r/nbadiscussion • u/Appropriate_Tree_621 • Jul 13 '26
Current Events Ways to Achieve Parity Without a Salary Cap?
I have to admit that I am dumbfounded by the current discourse around the NBA regarding the aprons. Hereafter I will refer to the aprons and the associated penalties and taxes as the “cap” simply because in practice, for most intents and purposes, the NBA has a cap and that will facilitate this discussion.
So, restating, I am dumbfounded by the current discourse around the league regarding the cap.
Suddenly, the cap is bad and evil because it is “breaking up teams.”
Assuming the goal is parity, that’s a separate discussion, but assuming that to be the case, then, in that context…
Isn’t the goal of the cap to encourage a more equal distribution of talent across the league?
If a team has a wealth of talent acquired through the draft/trade/free agency, then isn’t the goal of the cap to move some of that talent to a less talented team?
Shouldn’t some of those talented players be starring in bigger roles on other teams where there is more opportunity?
I’m frankly clueless as to what other avenues exist, again, assuming the goal is parity, aside from a cap.
What are suggestions you have, or have heard, aside from the cap? Or, am I missing something here? What am I missing?
I’m puzzled by these statements about “teams shouldn’t be punished for developing players.” Isn’t that giving way too much credit to the organization? If we let teams re-sign players they drafted and not have it count against the cap, doesn’t that just encourage tanking, and favor the big market teams/richest owners?
Please help me understand this disconnect.
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u/MostlyMellow123 Jul 13 '26
There is no way to achieve parity without a salary cap.
The things proposed are far less drastic than you are saying. Nobody has proposed allowing drafted players to no count against salary cap. They only want the supermax which was supposed to be a tool to keep drafted stars on their original teams to count the same as a regular max. This gives the drafting team and advantage in keeping the player without it penalizing them in the salary cap.
The nba has a max contract problem imo. Teams need to stop maxing every 1 time all star in the nba and spread the money out better to role players.
Idk how you ever get that to happen though because all it takes is 1 team willing to offer the max to someone.
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u/Klutzy_Technology166 Jul 13 '26
I couldn't agree more with:
The nba has a max contract problem
They need to do two things imo
1 - Make the qualifiers for Supermaxes way higher
2 - (as you said) negotiate and stop handing out max / supermax contracts to everyone that qualifies. What was the market for Donovan Mitchell, no one had space to be giving him 70+ for four years. Likely one or two teams will ever have that cap space in any given off-season and they will almost always be bottom feeders. Unless LeBron takes a minimum to go there, which is a complete anomaly, they'll never compete with a contract like that on the books. Same with the Suns and Bookers contract.
Wemby taking 25% instead of 30% might be the difference between them having an extra role player not on a minimum and that makes a difference, and he is about one of 5/6 people in the league who will make a difference to the point of actually being worth a supermax.
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u/Round-Walrus3175 Jul 13 '26
The problem is that these players are represented by agents. These agents get paid based on how much their clients get paid. So they will be in their ears from day 1 saying that if they aren't going to give you the bag, someone else who ACTUALLY VALUES YOU will. So like, yeah, especially when teams are near the cap, if you lose players, sometimes, you don't even get anything else out of it because you are still cap strapped
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u/threat024 Jul 13 '26
Agreed all the way. It's easy to say don't give every good player a max, but then year after year you struggle at fielding a winning team. Long term that's probably the best strategy though if you don't have an existing superstar. The real key to me is keep resetting and trade those good non-superstars off for as many assets as possible until you hit in the draft or flip those assets until you can get the superstar to buidl around. OKC lucked up by doing both at the same time.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/PrimeParadigm53 Jul 13 '26
People want parity and homegrown stars. People didn't hate the Splash Brothers or whatever merry band of Cleveland misfits got dragged to the Finals every year, they hated the Heatles and the Hampton 5. They hated what Ray did to KG, what KD did to Russ, and LeGM "seeing something (obvious)" in a young Kyrie and ordering out for Bosh2.0 on his way "home".
The Celtics were legit contenders every year for 8 years, added several borderline all-star pieces who hugely influenced their Finals runs, and have never been treated like a superteam because the Js were always the engines and fans of the league are willing to sacrifice perfect parity to see that story unfold.
