Okay, so you just mean bought out veterans. You said "renounced veterans," which usually means players teams renounce in free agency so they don't have a caphold applied. I still disagree with that measure, but that's less of a problem.
Hard cap. Yes. Larry Bird rule. Get creative with teams losing players like MLB and draft picks. Let teams waive guys and amnesty salary etc every five years or so, even if it’s just for a portion of the salary. Let a team cut a check to the Andrew Nicholson’s of the world to just get past that nonsense.
Very interesting idea! How would you address the wide disparity of talent getting MLE, TPMLE, and Minimum deals that seems to be an even bigger problem in creating imbalance?
NBA 2021 Luxury Tax Tracker | Spotrac https://www.spotrac.com › nba › tax › 2021 Check out the cost of winning
The cap is actually fucking us. If we're a small market team, and we clearly aren't going to compete with the big cities for free agents, all we can do is offer more money..... but we can't even do that. So now we're just trying to get people to come here for the same money......
what really stands out to me is Phoenix. They just won it all and have a salary less than half of the league. Thats impressive and says to me they may be around for a long time because they can pay more. They might be my pick to win it all again this year because they have room to make moves, if need be, to add more talent by the trade deadline.
As I've said before, I think it's the individual cap/exceptions (max player, MLE, TPMLE) that create the biggest inbalance. I'd like to see a team throw 70% of their cap money at a KD/Giannis and have to field a team with the remaining 30%. Portland would be crazy to not give Dame the max under the current CBA, but in an open market, there is no way Dame would make the same amount as KD/Giannis in an open market. This means the teams with the very best players are actually getting them at a discount, but the teams with a top 10-15 player are having to pay much closer to full price. Then you add that the teams with the best players (who are on a discount) are more likely to get the best MLE and TPMLE guys (on a discount), and the talent disparity grows even more. Lastly, the guys who have man a ton of cash, decide they're fine taking the min to play with the best team, and the imbalance grows even greater.
I actually don't think that is a problem at all. If players want to take less money to play on contenders then there is no real way to stop that. I think the impact of those players is being overrated.
Interesting. So to be clear: You think the top 2-3 players on a roster have by far the biggest impact on a teams success than the overall depth of talent on a roster?
No, what I'm saying is that I don't think it's what causes the imbalance. The Blazers signed three players, two of which were very solid pickups, for minimum contracts. If you draft well and sign the right players then I don't think say the Lakers signing other players for the minimum makes it unfair. Those players were never coming to Portland anyway.
I have the opposite take. I expect the 21-22 Suns to not catch the breaks the 20-21 Suns did and have a similar result as the Heat found after their 19-20 run where things fell their way.
You don't think teams like the Lakers, Nets, Clippers, etc are signing more talented MLE and Min players than an average team?
money shows they can spend to improve. And id say phoenix has much better young talent than the heat.
Do you think Suns ownership is committed to spend the money it will take to keep the young talent? I bet the Suns to win the championship back in March and now I would bet they don't make the finals next year. Love Monty though!
not sure. I dont know anything about the owner(s). But i know this. Its been a loooonnngg time since they made the finals. Id do/pay whatever it takes to keep that talent and continue to improve to make it a long lastsming run/ possible dynasty.