Proposed Idea: Max Contracts

[Myles]

I would like to propose two changes to the way individual max contracts are structured. Since this would affect the CBA and how the league moves going forward, I think this would require a majority vote to change (private vote of course). Here's my proposal:

With the salary cap increasing and projected to increase steadily over the next few seasons, keeping the individual salary max the same would be detrimental. If the cap reaches near 85-90M levels, teams would have room for 4 full max players (starting salary of roughly 19M) and still more money to spend on their team. Superteams could possibly reach all time highs and leave for even less amount of parity.

My first proposal is that we rewrite the CBA thus that individual player maximum contracts are a % of the salary cap. This is how the current NBA does it. We could have a sliding scale based on a player's experience in the league (35% of the salary cap for players with 10+ years of experience, 30% for 6-9 years, 25% for 0-6 years). The benefit to this is that as the league salary cap changes, the individual salary max changes accordingly. The downside to this is that it could create confusion, as the individual max could change from year to year.

My second proposal is that we abolish maximum contracts altogether. Players are still limited to a 4 year contract for non-bird rights, 5 year contract with bird rights, but the amount of $$$ would be completely up to the team. There's no maximum whatsoever. This would aid parity so that it would be harder to create superteams. This also negates the issue of the changing salary cap. The downside is that teams could be crippled by one mistake. Overpaying a free agent here could be very costly. No one would argue giving LeBron James a contract much larger than the current max, but if he suffered an ACL tear that contract could very well cripple a franchise.

I'll hold off on my personal preference to remove any possible bias. The only thing I'll say is that moving forward with the CBA as is would not succeed.

Any changes would take effect next offseason, or possibly take effect at the beginning of the regular season's extension period.

[bt]

I personally don't think as an overall group, GM's can control themselves enough and you'll have some terrible decisions made. Actually, that's probably not too far from why the NBA has limits too given some of the terrible NBA owners.

So I would vote for changing the max contracts to match the percentage of the new salary cap.

[Jestor]

Percentage of salary cap. See GAH financial system for ideas.

[Jake0890]

Percentage of the cap.

[GreenBear]

I also agree with percentage of cap.

[KW]

%s please.

35% for 10+ year vets
30% for 7-9 year vets
25% for 0-6 year players

[DWK]

Percentage of the cap.

[andrei]

agree that salary max, min, mle etc should change along with the cap. i don't even know at ths stage what our mle is. the game says $3.5m .... don't see the benefit of other changes