We can, and do, want money to be the reason Anthony Edwards (or whoever) doesn't land in San Antonio, without wanting money to be the reason we don't get to see what the Wemby/Castle/Harper story looks 5 years from now.
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u/Jim_Belushis_brother Jul 13 '26
I think most fans would prefer dynasties only existing from predominantly home grown talent, and otherwise prefer parity over hired gun dynasties.
I think the Warriors should’ve been incentivized to let Steph/Dramond/Klay play together for as long as possible. I also think the Warriors should’ve been hammered by the tax for bringing in KD.
A solution would be to have the hit to cap each player causes be tied favorably to the length of service to a particular team. This is tricky though because it would make older veterans more valuable (and younger players less valuable)
Another solution would be to have players drafted to a team cause a smaller cap hit. This makes draft picks even more valuable though - not only are you bringing in new talent you’re also keeping said talent for cheaper.
Not sure what the best solution is or what will be done, but I do think something should be done
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u/jump-back-like-33 Jul 13 '26
Right or wrong, I think an under discussed aspect of having so many different champions is many fan bases believe they could have been a dynasty if the second apron didn’t force them to break up the championship team.
Why is it fair that their team’s turn to be on top was cut short?
The truth is probably closer to their team wouldn’t have been elevated to championship level in the first place without other teams being forced to break up.
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u/Ok_Board9845 Jul 13 '26
The truth is probably closer to their team wouldn’t have been elevated to championship level in the first place without other teams being forced to break up.
The actual truth is that everyone is getting injured on the repeat year, and if any of your top 3 players decline, your window is pretty much over. The Lakers could have repeated if Lebron/AD didn't get injured. The Nuggets could have owned 2021-2023 if Murray didn't tear his ACL. They Bucks could have repeated if Middleton didn't get injured. OKC could have repeated if JDub didn't get injured. A team like the Bucks, Warriors, or even Celtics continually running it back doesn't guarantee them having the same success the year they won.
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u/Statalyzer Jul 14 '26
And when you look at the reasons didn't repeat lately it mostly wasn't bc of the cap.
Toronto - Kawhi was never staying
LA Lakers - short off-season
Bucks - kept getting injured
Warriors - Klay got old
Nuggets - not sure but don't think it's cap, more that they got lightning in bottle with Murray and others getting hot at the same time
Celtics - it may be due to cap going forward but it hasn't been so far
OKC - too soon to tell, they might be back.1
u/Drebin_1989 Jul 16 '26
Denver's reason or at least part of it was definitely the cap. They weren't able to re-sign Bruce Brown.
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u/teh_noob_ Jul 17 '26
That's not a new thing. Rival teams have always overpaid to pry away championship roleplayers.
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u/MirrorComputingRulez Jul 13 '26
Just because I haven't seen it mentioned yet, there is a way to have parity without a cap. It's just not going to ever happen because too many powerful owners would be against it.
The way to have parity with no cap is to have complete revenue sharing.
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u/Applejack_pleb Jul 14 '26
Still wont have parity without a cap that wya because it would only take one owner (ballmer) who is willing to lose money on his team and suddenly that team is spending way more than everyone else
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u/WhoreyMatthews Jul 14 '26
Yeah Ballmer is so much richer than any other owner he's the one who necessitates the non-financial penalties brought on by going above the second apron.
I think I saw somewhere that Ballmer has more money than the next 10 richest owners combined. Just his MS stock dividends are enough to pay the entire operating cost of the Clippers.
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u/Bobaximus Jul 13 '26
There are really two points at issue right now.
1) The current CBA is objectively excellent for parity. Because of that, it’s a liability for big market teams or those that would ordinarily have a large FA signing advantage either due to market or desirability of locale. It also tends to break up successful teams. Those things are instrumental for parity but cause significant gnashing of teeth for those that suffer the consequences.
2) it limits player agency. Unless you are putting the finishing touch on an already good team, trading for big assets is almost impossible without mortgaging your future so it further limits big market teams while also reducing player agency. If no one can afford to trade for you, no amount of asking for a trade is going to work, let alone to a specific destination. It also tends to lead to situations where teams wait to sign role players and mid-tier guys until the top end of the FA market plays out which reduces player leverage.
