Knickoftime wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:They should install the ability for teams to add salary from a players contract for the following year on to the salary this year. And should be able to add on enough money until it reaches league minimum for that player the next year. For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it.

Brooklyn could pay Mozgov 25mil this year and then the off season up his salary to 19mil then only have league minimum left on the last year of his contract.

Players with Player options you can't touch that money from that year.

Players still get their money. Could be an option for teams to get out of contracts they don't want early.

Okay tell me the holes in it.

Not sure the purpose of this.

The premise of the cap is to hold down salaries. This is seemingly a mechanism to drive them up.

slush money around on multi year contract to gain flexibility on cap in next years

Knickoftime wrote:

martin wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:They should install the ability for teams to add salary from a players contract for the following year on to the salary this year. And should be able to add on enough money until it reaches league minimum for that player the next year. For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it.

Brooklyn could pay Mozgov 25mil this year and then the off season up his salary to 19mil then only have league minimum left on the last year of his contract.

Players with Player options you can't touch that money from that year.

Players still get their money. Could be an option for teams to get out of contracts they don't want early.

Okay tell me the holes in it.

Not sure the purpose of this.

The premise of the cap is to hold down salaries. This is seemingly a mechanism to drive them up.

slush money around on multi year contract to gain flexibility on cap in next years

That's how it read to me, which has the opposite effect of the cap.

? You have $10M in cap space that you don't use this year and move $10 from next year into it... what's the opposite effect?

Knickoftime wrote:

martin wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

martin wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:They should install the ability for teams to add salary from a players contract for the following year on to the salary this year. And should be able to add on enough money until it reaches league minimum for that player the next year. For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it.

Brooklyn could pay Mozgov 25mil this year and then the off season up his salary to 19mil then only have league minimum left on the last year of his contract.

Players with Player options you can't touch that money from that year.

Players still get their money. Could be an option for teams to get out of contracts they don't want early.

Okay tell me the holes in it.

Not sure the purpose of this.

The premise of the cap is to hold down salaries. This is seemingly a mechanism to drive them up.

slush money around on multi year contract to gain flexibility on cap in next years

That's how it read to me, which has the opposite effect of the cap.

? You have $10M in cap space that you don't use this year and move $10 from next year into it... what's the opposite effect?

That isn't how it sounds to me.

"For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it."

The seems to be saying a team can add salary, even over the cap, thereby creating new cap space to spend on, even though a player gets all of the original amount.

That's new spending. It effectively abolishes the cap.

Wouldn't it be the same as resigning a player and going over the cap to do it?

Knickoftime wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

martin wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

martin wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:They should install the ability for teams to add salary from a players contract for the following year on to the salary this year. And should be able to add on enough money until it reaches league minimum for that player the next year. For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it.

Brooklyn could pay Mozgov 25mil this year and then the off season up his salary to 19mil then only have league minimum left on the last year of his contract.

Players with Player options you can't touch that money from that year.

Players still get their money. Could be an option for teams to get out of contracts they don't want early.

Okay tell me the holes in it.

Not sure the purpose of this.

The premise of the cap is to hold down salaries. This is seemingly a mechanism to drive them up.

slush money around on multi year contract to gain flexibility on cap in next years

That's how it read to me, which has the opposite effect of the cap.

? You have $10M in cap space that you don't use this year and move $10 from next year into it... what's the opposite effect?

That isn't how it sounds to me.

"For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it."

The seems to be saying a team can add salary, even over the cap, thereby creating new cap space to spend on, even though a player gets all of the original amount.

That's new spending. It effectively abolishes the cap.

Wouldn't it be the same as resigning a player and going over the cap to do it?

Still not sure I'm understanding. Just for the sake of clarification, in theory, what's to stop the Warriors from frontloading all of their contracts per this method, paying a massive penalty one year, and then loading up on more prime free agents while paying all their core guys much smaller salaries?

And just repeating until they have a 15 man All-Star squad?

Good point. So the tweek would be to only allow teams to use their available cap space like Martin demonstrated?

newyorknewyork wrote:They should install the ability for teams to add salary from a players contract for the following year on to the salary this year. And should be able to add on enough money until it reaches league minimum for that player the next year. For example we would be able to pay Noah 33 mil this year. Cutting his salary for 2018-2019 to league minimum 3mil. The 33 mil should add on to the cap though so if over the lux tax team would still have to pay it.

Brooklyn could pay Mozgov 25mil this year and then the off season up his salary to 19mil then only have league minimum left on the last year of his contract.

Players with Player options you can't touch that money from that year.

Players still get their money. Could be an option for teams to get out of contracts they don't want early.

