NBA free agency has become wild like a player becomes eligible for a super max or just a max contract and somehow a team is always willing to pay it

Like you dont really see mid tier contracts for guys, the market has just went “someone will always pay the maximum amount a player can be played”

NBA front offices are fucking stupid collectively theres so many guys on max extensions that Categorically are not worth that and any sort of analytics would support that but the front offices just dont care

Wasn’t that kinda the point of the aprons? Absolutely mid players forcing max contracts because the teams could and had no options really if they didn’t?

Not saying this is good, but it’s avoidable to a degree.

Max contracts were supposed to be for the best of the best, not a good player.

Yep. Love Spida but no way I’d ever give a super max (35% of the salary cap) to a guy that doesn’t play both sides of the ball.

Yeah I think the problem is and Chet and JDub make too much

Yep, just needs a couple years of price correction

imo, that’s part of it with the 2nd apron.

• Force teams to give up players and those players could go to teams (even if it has to be charlotte or memphis)
• Get players to get paid less than the max. Felt like every top 40 player expected a max.

Problem is, smaller markets have limited means to compete with the big dogs in FA. Sometimes the super max is the only way to keep talent around.

This. Teams need to stop giving out super maxes to just anybody

Example 1: Chet doesn’t deserve to be paid the same as Wemby

Sure but there are 30 teams and not 30 players that deserve a max contract. It inherently leads to underperforming players getting the max because they know the team has the money to spend, if they don’t already have one.

That’s  all on the gm’s handing out bad contracts. Paying your best player is understandable but when role players are given big contracts that what can kill the team. 

Except the negotiation isn’t just between the player and their current team, they’re also negotiating against other teams that would give the player the max.

Teams would still get broken up, it would just be on the front end of contracts and not the end.

The net is that players at the top will be making less.

Fewer

Or, you have to keep being a great gm and making moves instead of coasting. Make trades with your pretty great trade bait

Right, just take a look at baseball if you want to see your future with no salary cap.

Then the answer is players need to take less to stay together and win like what the Knicks have done, otherwise teams will be broken up once they are successful

I mean it also let the nba create more parody which is what they wanted because they “wanted to be more like nfl”

These teams all generate enough revenue to sign whoever they want

GSW was largely built through the draft. We said it back then, there should’ve been some type of exception for drafted players. Teams shouldn’t be punished for drafting well, it’s dumb

If you draft a player, a percentage of their pay shouldn’t count towards cap. I’m not smart enough to figure it out. But there should be a way for teams that draft and develop well to not be penalized. If your buying superstars, that should count 100% toward cap. Just a thought.

He’s 100% wrong. The Thunder are choosing between drafted guys and other guys they acquired with big contracts lol. Famously homegrown talents IHart the backup C making $80M and Alex Caruso.

One of the best examples of just because you can speak very articulately does not mean you’re right.

Thunder aren’t some team that became great just because they drafted super well. Besides Chet/Jalen Williams, their most impact contributors were drafted by others (Shai, Caruso, iHart etc).

true but they gave their second and third largest contracts to chet and jdub, who they most likely could move since they can’t afford those two + shai in years later

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

I just think back to the Heatles. Three max contracts. Around them I remember they could always afford like one player, maybe, who wasn’t on a minimum.

This OKC team has 3 maxes, two different 20m annual salaries (who they didn’t draft) and five different first rounders making 5-12m each. It’s a joke. Even more of a joke to say they somehow deserve to keep it all in perpetuity

Sure, but if Presti doesn’t give them the max, some other GM would. Then everyone calls you cheap for not willing to cough up few extra millions to keep the core pieces of your Championship winning team. Presti already got enough flack for trading away James Harden after the ownership thought spending few extra millions on him is not worth it.

The entitlement is bizarre. It has literally always worked this way. Teams have budgets. OKC has blown through theirs, some of it via poor decisions. If this was the Lakers or Celtics the tune would be way different.

His superstar player isn’t even a player that he drafted.

I do believe there is a point when you are limited and there is no “smart moves” There are a lot of things that can happen when you break up your team, replacing player 1:1 does not exist and if you are forced to take that decision (specially if the rest of the league know that as well) it might be just the least bad deal

I wonder if there is any other league that uses a simpler system of a hard cap, no max contract amounts, and allows for minor draft compensation when a homegrown players signs somewhere else as a FA. I wonder if that league would be successful.