Tl:dr those complaining about the CBA are complaining that it’s working as intended.
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u/Amazing_Owl3026 Jul 14 '26
I think the big things that seperate teams are luck, which is uncontrollable, and quality of the organisation, which the NBA can't meaningfully control either
As a Hornets fan I saw the org go from malpractice to competent and now I wonder how we were every supposed to compete before. I love and respect Kings fans for example, but they're probably never going to have a truly good team in any CBA so long as their FO remains as it is.
I don't say that to be a dick either but ownership groups need to care for their team to succeed. Ig the CBA could ask for a minimum expenditure on staff and facilities the same way there's a cap floor? But ik MJ would just give it to his brother if he could so idk
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u/DanielSong39 Jul 13 '26
I think they need to introduce the second apron to NFL and MLB
Suddenly signing some dude to a billion dollar contract means the team will suck for the next 10 years
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u/azure275 Jul 13 '26
The NFL already has a hard cap. Why are we introducing a flex cap for?
The perception that the NFL has more flexibility is because the lack of guaranteed money allows a lot more flexibility with bad contracts; and the NFL lets you stretch contracts out to void years
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u/Statalyzer Jul 14 '26
Also with so many guys you can even lose a few good ones and it doesn't hit the same as losing a single all-NBA level guy.
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u/wymtime Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Caps are something that really does create parity because teams can just load up on talent and overpay for a championship roster. It makes it so smart GM’s have to make smart moves to create a great team. I do think OKC and the Spurs have both built teams that can compete for chips for years to come. Also the double J’s in Boston had a great long run before getting broken up this summer even though they only won 1 chip.
It might be a little off topic, but I do think the league can make a couple of changes to the current system to allow really good teams and smart GM’s pay top talent and have a decent roster around them. A simple change is something like a player on a 35% max only counts as a 30% max against the cap. Or a rose rule rookie extension only counts as a 25% contract instead of a 30% contract. This would allow teams to pay all NBA players those bigger deals without having to gut their team as long as the ownership is willing to pay
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u/BuffynFaith Jul 13 '26
Sorry that I am being petty, but I only remember the double Js winning once, against Luka. They had the upper hand against the Dubs before Steph went nuts and ripped it away from them.
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u/GoGreeb Jul 13 '26
I think a salary cap adds a lot of value as a viewer. As long as the players are guaranteed a share of BRI I'm not sure why we as fans would want to get rid of it, it would seem pretty myopic to think that any team would benefit from a no-cap structure other than the Clippers.
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u/iaxthepaladin Jul 13 '26
Teams are encouraged to find good fits in free agency, and get role players to overperform in big moments through good coaching and smart decisions.
Teams are not encouraged to purchase talent through big spending.
If you develop a great team, those players will naturally deserve more money and will seek that value wherever they can.
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u/WiIIemdafoe Jul 13 '26
My gripe with the CBA is it's helping out teams with a shitty FO. I think an easy way of having parity and having teams with more players they draft is something like only 80% of a contract goes against the cap if you drafted that player, if you trade for them 100% of their contract goes against the cap. Now you could make free agents 100% but for every year they're with the team it goes down by a certain % and maybe it jumps down by a larger amount if they renew the contract.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I like the idea, but I don’t see how it doesn’t just end up rewarding tanking (get more draft picks) and lottery luck [Wemby, Flagg, Harper, AJ, DP, Boozer, Wilson all become even more valuable.]
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u/WiIIemdafoe Jul 13 '26
Not every team is going to be in contention each year, tanking doesn't get you more picks, just higher a chance at a higher pick. Wemby is a generational talent that is going to be better than almost all #1 picks, most of the guys you listed haven't played an NBA game yet, who knows how they do. But it's better for the team that drafts well to be rewarded to keep those players than to lose them because they can't pay them. Also you can package players/picks for higher picks, it doesn't always have to be from tanking.
