aside from a players current team being able to offer more money, Can anyone think of other new rules that could foster a better relationship between player X and their current team, so that more players would want to stay in their current city? I think a lot of fans get bothered when players don't show allegiance with their team, especially small market teams, when their contract comes up. Lebron to Miami, Melo to NY, etc. I was just wondering what rules could be put in place that would make players hope to stay with their current team for an extended period of time. I understand players want 1) money, and 2) wins, and I don't really blame players for pursuing those ends, but it does bother me when players leave to go to hot spots like LA, NY or Miami when leaving does not increase (1) or (2).
First, let's be clear that what we're really concerned about is having stars abandon their current team for brighter lights. Do we really care if the lesser talent moves around a bit? As far as stars go, I think that the intent of the small market owners is to restructure the financial basis of the CBA so that teams won't be able to afford more than two max contracts. By doing that, whether through a hard cap or a really punitive luxury tax system, they make it so that the moves that we've seen players engineer in Miami and New York (where Carmelo is still trying to lobby for Chris Paul to join him and Stoudemire) are pretty much impossible. There simply wouldn't be enough money to have 3 max contracts and have anything left for the rest of the team.
Eliminate sign and trades. Only allow full bird rights if traded once you've played on the new team for more than one full season. Don't allow contract extensions within the first year of being traded to a new team.
Personally I think there is one way to get around this. Institute a hard cap, but eliminate maximum contracts. Here's why it would work: Players would finally get paid what they are worth, but the truly transcendent players would suck up so much of a team's available cap room that they wouldn't be able to afford an additional "transcendent" players (ie. no way Wade and Lebron could play together ... or if they did Miami would be forced to round out their roster with D-leaguers). For people that worry some superstars would take a pay cut to play together then so be it, but most of these guys have egos large enough and careers short enough that there's no way a guy like Lebron could tolerate knowing that he's making 5 to 10 million less per year than some other guy on another team. Ultimately in such a system it would be up to the GMs to balance their rosters and decide just how top-heavy they would want their teams to be.
Maybe, but I'm just outlining a basic framework, not a fully developed system. My guess is that it would all depend on where the hard-cap line was set.
What about having a bonus structure based on years with team. So if in year one, the team could match one percent of your salary as an allegiance bonus, year two, two percent, and so on, so if a player has been with team X for 4 years, and is about to sign a new contract, he will miss out on 5% bonus the following year if he goes to another team, with even more the following years.
The players are vastly against a hard cap even if in total they received more BRI. The rank and file players have a stronger voice in the union. A hard cap would mean less mid-level contracts, teams would try to have most players around the minimum and save space for huge super star contracts. The mid level players have much more votes in the union so that is why it'll never happen. 10 mid level players have 10 votes in the union whereas Lebron only has 1. Even if he deserves more money than those other ten the players will strongly oppose such a system.
Guess what? The players have zero leverage. The owners' offers will get worse, not better, from this point forward.
The owners made a great tactical move. They know that the deal is close and the players are anxious to end this lockout. Classic last second pull out , this will enable the owners to get the players to cave another one to two percent on the BRI. I think they'll have a deal in place by next weekend after Stern threatens another two weeks cancelled.
