CrushAlot wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

TripleThreat wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:My point is, you will not find too many players that will sacrifice Money for championship rings. The more money you make, the more you put on your plate.

If you sacrifice money for the sake of a company that will make billions with or with out you,then your pathetic idiot, and deserve to be playing for free. Why would you take 2% of a company thats making billions of of you.

Mike Bibby, at the end of his career, used as trade fodder several times, basically flushed a 6 million dollar contract for the next season to go play for the 2011 Heat, in hopes of winning a ring. He played the next season for our Knicks, at the league's veteran's minimum.

Karl Malone took a 1.5 million dollar one year deal in 2003, to win a ring. Doing this knowing a labor war was brewing and locking into one last solid contract would have been in his best financial interests.

Same year, same team, Gary Payton passed up other more lucrative offers to sign a 2 year, 10 million deal with the Lakers.

Dirk's three year, 25 million contract with Dallas left, based on other offers, close to 70 million on the table.

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili all left money on the table. Lots of money to stay together and with the Spurs.

Dwight Howard, instead of trying to force a sign and trade or to take the max possible from the Lakers, took a big pay cut to move to Houston, leaving their team and assets intact.

Stephen Curry is one of the best value contracts in all of the NBA. He could have taken more money, he didn't. His ankle issues were a concern. But he signed for less than the possible max.

Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce both signed shorter than market value deals at the end of their careers.

Mike Miller left money on the table to play with the Heat and his friends, LBJ and Wade.

LBJ and Wade and Bosh all left money on the table to sign Miller and Haslem.

People can argue how the way NBA players is not fair all day long. The reality is that NBA players union LOST and LOST BADLY in the last labor war. End of story there. They have to live in that reality. IF you want help, fair or not, you have to go to a gutted young team with rookie contracts or you have to leave money on the table. That's it.

I brought up Chris Paul because he's a good example. He had a young rookie contract guy backing him up with upside. Clippers couldn't afford to keep Eric Bledsoe, in part because Paul makes the max. Bledsoe gone. Darren Collison isn't a great starter, but is a very good backup PG, but he got more money to start elsewhere, part of that happened because Paul makes the max. If Paul has to burn more minutes and eat more pressure and knows his backup isn't as good as what he had before, too bad on him. Could have left money on the table. But he didn't. Deal with the consequences.

People keep harping on "fair" or "not fair" as if that is the reality that these players exist in right now. Fair or not, if you want help, you have to leave money on the table.

IF the players wanted better, they should have organized better and won the last labor war. They didn't. Now they all have to eat it. Including Melo.

Manu is 37, Tim is 38, and Parker is making almost 13 mil and they all play in an income tax free state. You are talking about guys at the end of their careers or in Steph's case a guy that is limited in how much he can make by the years he has in the league. Howard is the exception but he hated LA, Kobe and D'Antoni and again he is in an income tax free state. Guys at the end of their careers take less. LBJ left money on the table in Miami but after state and city income tax was taken out netted more than Melo. Guys at the end of their careers or leaving a little bit so their super star buddies can sign are bad examples in my opinion. Show me a guy 25-30 that takes significantly less without the guarantee that another player is signing for his team and I think it will be the first. Also, the cba needs to be fixed so that income tax free states like Florida and Texas don't have such a significant advantage over other states.

Melo has made $153 mil already, which is far more than Manu or Parker. You pay state and city income tax based on where the game is being played. With a $13 mil salary, it's a savings of about $600K per year. I'm sure the NYC endorsement money vastly exceeds that savings. Nevertheless, if he wanted $13.6 mil per instead of $13 mil, I wouldn't complain. That would still put him on track for career earnings of around a quarter billion dollars by the time he retires (not even counting endorsement money).

It was a different CBA but I remember back when Kidd was in nj and considering the nets or spurs the nets were able to offer Kidd around 7 mil more but with the state income tax in nj, he would net more with the spurs. The state income tax in nj took away any monetary advantage the nets had. They had to fire Byron Scott and sign Alonzo mourning to keep Kidd.

7 mil spread out over 5 years? That's a 1.4 mil per difference. It's more than the 600K I estimated but fine. You could raise the $13 mil to 14.4 mil. You shouldn't need to do that anyway given the endorsement advantage but I would have still been proud of him if he had done it.

