I thought it was brilliant. You should read the whole thing but here is the meat of it
Read more: http://realgm.com/src_feature_pieces/957/20100720/the_path_to_a_permanent_peace_between_nba_players_and_owners/#ixzz0vH8ZMIdW
Player salaries will be determined by three criteria:1. base/performance pay based upon how many minutes a player plays (70 Percent of total, or $1.4 billion)
2. all-star pay to reward the better players in the league (20 percent of total, or $400 million)
3. team pay, to reward players on the best teams (10 percent of total, or $200 million)
Base-Performance Pay: Every team is allocated 12 full salary slots, and then three half-salary slots, for a roster of 15. The three players on the 15 man roster who are on the 12 man game roster the least get the one-half of the base salary.
If a player only plays part of a season in the NBA, their salary is prorated accordingly
The players who play the most deserve to be paid more. Most teams have rotations that run no more than nine deep, so the 270 players in the league who play the most should be compensated. The criteria for this allocation is strictly the average number of minutes player per-game, for a minimum of 55 games. (If a player plays less than 55 games, their total number of minutes is still divided by 55 to determine their average. A DNP-CD counts as a game played.) If a player is injured for as much as 30 percent of a season he is not penalized.
Players ranked 1-90: $6.5 million each
Players ranked 91-180: $5 million each
Players ranked 181-270: $2.5 million each
Players ranked 271-360: $1 million each
Players ranked 361-450*: $500,000 each
* the last three guys on each team’s 15 man roster
All-Star Bonus Pay: These will be determined by MVP votes and all-NBA team votes. The top 25 vote-getters in the MVP balloting will get paid bonuses. There will be ten all-NBA teams for each conference, so 20 five-man rosters and 100 players (two-thirds of all starting players in the NBA) will get rewarded. The voting procedures will have to be determined in the CBA, with the players and coaches the likely voters. Voting should be done immediately after the regular season so as not to penalize players on lottery teams. The top 100 players will be rewarded, sometimes handsomely.
MVP voting (25 players covered):
1st-5th: $5 million each
6th-10th: $4.5 million each
11th-15th: $4 million each
16th-20th: $3.5 million each
21st-25th: $3 million each
All-Conference (100 players covered):
1st team EC & WC: $4.8 million each
2nd team EC & WC: $4.4 million each
3rd team EC & WC: $4.0 million each
4th team EC & WC: $3.6 million each
5th team EC & WC: $3.2 million each
6th team EC & WC: $2.8 million each
7th team EC & WC: $2.4 million each
8th team EC & WC: $2.0 million each
9th team EC & WC: $1.6 million each
10th team EC & WC: $1.2 million each
Team Performance Pay: Players on the best teams should get compensated for contributing to a winning team. These shares are allocated equally to players 1-12 on a roster, with half-shares to players 13-15 in minutes played. Players on all non-lottery teams receive compensation, with the better teams getting the larger shares. The groupings are determined by how a team fares in the playoffs.
Players on Teams 1-4: $2 million each
Players on Teams 5-8: $1 million each
Players on Teams 9-16: $425,000 each
If you apply this system to actual NBA players for the past season, for example, you will see that the players fare well. The truly great superstars—LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant—all make in the $16-18 million range. The 20th-25th best player, an all-star but not a superstar, would get in the $13 million to $15 million range. From there players salaries would head down to the 90th best player, who is getting in the $8-10 million range, depending upon how his team fares.
The lower-level starter – not a top 100 player -- and the first sub off the bench, would make between $5 million and $7 million.
The journeyman deep rotation player, the 7th, 8th and 9th guy in the rotation, would make around $2.5 million, plus their team bonus.
The base pay for rookies who don’t play and marginal roster guys would be about the same as it is today, unless they were on a playoff team, then it would be better.
For most players, this will be a better deal, even a much better deal. At worse, it will be a wash. The reason is simple: All the money goes to the players who actually produce. No money at all goes to dead weight. That frees up, depending upon you count, several hundred million dollars. If some guy comes out of the woodwork and plays great basketball, he gets paid for it right away. If he stops playing well, he stops getting paid well.
Defenders of the status quo acknowledge many guys, especially younger players, are often underpaid, but say they will get theirs down the road. Later in their career they will get what they are worth. Well why shouldn’t they be paid what they are worth now? They have earned it now. What if they rip up their knees or get in a car crash and never get to cash in down the road? Then they are out many millions of dollars. And if they are good down the road they will keep getting paid exactly what they are worth down the road. The only way they lose is if they could sign a huge long-term deal and then begin to play at a much lower level, a la Wally Szczerbiak, Raef LaFrentz, Jerome James, Jared Jeffries, Vladimir Radmanovic, etc. etc. Do we really want a salary structure that funnels money to guys who are ridiculously overpaid and/or over the hill at the expense of the guys who are playing well?
It is a pretty simple concept, that accord to basic traditions of fairness. It is high time it is adopted by the NBA.