Okay tell me the holes in it.

I hadn't considered this but it makes sense to me -- but only in the context of a buyout. Clearly need to cap the acceleration to the sum a player would have received under a max contract. Can't go over the team caps. By your example, I could create value by creating a $3mm Noah contract.

I'm saying, if I have enough room to buy out a 4 year $20mm contract and can absorb all $20mm under the cap in a single year, it would allow a quicker recovery from mistakes by dropping some salary absorbing the balance in a bad year.

But, where you also get to keep the player, it would create some competitive imbalances. Imagine a team with 11 rookie minimum contracts and 1 5 year 100mm contract. They absorb all 100mm into this year and are left with 4 min contract years. They sign another player next year to a 4 year 100mm contract and absorb all 100m to the 2nd year leaving a min contract the next. Repeated until they have 4 such contracts and in the 5th year they sign 5 more 20mm contracts. In that 5th year they have an effective cap of close to 200mm. And per current rules, bird rights on all bought down players.

Not a good outcome.

But, to be able to swallow a mistake on an accelerated schedule and remove the player could be valuable.

newyorknewyork wrote:Okay tell me the holes in it.

Interesting thought. At least it's out of the box thinking to some degree.

Base problems, just from first glance

A) "Frontloading" a contract reduces actual contract years rendered, thus impacting "service time" Service time matters for things like pension and future benefits. This might not be a huge issue for a Mozgov or a Noah, who are established NBA veterans who will play over a decade in the league or more. Take a guy like Shane Larkin. Each year in the league is critical for him. Any fringe guy just fighting to get to his pension cutoff is impacted. It's a base mechanism for owners to collude to drive down future benefits and pension rights for fringe players. There are more fringe players than there are elite players. Over the long haul, that adds up. Opening up opportunities for collusion ends up creating future labor issues and future anti-trust issues. There is a silent but accepted understanding between the government and pro sports. Pro sports does not want to have formal regulation, the government understands pro sports is a massive revenue generator and generally good for society and culture at large. They don't want to get involved, but want pro sports to never give them a reason to do so ( i.e. juicing and MLB)

B) Teams now have a mechanism to tank and frontload to hit the salary floor. Teams would also be incentivized to "buy" assets using their cap space. This is more feasible for "cash rich" teams than cash poor teams. The Knicks simply have a larger financial war chest and TV deal than many other teams. Other teams might not be suited to cash out in this manner at one time. The current system is more akin to "renting" cap space, as it's allocated over time.

C) Players have an incentive to "game" their way out of their contract commitments. Baron Davis got fat. Eddy Curry got drunk. Andres Biedriens decided he wanted to be a full time clubber ( like literally going to clubs and partying) than be an NBA player. Charles Haley was a Pro Bowl DE for the 49ers during their salad days. To get traded and force a trade, he jerked off in his positional meetings. At team meetings, he'd take a dump, in the middle of the room, on a piece of a paper, walk up to his coaches, and try to give it to them. He would randomly pull his junk out of his pants and walk about the team facility, talking non stop about people looking at his junk. It's hard enough with getting even basic civilized conduct with long term guaranteed contracts. Not sure this will bode well for toxic players looking for a way out with all their cash

D) Miles Plumlee was traded to the Hawks in the Dwight Howard deal not long ago. It's a bad contract on both sides. Taking the bad contract and it's multiplier impact ( i.e. not just AAV but years total) starts to push/pull teams out of current free agency. The benefit of current free agency is it factors in INFLATIONARY factors within the system. Guys get paid more this year than last, relative to market forces and positional value and production. Guys will get paid more a year from now than this year. The cap will incrementally go up ( at least by projections in most cases) more often than not. This doesn't happen, AAV spiking, when no one is getting signed. No one gets signed if teams have no cap space. Teams have no cap space if they are frontloading.

The agents wouldn't want it, the NBAPA wouldn't want it, the owners might have a use for it, but only to essentially punish the fringe guys who need the long term benefits the most. GMs would find a way to manipulate it.

In all of pro sports, you have to really shade how cash rich teams operate versus cash poor teams. It's a big issue and it factors into competitive balance. We saw for years the Yankees and those horse f**ker Red Sox go to war over high price international free agents ( Contreras, Dice K, etc) because no other team could bid on them and afford it. The rules changed with slotting and allotments and penalties to level that international pool. The NBA structure already has systematic dysfunction ( i.e. a problem with tanking and competitive balance), applying this would not help.

But, to be fair, it's a good thought in general. It's out of the box thinking and I think that's always a good thing and worthy of solid discussion. Thanks for bringing up the topic.