How is Adolal Foyles contract anyones fault but the owners? The fans are probably the next culprit. Stay away if you don't like the contract. All he did was say yes when it was offered. Something anyone, anywhere would have done. I hate when people blame the players for the salary situation. It's greedy owners with a lot of money who allow the salaries to get so out of whack
It is both the greedy owners and the greedy players and their agent. The player and his agent are the ones that usually asks for the large amount of money and usually some greedy owner will give it to them. I say it is almost equal and now the owners just want to stop the madness. I think the owners were greedy but most of the teams were making money. Now that it looks like many teams will be losing money they need to adjust the CBA so the league can stay alive. I know nobody likes to give back things but I bet my live they will this time unless the economy turns around very quickly which it doesn't look like it will.
What if a team is allowed to terminate one contract per year - and it can not be done due to injury - would that not solve a lot of the liquidity issues, ensure better play and yet provide stability to most players in the league?
Then contracts would provide superstars no protection against injury. If owners wanted that, and I were representing the player's union, I'd push for removing the max salary. At which point, superstars would simply never sign multi-year deals, since anyway they'd be useless if the player got hurt. The result would be a bidding war on every star and superstar, every year. For Portland, Roy and Aldridge would choose to be on the market every year as soon as they were free agent eligible...signing long-term deals would be pretty silly for them. People assume that no guaranteed contracts would be a great thing and players would hate it, but it's a lot more complex than that, if the max salary were taken away. Players who suffered a major injury would do very badly by such a system, but players who remained largely healthy would make ridiculous amounts of money, taking advantage of year by year salary escalation. Looking at baseball (where there is no max salary), until this year, salaries were growing every year. A player who signed a huge deal for 5 years ended up "underpaid" by market value by year 3. When Alex Rodriguez signed his monumental deal with the Rangers, people were stunned at the idea of $20 million per year. Had this big recession not hit, people anticipated that top free agents this year would all be getting that much.
I think guaranteed contracts are still important, but the length of them is the issue. Something in the 3-4 year range would minimize the annual bidding war aspect while still ensuring that players are paid relative to their current level of production, not what they did 6 years ago. It's usually around year 3 or 4 of a 6-7 year deal that it becomes an "anchor" and people begin fretting over the next 3 years of payments. Other than in situations of injury, rarely is a contract considered a mistake within the first 3 years, in my opinion.
Where in my post did I saw it was his fault? I said the players are going to have to come to terms with the fact that many of them are not worth nearly as much as they think they are. The proof is in the pudding with so many teams losing money. Foyle was just an example of an extremely inflated contract for a guy who never even averaged over 6 points his entire career. Ultimately, that was just a stupid move on the teams part to give him such a big contract. And why would a fan stay away if they don't like a contract? A fan will stay away if they don't like the ticket price.
But that seems like something well within the control of the owner's decision-making, rather than something that needs to be determined by rule. If it truly is a mistake to offer deals in excess of 4 years, then smart owners/GMs will stop doing it. Generally, rules like these are to artificially prevent what would generally be rational action in a free market in order to hold down the worth of another group/resource (in this case, the players). If 5-6 year deals were really a bad idea, teams wouldn't do them, rule or no rule.
If they're not worth that much, why are they being offered the deals? Who decides what they are "really" worth?
Easier said than done. Who wants to be the first GM labeled a cheapskate for losing free agents to another team willing to offer longer contracts? Is it really worth taking that stand, knowing someone will be in a better financial system than you and jump in to clean up the mess? I'm not sure the NBA qualifies as a typical free market system...
But it's not about financial situations. You were saying that 5-6 year deals are damaging, not that owners can't afford them. If refraining from 5-6 year deals makes a team more competitive (by not having salary albatrosses), then smart owners/GMs will start taking those stands. Fans ultimately care about winning. The Spurs don't make big free agent splashes, yet no one claims they're a cheapskate franchise.
They have to do it 100% across the board or it doesn't work. The players/agents will seek out those owners/GMs willing to cross the picket line, so to speak.
I think it will simply come down to this: All of the players are used to getting big paychecks and not thinking too far into the future. They have mansions, expensive cars, expensive friends, expensive lifestyles. Most of which, are making payments on such things. They will have their meetings with the owners, won't come to an agreement, and the owners will lock them out. Then after the players start getting squeezed for payments, they will give in. It might take a while, but they will give in.