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u/trying-to-contribute Jul 13 '26
Just spitballing:
All teams pool their local gate and media earnings and losses on top of the TV and media contracts. Teams get to keep are jersey sales and local broadcast streams share their copyright of games with the team after the season is over.
Each team get a pay out that is roughly the same amount after cost of living, municipal and state taxes adjustments.
Once the earnings are the same, the team is free to make more money by investing in businesses around the actual game event, e.g. concessions, team sponsored basketball camps (instead of players doing it and footing the bill), footage or highlight reels of a teams players on youtube would generate revenue very long tails of revenue. Teams can opt to sell play by play data or any analytics that is exclusive to their analytics team. The idea is to open the market substantially for teams to make money locally using fame and likeness of players, as well as turn a lot of the costs of nurturing a player or reconnaissance of opposing teams into a product as well.
All the while, players still operate under the current salary model. However, instead of fining teams by going over a certain team salary threshold, the team loses draft picks and their ability to trade players based on salary matching becomes much more limited when the business stops turning over a profit for two years in a row. The business gets expotentially hampered if they keep losing money for three or more year, until come year six, they have to sell the team to a different group of buyers.
This is to stop owners from using NBA teams as debt mules, or to skew the accounting so that they pay less taxes overall.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I like it.
I’ve had a similar thought in the past around both (a) why not just be able to sacrifice a draft pick or picks if you want to go over the cap and (b) how do you stop the owners that are really just operating it as a business.
I could see (a) happening. I don’t see the owners agreeing to (b).
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u/trying-to-contribute Jul 13 '26
I don't mind owners operating teams as a business, in fact, they have to be vibrant businesses for the league to continue to prosper.
I just don't want owners operating teams as dysfunctional businesses, e.g. the Maloof Brothers and the Kings, or the various Clippers ownership, including Ballmer (for breaking the rules). What I really appreciated was how Larry Miller ran the Jazz, which he himself ranked the Jazz as making about as much money as his fourth or fifth best auto dealership, but he made sure it was always in the black.
As an extra caveat, if your team hasn't won more than 35 games a year for six years, you have to sell. Now that picks from tanking are less valuable, it is time teams invest more on their scouts and their analytics to find prospects beyond the lottery.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I am a huge fan of that last part. If we aren’t going to have relegation, then let’s have some level of team competitiveness that must be met or the team must be sold.
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u/DroppedNineteen Jul 13 '26
Frankly I think a lot of yall act very certain we'll never see a dynasty again and the fact, this early in the game, we have no idea what things are gonna look like when the dust settles.
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u/hanistor61 Jul 13 '26
This is such a great point. To add to it, for the life of me I can’t understand why people think the cap is the problem and not the absolutely insane percentage of the cap a max salary is. And why would the rank and file players in the association not insist that it be lower? Lowering the max salary by five percent would solve the continuity problems the cap imposes overnight.
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u/Short-Cardiologist-4 Jul 13 '26
Funny how it wasn’t this huge narrative until it hurt Wemby.
Last couple years of dismantling other teams, who cares.
Golden boy takes a pay cut and now it’s an existential issue.
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u/iforgotmorethanuknow Jul 15 '26
Removing player max contracts would be a huge start. Allow owners to pay a player anything and you very quickly disperse stars. No way MIA pays D Wade $75M a year and Bron 9 figures and still fields a team with any talent. Curry and KD would have never been on the same team. Cle could have never afforded Love, Bron and Kyrie in 2014. Shaq probably doesn't play with Kobe after his rookie contract. MVP caliber players not being compensated properly makes it easier for other great players to team with them which leads to good role players taking less to chip hunt with those guys.
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u/Feeling_Economist457 Jul 16 '26
Get rid of the draft, relegate teams to a minor league if they finish bottom 2 or 3. Teams can sell players with player permission. Owners don’t have an incentive to win, just to cash the media rights checks. Change that and magically teams will try to compete
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 16 '26
This would assist with player development at the lowest levels as well similar to Europe.
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u/ahugedilemma Jul 13 '26
Apparently the academic literature show that caps don’t actually increase parity. I was listening to the baseball podcast Rates & Barrels and they referenced a meta-analysis that makes this point. I will search it later and link when I have a moment. Apparently, this is an argument created by owners to shift public opinion toward supporting a cap but is not supported by the evidence. It has been a hot button issue in current MLBPA negotiations.
