Exclusive How Arbitration Could Fix the NBA's Superteam/Parity Problem

MY NBA ARBITRATION IDEA:
Here's my idea for increasing parity in the NBA. First, lets set up the salary cap to go along with this idea. We're going to start off by raising the salary cap $10M or so to $120M, to take into account higher paid contracts for stars without reducing the contracts of role players (a crucial part in getting the players to support the idea.) The luxery tax would be $135M, and the hard cap would remain the same at $160M (but closer to the salary cap than before). The next part would be to institute an arbitration system, where a panel of former players, statisticians, and other credible people would decide what a players "max earning" would be in the upcoming free agent market.

Now, lets get into how arbitration would work in two different scenarios:

FREE AGENT ARBITRATION:
In the 10 days between the draft and free agent period, star players (mostly their agents) would have the opportunity to apply for a higher "max contract". These agents would apply for arbitration hearings, where they hope to be rewarded with a higher max contract level for their max player than the max level decided by experience (25% for 0-6years, 30% for 7-9, 35% for 10+).

If a player gets rewarded with an arbitration hearing, that means that he will automatically be making more than his experience dictates. For example, if a 8th year player applies for arbitration, and gets a hearing, he will make more than 30% of the salary cap per year. If he's a top 5 NBA player, the arbitration panel will likely dictate he's worth 40-45% of the salary cap (apx. $50-55M a year). This system would allow the players previous team to offer a higher percentage than other teams in the market.

While this means that a higher percentage of the salary cap goes to star players, and thus a smaller percentage goes to lower tier, these role players would still make roughly the same amount of money due to the higher salary cap.

With a system like this, the Warriors wouldn't have been able to sign Durant last year, and Lebron wouldn't have been able to join Wade and Bosh. This would stop the creation of super teams.

There would also be arbitration for players under contract if they're criminally underpaid, which would've led to Stephen Curry making more money before last off-season, another factor that led to KD being able to sign with GSW:

UNDER CONTRACT ARBITRATION:
In this system, players who sign 3+ year contracts after their rookie deals will have the ability to apply for arbitration for a pay increase. Here's when it would be available based on contract length:

3-year deal: After 2nd season
4-year deal: After 2nd and 3rd season
5 year-deal: After 3rd and 4th season

Arbitration gets awarded when the arbitration panel deems that the player is worth at least 2 times more than their contract is paying them.

So after the 2nd year of his 4 year contract, Steph Curry would've applied for arbitration, which would've deemed he was worth more than $24M a year (double the $12M a year he was making), and would've granted him access to renegotiate his contract up to a max they set for him (which would likely be 40-45% of the salary cap).

Someone like Jimmy Butler could do so as well, as he'd likely be worth 35% of the $120M salary cap, which would be apx. $41M a year (double his $18M a year). Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, and Jae Crowder would all receive arbitration hearings while under contract.

In this situation, the rest of the contract would get erased, but the team would still have rights over the player.

Under-contract arbitration's would be handled in a 7-day period between the draft and the free agent period.

There would be 2-different scenarios for under contract players:

Scenario 1 - Resign with current team
In this situation, the player would resign with his current team for a higher price (under the arbitration or experience given max). This player would have to sign for a minimum of the remaining years that were left on his contract, and for a maximum of 4 years.

Scenario 2 - Demand a trade
This scenario could arise from a team low-balling an arbitration approved player in contract negotiations. In this scenario, a player could formally demand a trade. Once a player demands a trade, his agent has 48 hours to contact GMs of opposing teams to gauge what they would pay their player if he was traded their. After those 48 hours are up, the agent must submit 7 teams that the player would like to go to the most, as well as submit the teams minimum payment with that teams approval. The players previous team would then be able to trade said player to any one of those teams for the best return they could get, and would have to do so before the arbitration period ends. If not, the team could release the player to the free agent market. In these outgoing arbitration trades, the players contract value is his previous earnings.

