fishmike wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:People like to hate on the players but frankly they're the ones who have the marketable skill.

you nailed it. The players and their skills should drive the markets. I would pay $100 to see the Knicks play in a high school or some crappy armory. I dont need MSG or Dolan's marketing staff to enjoy the Knicks.

Martin, all, I have read several places the MLE will go away or be greatly reduced, say to 2 years.

Max contracts will remain.
MLE will be 2 years an about 40% less money
LLE will be every year and there will be 2 of them
contract lengths will go to 5 years for home team and 4 if a player leaves
No player age limit
Rookie contracts will be extended another year allowing teams that draft well to keep players longer for less money.

Thats my guess.

i think it will be a better deal for the owners.

*still a "max" but it will be lower - maybe 25% of the cap instead of 30%.
*MLE might be done away with.
*LLE will be allowed to stay.
*the cap will become more of a hard cap, but not a completely hard cap. maybe stricter luxury tax limits.
*rosters might go down from 15 to 14 or 13. not all the way to 12 though.
*there will be some stipulation to kill a non-performing contract. call it the "eddy curry" clause. teams won't be able to do it willie nillie, but it will be there in some way.
*they'll make it harder for a player to move teams, call it the lebron rule. players won't be able to get anywhere near as much from another team. this is prob what melo's camp is truly worried about.
*age limit i think will actually get bumped up to 20yrs old.
*oh, and the big: the cap will be based on 50% of BRI (basketball related income), right now it is 57% for the players. that will change - too many owners are losing money or claim to be.

what they definitely do want is a hard cap. players want more revenue sharing so that the smaller market teams won't be too deathly afraid of the luxury tax. the luxury tax will remain only if there is no hard cap. i'm siding with the players on this because LA and NY have huge advantages. home and road teams should be splitting gate receipts 60/40.

In the last 20 years there have been less than 10 great players with no college experience: Kobe, KG, Lebron, Amare, T-Mac, D. Howard. If you are not one that caliber, then take your ass to college.

fishmike wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:People like to hate on the players but frankly they're the ones who have the marketable skill.

you nailed it. The players and their skills should drive the markets. I would pay $100 to see the Knicks play in a high school or some crappy armory. I dont need MSG or Dolan's marketing staff to enjoy the Knicks.

Martin, all, I have read several places the MLE will go away or be greatly reduced, say to 2 years.

Max contracts will remain.
MLE will be 2 years an about 40% less money
LLE will be every year and there will be 2 of them
contract lengths will go to 5 years for home team and 4 if a player leaves
No player age limit
Rookie contracts will be extended another year allowing teams that draft well to keep players longer for less money.

Thats my guess.

They should increase the age limit IMO.

EDIT: Just saw the posts by Killa and Martin so I'm with them. One year in college isn't enough IMO.

Another Edit. Playing pros in the pro leagues doesn't mean you have the experience to play pro ball in the US.

simrud wrote:I don't think there is a good reason to have a hard cap if you allow for terminatoin of contracts. This way everybody wins. In my opinion, in the NFL, the current system is skewed towards the ownerhsip.

Also, age limit is not something I can agree with. Once again, you are discriminating against people by age. You are not allowing somebody to make potentially millions more in their life time. What if they go to college and break a leg? Then what? A guy coul have made a million bucks, instead he went to college to "learn and develop" and then he breaks his andkle. What are you going to tell him now? What if his family is broke all around and they need money now, not a year from now? What if he can get a bunch of his family members of the street, and maybe off drugs, etc now? And if you wait a year, some go to jail, some just croke?

For every player that gets an injury there will be many many more who's careers are extended because they have the needed foundation and coaching.
Also, the players that don't make it will have that much more college to help them out. There are those Curry's out there who only care about the money, yeah, they might lose out, but that is what you get for playing the game for the money.

I'm not for any form of discrimination and perhaps this comes down to the owners just not drafting younger guys, but you know that won't happen as it's a gamble.
The thing is, it's hurting the game having these young guys come in, it really is. The NBA needs to create a better developmental league clearly, then the problem is fixed (and another created in thinning out the colleges.)

It would be nice if a team could draft a college player and the team could choose to keep that player in college. The player would get a salary (and perhaps money in a trust fund - if the family is pour they could use some of that money to help the family immediately) - that is reasonable and some kind of insurance should they become injured. I'm sure they could work it out.