I'm excited to root for the Wolves. But there's another reason beyond Towns and Wiggins...

[AbeVigodaLive]

Good timing with this article... which is basically a state of the NBA piece as we near unchartered territory:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-eight-biggest-nba-free-agency-questions/

"When free agency begins at the stroke of midnight, the NBA will leap into its great unknown: an unprecedented three-year spending frenzy that will change the league forever and stand out in history as an outlier blip in which the NBA lost its mind."

I know what I'm doing/reading during lunch...

Thanks for posting. I don't want to be a complete downer, but what's coming doesn't seem like a very good thing for the health of the league. The commish was smart for trying to mitigate this avalanche of salary escalation. Greed may damage the product in the very near future.

Let's go with this downer angle. After all, we're Wolves fans for chrissakes.

We all realize that yet another lockout is on the horizon... and that an entire season may be lost this time, right? There's just too much change, too much money for it not to happen.

Just in time when the Wolves might be legit contenders! Timberwolves will be mythical 2017 NBA Champions!

[bleedspeed]

If the lockout happens it happens. If it does I hope the owners get rid of guaranteed contracts.

It is not about the owners being greedy. If I was a player I would be pissed trying to get a contract
when I know some guy on my team got his money and is mailing it in or is not healthy enough to even play. If I get hurt I would hope I would have been smart enough to get insurance. For the fans it would give us a better product on the court.

[AbeVigodaLive]

If the lockout happens it happens. If it does I hope the owners get rid of guaranteed contracts.

It is not about the owners being greedy. If I was a player I would be pissed trying to get a contract
when I know some guy on my team got his money and is mailing it in or is not healthy enough to even play. If I get hurt I would hope I would have been smart enough to get insurance. For the fans it would give us a better product on the court.

Is football the only current sport with non-guaranteed contracts?

I think it sorta works there because of the shorter playing careers. But it's still a mercenary approach. I think it works to some degree with football because they even look like gladiators in a way. We can't really see their faces. That SS looks like that other SS we had last season. Tear up a knee? Bring in another guy.

Part of the reason the NBA is successful is because of the iconic players... not teams. Bird. Magic. Jordan. James. Bryant. Et al. In a league where a significant percentage of players play 10 - 20 years... I don't know if constant movement among them from year to year is actually going to build a better product. What's in it for a guy to sacrifice his stats if he's not even guaranteed a spot/salary next season?

Even though I still don't care for shorter contracts, that is a decent middle ground area between long, bad contracts and non-guaranteed deals.


[Note: And any lockout is because owners (and players) are greedy. I'm not saying they shouldn't be to some degree... but it is frustrating that the fans are ALWAYS the ones on the outside with our needs the very last thing on the mind of everybody involved. Case in point... serious negotiations don't even begin until games are cancelled. Who does that hurt the most?]

[bleedspeed]

Is football the only current sport with non-guaranteed contracts?

I think so and I think it is part of the reason it is the most popular sport. Players are playing to survive not walking through the motions.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Is football the only current sport with non-guaranteed contracts?

I think so and I think it is part of the reason it is the most popular sport. Players are playing to survive not walking through the motions.

16 games might have something to do with that. The average playing career that's only 3.3 years might have something to do with that. Or, it might just be a misguided perception that NBA, NHL and MLB players don't work as hard...

[bleedspeed]

Here is something interesting.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-the-average-nba-player-will-make-lot-more-in-his-career-than-the-other-major-sports-2013-10

3.2 vs 4.8 years. NBA players make almost 4 times as much in their average career.

NFL has a TV contract for $27B/9yr and the NBA has one for $24B/9yr.
NFL has 512 regular season games vs NBA 2460

NFL 5M per game vs 1M

Crazy

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I think teams should be able to cut guys and not take the salary cap hit. That way the players still get paid and teams can dump guys that aren't living up to their contracts. Then have that players next contract eat into their old contract so if we cut Pek and he signs a 5 million dollar deal elsewhere that's 5 less million we have to pay him. You shouldn't get rewarded for being so bad or unbearable on your team that you get paid even more when someone else wants to take a chance on you. I don't get the overall system of contracts always being on your cap even if they aren't on your team. I think it's an odd punishment when most of the time the player flat out isn't earning their contract and the team gets punished for wanting to move on from an underperformer.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I think teams should be able to cut guys and not take the salary cap hit. That way the players still get paid and teams can dump guys that aren't living up to their contracts. Then have that players next contract eat into their old contract so if we cut Pek and he signs a 5 million dollar deal elsewhere that's 5 less million we have to pay him. You shouldn't get rewarded for being so bad or unbearable on your team that you get paid even more when someone else wants to take a chance on you. I don't get the overall system of contracts always being on your cap even if they aren't on your team. I think it's an odd punishment when most of the time the player flat out isn't earning their contract and the team gets punished for wanting to move on from an underperformer.