Right? Should middling teams like the Bulls get fucked forever because Spurs or Boston drafted ridiculously well for a couple of years?

Yeah these arguments that drafted players should count for less of a salary hit than other players are insane. Spurs got wemby with a 14% chance and have already gotten unbelievable benefits from their luck, why should they be entitled to salary relief a decade later just because of ping pong balls?

exactly! cheat to win!

.. they DID win, right???

Shai wasn’t drafted though

Which should allow you to be able to pay your day 1 guys whatever to keep them.

This is essentially what the rule used to be, and it is what caused the NBA to be completely dominated by dynasties throughout the 80s and 90s (exactly what fans and owners claim not to want).

It also was a major driver of the lockout at the end of the 90s, because it is a “rich get richer” rule that screws over any team that doesn’t have generational luck. They also saw Jordan making more than the salary cap by himself, with the bulls paying well over double what their competitors were and didn’t want to be expected to do that in order to compete.

Most people on reddit claim to like parity, but also hate the rules that are needed to make that parity possible.

You should be able to retain all of your drafted guys.

But why?

There are supposed to be 3 ways to build a team - the draft, free agency, and trades. Why does it seem like everyone only cares about the first way or treats it as the “proper” way to build a team?

The second apron is the best thing to happen to the league since Steph and people are going to kill it because they’re so short-sighted.

Eventually there will be a team who didn’t already inherit superstars before they changed the lottery. How is that team supposed to acquire a superstar? Draft odds are nerfed so tanking isn’t an option, superstars don’t hit free agency. The only way would be to trade. But you guys also want to kill that option and give a bunch of benefits to drafted players which will further incentivize teams to not trade them away.

I guess those teams should just go fuck themselves that they didn’t get the last parachute in time like the Spurs, Jazz and Wizards did.

I’ve always thought the cap hit for a homegrown max player should count for 25% against the cap instead of the actual dollar value. It’s the same concept already used for vet minimums- players with longer tenure get more $ but the cap hit is equal to the rookie minimum. To address the issue of traded draft picks, the benefit would depend on where someone actually played. The team gets the benefit if the player has only ever played for them, so a draft day trade would still qualify.

Players aren’t punished because they still get the money. Fans benefit because they see their teams stay together. Tax paying owners (the ones who are trying) get a small reward by paying less tax or avoiding it. The only victims are the cheapskate owners who can’t rely on the kindness of others to survive financially.

But they could.

The problem is they also need to pay Shai, who they didn’t draft (and Hartenstein and Caruso).

No. That’s literally how you create a top heavy dynasty league.

The Celtics had two SUPERmaxes. 35% of the cap each. I could see 35% maxes work if each team only had one star and no one else on a team got 30 or 25% of the cap. But stars today want at least one other star on their team, preferably two. I could see a team having three 25% maxes.

Fuck it, full redraft every 5 years. Parity or not?

No. Parity is boring.

That wouldn’t even help OKC. Jalen Williams and Chet are on 25% max contracts. That is reasonable for those homegrown guys.

SGA, Hartenstein, and Caruso however - those guys were traded for. Nobody was advocating the Celtics get a discount for KP and Jrue

Yeah we should give more tax cuts to billionaires while we’re at it

It’s not your pain though, their biggest contract is a guy they DIDN’T draft.

The Celtics did exactly that and you guys fried them for it 

Is he?

Because Williams and Holmgren are making 25% of the cap, that’s fine.

It’s Shai who will cost 35% of the cap from next season that’s the issue, and they didn’t draft him.

Yeah and we actually drafted and developed all of KAT, Ant, Jaden and Naz.

“Barbaric”. Y’all are so dramatic 😂

I don’t think Luka was able to negotiate his trade because the new owners didn’t want to pay him

Yup wasted two years doing that. Doesn’t get enough shit too for basically punting 2024 by trading for Gordon f’ing Hayward instead of the big they obviously, desperately needed.

Won’t someone think of the poor Thunder

It’s stiff against anyone that spends money