For example: If Jae Crowder applied for under-contract arbitration, he'd be approved as he's only making $6M a year. If the Celtics didn't want to pay Crowder more than $12M a year, and 7 teams (including Portland) told Crowder's agent they'd offer between $18M and $20M, Crowder would demand a trade. Crowder's agent would submit 7 teams Crowder could be traded too, including their minimum payment per year. Ex. (Portland - Min. $18M per year). We would only have to match Crowder's previous $6M contract and offer Boston the best trade package out of those 7 teams. After acquiring Crowder, we'd negotiate a new contract with Crowder above $18M per year. If we didn't agree on a contract with him by the end of the Under-Contract Arbitration Period (UCAP), his contract would default to $18M a year.

SUMMARY:
This would effectively kill the ability for multiple superstars to join forces with one another. Because the hard cap is 133% of the salary cap, and Durant and Curry would be worth around 45% of the salary cap, that would leave only 43% of the salary cap beneath the hard cap, which would barely be enough for Thompson or Green. Lebron would be worth around 45% of the salary cap, and Kyrie would be around 35%, leaving them at 80% of the salary cap.

The salary cap might need to be higher to keep role players yearly earnings the same, but it would increase star players contracts so it would be hard to not see the players voting in approval. TV ratings would go up tremendously with a more competitive, even league, so the owners slightly higher payrolls would be compensated with a higher league-wide revenue.

What's your opinion?

 

Holy fuck.

My opinion is I need to read this again when I'm sober.
Yo just gave me the spins. Good night.

 

Lol.

It's a complex solution to a complex problem.

 

I have a simple idea I think would work. Salary slots for given percentages of the cap... but it's not that simple the slot only designates the maximum a player can make. So say you have to max slots of say $30mil... a team could use that slot on a player for $5mil but there would be no rollover to a different slot. Now there is a caveat. Players who have been with a team for a given number of years can earn a salary that exceeds the a lot they are assigned to. After 2 years they qualify to exceed their slot by 5% 3-5 years 7% 5+ years 10%, of their contract value not the cap.

Each July 1st teams would have to designate each player to a slot and then in free agency they can offer roster slots. Here is a quick example of the breakdown.

Slot 1: 25% of Cap
Slot 2: 20% of Cap
Slot 3: 15% of Cap
Slot 4-5: 10% of Cap
Slot 6-8: 7% of Cap
Slot 9-12: 5% of Cap
Slot 13-15: 2% of Cap

Those are maximum values for the salary slots which adds up to 127%. This also doesn't factor loyalty perks so a player with his team is eligible for the max of that slot plus an additional 10% of their contract value. (Imagine 100mil cap slot 1 player 5 years with team could make 25mil plus 10% or an additional 2.5mil.

There are a ton of logistics to figure out like trades and stuff like that.

 

How about a simple franchise tag like in the NFL? Works pretty well for them it seems, and they have great parity.

 

Why not just bitch slap Kevin Durant for being a fucking bitch? That'll solve it all.

 

Exactly. Go Cavs!

 

How about each team gets to franchise 3 players for a max of 3 years.

The rest of the team is on 1 year contracts and is a free agent every year.

Ha that would be a logistical nightmare.

 

Unfortunately the two games are just too different. The NFL has parity because 11 dudes on offense and 11 dudes on defense and no one player can elevate a shitty team to the Superbowl. The NBA is all about superstars. If you put LeBron on the Nets or the Timberwolves, they're a contender. They might win the title. The NFL has parity because it's very hard to keep a good team together.

 

I'm not sure anything needs to be done, the cap will self-correct. The KD signing was a perfect storm of...

Their best player being injured in a contract year and signing for WAY below market value, and promptly being healthy since
+
The salary cap going up unprecedentedly in a year KD was available

Regardless of these happy circumstances (for GS fans), the Salary Cap is a cruel mistress, and it is now time for them to pay the piper - KD and Curry are up for new contracts right now. My prediction when they were thinking about signing Durant was that it would eventually cause them to lose Klay (they're not the same team at all without Draymon). After a few years, they'll be in the repeater tax, and have to pay through the nose to have a good team, like the rest of us.