But it's often the teams that sign guys to bad contracts. How many more provisions/outs do we have to give them to protect them from themselves? I don't know of any other guaranteed contract league that does more than the NBA already does to help dumb guys recover from making dumb moves.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I think teams should be able to cut guys and not take the salary cap hit. That way the players still get paid and teams can dump guys that aren't living up to their contracts. Then have that players next contract eat into their old contract so if we cut Pek and he signs a 5 million dollar deal elsewhere that's 5 less million we have to pay him. You shouldn't get rewarded for being so bad or unbearable on your team that you get paid even more when someone else wants to take a chance on you. I don't get the overall system of contracts always being on your cap even if they aren't on your team. I think it's an odd punishment when most of the time the player flat out isn't earning their contract and the team gets punished for wanting to move on from an underperformer.

But it's often the teams that sign guys to bad contracts. How many more provisions/outs do we have to give them to protect them from themselves? I don't know of any other guaranteed contract league that does more than the NBA already does to help dumb guys recover from making dumb moves.

How many athletes on the other end of those dumb deals can you say are doing everything he can to earn that contract, but just isn't good enough? Bad deals are a two way street. Teams overpay guys and then those guys coast or don't get better because there's no repercussions for them once that deal is signed. How are some GM's supposed to reasonably get players there without overpaying in hopes those players live up to the deal? It's just not as simple as GM's making bad deals just because they don't know what they're doing. Half the league has to make bad deals just to get in the door with these players because they have an inherent disadvantage to signing players. So if big markets like LA and NY have inherent advantages to sign players because of their market, I am perfectly fine giving small market GM's more ammo to try to compete with those markets in the form of getting out of bad contracts.

Also, what means do these GM's have of getting out of these deals? Amnesty provisions are a one time thing that are only for previous CBA contracts. Stretch provisions still require the full deal to be paid out just over a longer period of time and you still take a cap hit and pay out the full deal yourself. Their only means of getting out are to trade those bad deals or cut the guy and pay out the full salary with a full salary cap hit which every league with guaranteed contracts have. Hockey at least has a compliance buyout which lets you actually pay a guy only 2/3rds of his deal over the remaining length of the deal and doesn't count on your cap. Baseball allows teams to pay some of a players contract while trading him making it easier to trade him and save money (might help a few more players move in the NBA if that were the case). The NBA doesn't give GM's much help to get out of bad deals.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I think teams should be able to cut guys and not take the salary cap hit. That way the players still get paid and teams can dump guys that aren't living up to their contracts. Then have that players next contract eat into their old contract so if we cut Pek and he signs a 5 million dollar deal elsewhere that's 5 less million we have to pay him. You shouldn't get rewarded for being so bad or unbearable on your team that you get paid even more when someone else wants to take a chance on you. I don't get the overall system of contracts always being on your cap even if they aren't on your team. I think it's an odd punishment when most of the time the player flat out isn't earning their contract and the team gets punished for wanting to move on from an underperformer.

But it's often the teams that sign guys to bad contracts. How many more provisions/outs do we have to give them to protect them from themselves? I don't know of any other guaranteed contract league that does more than the NBA already does to help dumb guys recover from making dumb moves.

How many athletes on the other end of those dumb deals can you say are doing everything he can to earn that contract, but just isn't good enough? Bad deals are a two way street. Teams overpay guys and then those guys coast or don't get better because there's no repercussions for them once that deal is signed. How are some markets supposed to reasonably get players there without overpaying in hopes those players live up to the deal? It's just not as simple as GM's making bad deals just because they don't know what they're doing. Half the league has to make bad deals just to get in the door with these players because they have an inherent disadvantage to signing players. So if big markets like LA and NY have inherent advantages to sign players because of their market, I am perfectly fine giving small market GM's more ammo to try to compete with those markets in the form of getting out of bad contracts.

I just think eliminating guaranteed contracts is myopic. It opens up an entirely new set of problems. Baseball and Hockey deal with the same thing. I've pointed out why only football doesn't... along with injuries that are much more frequent and can often change the trajectory of a guy's career... a lot more than in the other sports.

There has to be a balance. Players are paid handsomely... but they should still have some job security. After all, both sides signed that contract. In fact, I think it's good for the fans (back to my original premise... continuity is good in my opinion) too.