I could be wrong here. Correct me if I am.
From what I understand, taking on a FA on a one-year deal then gives that team Bird rights.
Therefore, to cir vent the cap, teams could ostensibly sign star players to one year, below-market deals. MLE, LLE, etc. Would work even with teams over the cap.
Then once the team has Bird rights, those players could be signed to max extensions. I guess I'm not entirely clear they'd have those Bird rights after a one-year deal but I think they do.
This would require:
a) a team willing to spend absolute gobs of cash because team payroll would easily exceed $100M and then luxury tax would be huge
b) a little "wink-wink" understanding between team and player that they'll get extended. hard to imagine that wouldn't already be assumed for a guy like Melo or Paul -- what team is not going to sign them to a max extension if they'll take it?
c) league approval -- they could call shenanigans
I think step c might be the hardest one -- would Stern nix something like that?
Sure seems permissible under the current CBA... just like what LeBron and Bosh did was wholly OK -- no monkey business needed.
A player needs to be on a team for 3 full seasons, or be acquired by the team via trade before the team has bird rights.
So if a player was willing to take a 3 year discount at the MLE or LLE, then yeah, this loophole would work, but not very many players are gonna take that discount for 3 years of their prime.
Yeah. Injury risk too great, too. Couldn't see it happening. I still think the NBA's CBA is pretty good. Wonder if they'll totally nuke it at the next bargaining talks.
I think there needs to be a hard salary cap and partially guaranteed deals. Spending is out of control, and the NFL CBA is by far the best.
Lakers salary right now is about 90 million.
They'd be the first team to suffer
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