Thank God for the New CBA

To play devils advocate with the owners, its one thing to be a rare athletic talent at something, and another to find ways to monetize it.

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Originally Posted by donjuansdaddy

Any sport, cap or no cap, teams overpay at the start of FA, which is why the Spurs wait the suckers are weeded out before bidding on players. Lakers will be paying Nash more like 30mil a year to play for them with his added salary. Yeah, Buss must really want to win.

CBA has huge ramifications for going over the Luxury Tax. The Lakers 98mil dollar roster 3 years ago would have cost Buss like 90mil in Tax Penalities and as a repeat offender, make it 120mil. That's right, for being 27mil over the Tax level its $3.5 times the amount over, and $4.5 for repeat offenders.

The Lakers are going to be paying around 45mil + in Luxury Tax with Nash's new salary. Next year, it will be around 60mil. So yeah, it does curtail it when you see how huge the penalties are going to be. Unless your Mob Steel Tycoon from Russia, this will deter most owners from exceeding the cap at extreme levels.

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Originally Posted by Mel_13

Years 1 and 2 of the new CBA are at the same tax levels as before.

Years 3 and 4 the higher taxes take effect.

Year 5 and beyond, the most punitive taxes for repeat offenders kick in.

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Originally Posted by Kidd K

The CBA arguments were never about competative balance.

The NBA has never been about competative balance.

It's only been about owners getting more money and paying players less overall. Teams like the Lakers will still go well into the luxury tax because their income is so much higher than most of the other teams in the NBA and can afford it.




I disagree. Doing that is their choice; knowing all risks involved. If they were actually "defending the country", I might agree to a pay increase. . .but not that high since it's illogical. As bloated as US military spending is right now, it's bloated towards giving US-based defense contractors assloads of money to make vehicles, jets, and other bullshit. . .not it's personel who tend to be looked at as lowly peons by the rich pricks in charge.

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In turn they should be rewarded for there selfless service not just military but all jobs who risk there own lives for the well being of others. Basketball players should be happy with what they get honestly.

All I'm saying is there are more important things in the world and we should keep things in perspective. Saying they don't get paid enough is kinda crazy for what they do. At the end of the day it is just a GAME.

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Originally Posted by ElNono

What does that has to do with anything? If cops, doctors, military, firemen, etc could have the talent to play basketball and fill arenas like NBA players do, then they wouldn't be cops, doctors, military, firemen, etc.

You can't teach being Lebron James.

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But it's the job is what he is saying can basketball skills save people? No it can't

What's worth more a life or what somebody can do with a basketball? The value of things in this world are upside down honestly.

You can't honestly say playing games is worth more than saving lives.

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Originally Posted by SamoanTD

You can't honestly say playing games is worth more than saving lives.

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We don't live in a society where financial compensation is ordered on that basis. Now you can have philosophical discussions about a perfect society, but that's not the subject of this thread.

The simple fact is that the CBA artificially constrains the earning power of the best professional basketball players, with their lost earning capacity shared by ownership and lesser players.

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Originally Posted by Mel_13

We don't live in a society where financial compensation is ordered on that basis. Now you can have philosophical discussions about a perfect society, but that's not the subject of this thread.

The simple fact is that the CBA artificially constrains the earning power of the best professional basketball players, with their lost earning capacity shared by ownership and lesser players.

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Got it all I'm saying is sayin players dont get paid enough is bullshit honestly.

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Originally Posted by timvp

IMO, players don't get paid enough money. It's pretty lame that they put in all the hard work, get the brunt of the criticism, put their long-term health on the line and never really get to lead a regular life and yet some anonymous suit splits the money with them 50/50.

But that may just be me.

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But it would be very difficult for the players as a whole to create a stage where their skills could be marketed for high dollars without the anonymous suit. For example, how long has it taken the league to get as profitable as it is today with the ownership investment.

Broke high school and college kids, no matter how good they are at basketball, couldn't get a stage without the ownership. 50/50 split is high, but owners have invested millions in their respective franchise.

I actually didn't think this thread would take a turn to this type of discussion but anyways.

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Originally Posted by timvp

IMO, players don't get paid enough money. It's pretty lame that they put in all the hard work, get the brunt of the criticism, put their long-term health on the line and never really get to lead a regular life and yet some anonymous suit splits the money with them 50/50.

But that may just be me.

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I understand where your coming from, but on the other hand, the whole reason they are able to be paid salaries significantly higher than other people is because they are essentially publicizing and selling a product. It does mean they don't get to lead a normal life and that they are subject to criticism especially when their play if subpar. However if they weren't subject to being in the spotlight then the product (the NBA) would be less profitable and marketable, and then they would be making less money.

As far as the owners go, its the same as any business. If your an investor you expect a good possibility for a return on your investment. Admittedly all the new CBA has done is ensure a return for the ownership. But its the same with any organization. You don't have a business if its not trying to be profitable, and when its a business that demands high amounts of capital, that means your going to have to offer a high level of capital return in order to secure the investment.

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Originally Posted by Kidd K

It's only been about owners getting more money and paying players less overall. Teams like the Lakers will still go well into the luxury tax because their income is so much higher than most of the other teams in the NBA and can afford it.


I disagree. Doing that is their choice; knowing all risks involved. If they were actually "defending the country", I might agree to a pay increase. . .but not that high since it's illogical. As bloated as US military spending is right now, it's bloated towards giving US-based defense contractors assloads of money to make vehicles, jets, and other bullshit. . .not it's personel who tend to be looked at as lowly peons by the rich pricks in charge.

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Actually in absolute terms the players have incrementally made more money. The only thing that the CBA did was change the rate at which their salaries increase in respect to the income taken in by the league. Now you can say that by doing that the owners are taking money away from them, but without the owners there wouldn't be a league to take money away from players.

As for the whole "choice" argument between NBA players and police/firemen/doctors ect., both sides have choices. People can't complain that NBA players don't lead normal lives and should be paid more for it, because that is the nature of the job and one of the reasons the compensation for it is so high. Likewise its a job that only a few people can fill, whereas there are obviously more people able to become police/doctors/ect.

Sidenote:
Military personnel deployed into combat areas are paid more; its combat or hazard pay. However the extra couple of thousand a year is poor compensation when the reason for it is getting killed or losing a arm/leg for the rest of your life.

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Originally Posted by Duncan2177

Players are underpaid? Are you kidding? I don't know what universe you live in but they get paid better than doctors,millitary, and policemen and they save lifes. All basketball players do is play a game. gtfo with that bs

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If doctors, soldiers, and policemen generated the same return on their salaries that hedge fund managers and basketball players do, they'd get paid just as much. It's really simple: if you enter a line of work where you personally generate a shitload of money for someone, odds are, you'll get paid a (smaller) shitload of money to do it.

I don't really have that much sympathy for the argument that basketball players are underpaid, but paying people based on how much value they add for their employer and not based on how useful they are to society is pretty endemic to capitalism. Unless we have the stomach for putting a really punitive European-style tax system in place (e.g. 70% taxes on income over $1 million), we have the salary structure we're pretty much stuck with.

Like Clint Eastwood said, "deserve's got nothing to do with it."

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Originally Posted by tesseractive

I don't really have that much sympathy for the argument that basketball players are underpaid, but paying people based on how much value they add for their employer and not based on how useful they are to society is pretty endemic to capitalism.

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Precisely.