 

Well at the risk of being contrary, I would like to see the league stop operating as if they were a moral authority for collusion between teams.
Simply let the market and competition make the rules. Sure we will have one or two super teams but soon nobody cares to see them.
From the ashes perhaps a basketball league will emerge. I no longer see basketball, just a venue to display various individual talents, that we grow weary of seeing, and they grow weary of displaying while collecting excessive paychecks at the expense of fans.

 

I don't think the league has a structural problem. The recent champions have been the Lakers, Mavericks, Heat, Heat, Spurs, Warriors, Cavaliers and (probably, this year) Warriors. The recent past doesn't speak to a "one or two teams always winning" problem. I get that people are worried about the Warriors running away with things in the future (counting in this year) but the Warriors are a one-off problem. The team they built organically was not invincible and it took a series of circumstances to all break a certain way for them to be able to add Durant. It's extremely unlikely that something like that (the best team in basketball adds one of the several best players in basketball) happens again.

You don't need to make big changes when you're faced with an anomaly. Short-term dominance isn't new (the Bulls were great for longer than the Warriors are likely to be great, excepting the season and a half when Jordan played baseball) and the league will go back to normal once the Warriors drop off.

 

Would we then also control what owners could make?

Controlling player salaries but not owner profits is just redistributing money from millionaires to billionaires. And for no good reason since, by definition, the players are worth what they make since they are what allow the owners to make even more money.

If you are in favor of controlling what owners make, why just businessmen in sports? Why not all businesses?

 

Because they'd have to pass on approximately $20M a year. Nobody is gonna do that.

 

Its not a one or two team winning every championship problem.

It's that only 3 to 4 teams have a realistic shot at winning it every year. The Mavericks were the only anomoly.

Imagine if you had 8 to 10 teams that were all evenly matched enough that you could see them winning, and it would almost be a coin flip to see who wins between those teams. Imagine if underdogs had a 1 in 4 chance of pulling an upset...

The NBA Playoffs would be so much more fun if that were the case.

 

I would like to see the NBA begin to consider improving the quality of Basketball more than be concerned with parity. The interesting thing about Basketball for me is, it is the ultimate team game or it must be to achieve high efficiency through complete team synergy.

A team where the star of the team is the results of the collaborative efforts, which is greater than the sum of it's parts. A team that raise the contributions of each member to be greater than they are individually capable without the aid of their team. Today for the most part, I think we see a venue to display the talents of remarkable individual players but these players posses the talent displayed and they can and do transfer it to other teams. Where as the ultimate star talent is not transferable as it is the resultant of synergy in the team displayed in perfection.

Basketball teams that reach this level of synergy in the history of the NBA are few and I think the guiding force was the Coach.
Here is my list of teams in NBA History that reached the level of synergy that I am trying to speak about.

Boston Celtic under Red Auerbach
Top players, Bill Russell, John Havlicek
Both were far greater with this team than the parts they were. Auerbach was the original master of the game in the NBA.

San Francisco Warriors under Al Attles
Rick Barry and the gang
Rick Barry was a chucker a damn good one but a chucker. Al Attles managed to change the man into a team player and all the parts hit a synergy that perhaps set the example to that point
This team didn't really have a the top talent in the NBA but the result was far greater than the sum of it's parts and by far the best in the NBA.

Philadelphia 76ers under Bill Cunningham
Moses Malone, Dr. J
Both these guys were stars but when the team hit the peak it was near perfection. I do note, Cunningham I believe, took his coaching to greatness from his mentor, Dr Jack Ramsay who's game was in part taught by Pete Carril.

Portland Trail Blazers under Dr. Jack Ramsay.
Bill Walton and the gang That year, Walton was marvelous but so was Lucas, well most of the team has a Jersey hanging in the Garden. Each was elevated far above their individual part they brought to the team and the result was spectacular Basketball, synergy on display that we have not seen since. We have to thank Dr. Jack for that one. But I do remember Pete Carril lurking about from time to time.


Since then we have seen spectacular play from Michale Jordan, and host of other exceptionally talented players but never the star that could not be transferred.

Can anyone relate to what I think I have said or tried?

 

I get what you're saying, I just don't understand how the NBA has any control over it.

 

Hell of good point, we need to find the handle.