That figure is with nj rates at just under 7% for state income tax. Nys and NYC income taxes have a guy like Melo being taxed at over 12%. It puts the Knicks at a significant disadvantage in my opinion.

knickscity wrote:I think some pretty good points have been made in the above posts. I do agree that melo, in an effort to get better teammmates should have taken a bigger discount due to the confines of the salary cap, but he's certainly entitled to his max dollars as the team apparently offered it. And it certainly is true that players of lots of different age groups have already shown the willingness to take less to keep and add better teammmates in an effort to win. What I dont agree with is that the lack of state income tax in some of these situations should be factored in....it shouldn't. What a player signs for is what they sign for, and those guys signed for less which created room for team additions. The "no state tax" is really a baseless stance anyway since the players recieve the same tax benefit because their taxes arent based just in their home state but EVERY state and it's based on where a player is claiming they actually lived.

LeBron played in a no tax state, but still had to file tax forms in every state he played in, but most importantly i dont think he ever became a resident of Florida, but remained a resident of Ohio. In some states he did pay state tax. Melo in the same respect while he lives in a state that has a state tax only taxes him for the 41 home games he plays in NY, all other games follow the same rules that apply in every NBA player. Basically he does not pay state tax in many of those other 41 games....of course when he playes Bklyn he's paying tax similar to his normal 41 games and his premanent residence.

Completely agree. The no state tax issue should have absolutely no bearing on the CBA. It's a much more complicated situation than what people make it out to be. You are absolutely correct: NBA players pay taxes in every city/state where they play games. Raptors players pay Canadian taxes as well.

Additionally, when you make a decision to sign with a particular team, just like when a "normal" person decides to take a job in a particular city/state it's up to that person to decide whether the cost of living in that particular area is amenable to them. Because taxes are just one part of the equation. For example someone playing for the OKC Thunder are undoubtedly paying a lot less for housing and food than someone in LA or CHI or even Miami.

It's simple: If a player doesn't want to pay extra to live and work in a state or city with a high cost of living then they should sign elsewhere. I doubt someone who really wants to play in LA or NY will pass up the opportunity because of higher taxes or cost of living. It's definitely a nice perk but then again a team like Memphis could pitch lower housing costs as an incentive just as Houston can boast about no state taxes for home games.

H1AND1 wrote:

knickscity wrote:I think some pretty good points have been made in the above posts. I do agree that melo, in an effort to get better teammmates should have taken a bigger discount due to the confines of the salary cap, but he's certainly entitled to his max dollars as the team apparently offered it. And it certainly is true that players of lots of different age groups have already shown the willingness to take less to keep and add better teammmates in an effort to win. What I dont agree with is that the lack of state income tax in some of these situations should be factored in....it shouldn't. What a player signs for is what they sign for, and those guys signed for less which created room for team additions. The "no state tax" is really a baseless stance anyway since the players recieve the same tax benefit because their taxes arent based just in their home state but EVERY state and it's based on where a player is claiming they actually lived.

LeBron played in a no tax state, but still had to file tax forms in every state he played in, but most importantly i dont think he ever became a resident of Florida, but remained a resident of Ohio. In some states he did pay state tax. Melo in the same respect while he lives in a state that has a state tax only taxes him for the 41 home games he plays in NY, all other games follow the same rules that apply in every NBA player. Basically he does not pay state tax in many of those other 41 games....of course when he playes Bklyn he's paying tax similar to his normal 41 games and his premanent residence.

Completely agree. The no state tax issue should have absolutely no bearing on the CBA. It's a much more complicated situation than what people make it out to be. You are absolutely correct: NBA players pay taxes in every city/state where they play games. Raptors players pay Canadian taxes as well.

Additionally, when you make a decision to sign with a particular team, just like when a "normal" person decides to take a job in a particular city/state it's up to that person to decide whether the cost of living in that particular area is amenable to them. Because taxes are just one part of the equation. For example someone playing for the OKC Thunder are undoubtedly paying a lot less for housing and food than someone in LA or CHI or even Miami.

It's simple: If a player doesn't want to pay extra to live and work in a state or city with a high cost of living then they should sign elsewhere. I doubt someone who really wants to play in LA or NY will pass up the opportunity because of higher taxes or cost of living. It's definitely a nice perk but then again a team like Memphis could pitch lower housing costs as an incentive just as Houston can boast about no state taxes for home games.