LBJ's endgame: no more "max". But does he want parity?

[horatio81 [enjin:7751176]]

If you've read any of the more grounded articles floating around the feel-good "going home" stories, it's pretty obvious what Lebron wants: a salary that actually matches his productivity, now and going forward. Step one is earning his maximum under the existing CBA. Step two is maintaining contract flexibility so he can cash in on the new, inflated TV deal. I firmly believe step three is pushing for the removal of the cap on individual player salaries in next round of CBA negotiations. Lebron knows he's worth $30-40 million on the open market, and I think he's tired of artificial restrictions on that number.

Now Lebron doesn't appear to be an idiot, so I'm guessing he knows the removal of the individual player salary cap would all but certainly trigger the adoption of a hard cap for each team. If he thinks for even a moment that basketball can survive long-term under the MLB model of uncapped spending, he's delusional; you'd have literally 100% of the championships going to NY and LA while the rest of the league dries up and closes down.

James appears to genuinely love Cleveland, so I'm guessing he won't try to "remake" the league in a fashion that all but guarantees the extinction of all teams/markets resembling the Cavs. Plus he should be aware of the fact that the NFL is both a) insanely popular in some part due to extensive parity as well as b) eventually headed for major shifts/changes based on player health concerns - changes that might very negatively impact the popularity of the league.

So as the NBA is perhaps best poised to take over the American sports throne over the next few decades, maybe this is all about creating true parity. A hard team cap with no max individual salaries would go a long ways towards spreading out the talent while insuring that talent is more properly compensated. You'd have teams on the fringes periodically overpaying, for sure, but you'd also put an instant stop to the days of 3+ superstars teaming up for easy rings. I'm sure that sounds just awful for the NYs and LAs of the world, but I'd love to see that landscape from Minnesota.