue in order to get movement on the BRI and that some of them planned to follow the Miami plan and didn't want it in the first place. Even for them it didn't fail on purpose because there was no legit pretence that it was going to work. If you put up a basketball goal, you don't complain about it failing as a fence. The provisions in the CBA could never been seen as a block to Miami part 2. So it wasn't their purpose to put together a super friends CBA but they knew that was what they were getting - a contract that would give them only the slightest improvement in their chance to resign the premier free agents in smaller markets. When they returned to the press, they did some crowing about the 4th/5th year difference, the sharper tax penalties, etc. but I don't think they thought this would have real impact to deter this conduct. There were plenty of references to this as the ink on the CBA was drying:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There's nothing in the new collective bargaining agreement that will prevent Kyrie Irving from leaving Cleveland just the way LeBron James did a season ago. There's no franchise tag, no hard salary cap.

The theme of most of these articles is, "yeah, we concede there is nothing to stop a Miami repeat but we think we got some good movement in a few areas. It isn't perfect, but we think the new deal is fair." The BRI concessions were enough to win over the ownership, but I don't think for a second they really thought they had slammed the door on the next super friends scenario, especially since they made it easier for teams to clear cap space to prepare for Miami version 2. Edited July 11, 2012 by AHF

[Wurider05]

stop whining. if we had a "super team" you all would happy and full of glee. don't hate the next team because you wish it was your team.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Wurider05

[AHF]

stop whining. if we had a "super team" you all would happy and full of glee. don't hate the next team because you wish it was your team.

It is terrible for the sport and I will continue to think that even if we land Dwight and Paul.

[Guest]

stop whining. if we had a "super team" you all would happy and full of glee. don't hate the next team because you wish it was your team.

As a fan? Yes because that would mean my team was good. As an observer of the functions of the league's labor market? Not at all unless the CBA was changed more to my liking.

[Admin]

Hey I'm a Yankees fan, have been all of my life, and I don't shed a tear that my team can spend $200 million on the team salaries because them's the rules. As a fan of baseball I would like to see those enormous salaries come down a lot, but in the meantime I'm going to cheer my team on and love knowing that we always have the chance to sign a big time player.

[AHF]

I think its obvious we both see this as a failing measure.

Bottomline is the same for us both. This is my priority #1 for the next CBA, although it was also my top priority I was hoping they would address in the last one and the league obviously didn't share that priority. Money > Integrity of the Game for Fans

[Guest]

Hey I'm a Yankees fan, have been all of my life, and I don't shed a tear that my team can spend $200 million on the team salaries because them's the rules. As a fan of baseball I would like to see those enormous salaries come down a lot, but in the meantime I'm going to cheer my team on and love knowing that we always have the chance to sign a big time player.

Why? So the owners pocket more money? If revenues are rising then I would sure hope costs (player's salaries) rise too. Looks like MLB has increasing revenues. I'm not sure if it is at the same pace as player salaries but I can't imagine with as open of a system as MLB (relatively) that they are not tracking each other closely.

[AHF]

Hey I'm a Yankees fan, have been all of my life, and I don't shed a tear that my team can spend $200 million on the team salaries because them's the rules. As a fan of baseball I would like to see those enormous salaries come down a lot, but in the meantime I'm going to cheer my team on and love knowing that we always have the chance to sign a big time player.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun if the Braves had a minor league team like the Athletics, but for fans in those markets that has to be really depressing and it is worse for the NBA because a couple of guys colluding to join forces can totally skew the competitive landscape. Put ARod (a few years ago) and CC on a bad team and that team is still pretty bad. Put Lebron and Wade on a bad team and you are a championship contender.