http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2650148-frustration-with-westbrook-sent-durant-fleeing-opens-door-to-trouble-for-nbaTeams in this league sell either excellence or hope, but what hope is there to sell when one franchise can hoard four of the league's best players?Everything in the NBA's system is designed to thwart this outcome: the draft, the salary cap, the luxury tax, the rookie scale, Bird rights—all were created to disperse elite talent and ensure the viability of small-market teams.
The system just collapsed before our eyes, the result of a perfect storm of anomalies. An unprecedented salary-cap spike—fueled by a new $24 billion television deal—gave the Warriors room to add a fourth superstar. Durant's discontent created the path.
Everyone acted in his best interest, and it's hard to blame those people. But let's be clear: This runs counter to everything the league has worked to establish since creating the salary cap in 1984.
"The system is f--ked up," said a longtime team executive from a large market.
This is surely not what league officials had in mind when they staged a 149-day lockout in 2011, at a cost of $480 million.
That labor battle was driven by small-market owners who were apoplectic at the migration of superstars to the glamour markets and the creation of a LeBron James-led superteam in Miami.
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They pushed for a hard salary cap but settled for a draconian luxury tax that was supposed to deter wild spending or star-hoarding. Commissioner Adam Silver even created an Orwellian new term for it: "player sharing"—the idea that elite players would be more evenly dispersed.
When the Thunder traded James Harden to Houston in 2012—a deal triggered by fear of the luxury tax—league officials hailed it as proof the system was working. The Thunder still had three stars (Durant, Westbrook, Serge Ibaka), while Harden had been "shared" with the Rockets.
When Greg Monroe chose Milwaukee last summer, and LaMarcus Aldridge chose San Antonio, their choices were cast as a victory for competitive balance.
The system sort of worked, briefly. Now, not at all. Now the luxury tax is virtually obsolete with the exploding cap.
League officials can blame themselves, for failing to anticipate the effects of a new TV deal they knew was coming. Safeguards could have been built into the collective bargaining agreement in 2011, when the owners had the players on the ropes at the bargaining table.
Silver tried to get control over the system in 2015 by pitching the idea of "cap smoothing"—a gradual introduction of the new revenue, to create a more gradual rise in the salary cap—but the players union rejected it outright.
Union leaders and player agents preferred the chaos of a $24 million spike in the cap. They got it.
Great article by Beck - the above is just an excerpt. It's worht reading the whole thing.
Several of us have said that the insane salaries this summer would fuel a lockout next summer. Who knew it'd really be one signature move - KD to the Warriors?
But if you think about it, and as Beck mentions, the last lockout was predominantly about the Heatles forming a super team. This next one will likely be about the Warriors super team.
7/5/2016 10:56 PM