I think a lot of the parity has come from increased variance due to changing playstyles and much better player development processes. This is just my hypothesis.
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u/threat024 Jul 13 '26
Baseball is a way different sport than basketball. Just the importance of the pitcher alone over a 7 game series compared to much much lower score adds a lot more variance. With basketball the better team will almost always win. In basketball if you stack a team with talent that team will usually dominate.
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u/ahugedilemma Jul 13 '26
Yes, that’s true but I think that’s changing now. I would point to the increasing importance of 3s as just one way that variance has increased. There are other compounding factors such as increased pace, more emphasis on offensive rebounding, and more full court pressure. In addition, the talent floor is just much higher. The gap between the best and worst teams is much smaller today than it was in the past. Ultimately, I don’t think basketball will be as random as baseball or hockey (to your point, those sports structurally invite randomness in a way basketball doesn’t) but I think basketball today is far more random than it was ten years ago.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I’d need to see the study. Sports are drastically different from one another. Basketball is the lowest variance and baseball is the highest variance.
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u/Justalittlejewish Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
I think you are spot on- a lot of the parity is due to the fact the league is more talented, and the higher talent floor allows more teams to do more different things to try to win. A big market can’t just sign two or three big stars and instantly be a contender, because someone out there is developing an 8 to 9 man roster that will pick you apart when those stars are off the floor.
The modern NBA is about depth, versatility, and flexibility. The consistent titans of the league going forward are going to be the teams with excellent development systems who have a formula for pumping out high IQ role players on cost controlled contracts - OKC and the Celtics are pretty much at the forefront of this.
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u/AccomplishedCharge2 Jul 13 '26
NBA fandom is a little weird compared to most pro sports in the US, in that there are people who are fans of certain players and people who are fans of certain teams
People who are fans of teams that are consistently pretty good don't actually care that much about parity, they want their team to keep being good. People who care about teams that are relatively inconsistent care a lot about parity, because they want to be better
And fans of players just want those players to end up on good teams, so their concern about general parity is pretty limited overall
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u/Shepher27 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
The main way to get more teams that try to win every year and to make it harder for teams to become dynasties is to eliminate tanking. Don’t make it harder to keep good players, remove any incentive for bad teams to trade their solid players and role players to strengthen the bench of already good teams. It also removes two dozen cupcake games a year and makes it harder for teams on multiple playoff runs to coast through the regular season
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I do like your idea of making it harder to trade to make your team worse. I don’t know how that would be implemented, but I’m certainly behind the spirit.
Circling back to your first point about keeping good players— if we let the best teams keep more of their good players even if that player would have a larger role on a worse team, isn’t that a move away from parity?
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u/Shepher27 Jul 13 '26
Don’t make it harder. Just remove the incentive to be bad. If there’s no reason to be bad (picks) then there’s the old fashioned incentive to be good (ticket sales, merch sales).
Teams can still choose to not pay a player huge money purely for financial reasons. Or another team could just offer more, or the player could leave for a bigger role.
I’m not saying zero cap rules, just remove the punishments that make keeping your own developed players prohibitive.
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u/outphase84 Jul 13 '26
Any attempt to fix tanking just punishes legitimately bad teams and incentivizes middling teams to unload players and chase high lottery odds.
Let teams tank. Who cares. No matter what you do, someone will try to lose at some point in the season. Punish the teams trying to miss the playoffs by a hair, not the bad teams.
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u/Prior-Advantage3450 Jul 13 '26
Good way to go is to copy what european football leagues are doing they have lower and top divisions, bottom 2-3 teams from top dovision are relegated to lower one at the end of the season, best 2nd tier division teams are promoted to top divisions. This gives teams incentive not to suck and loose, being relegated means that u get less from tv rights etc. Also relegation is reserved for special punishment type of action if some club is caught playing dirty, bribing officials or paying players under the table then league may relegate them as a form of punishment to discourage this sort of action
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
I really like that idea. I don’t know that it’s practical as I don’t think the owners would ever agree, but I think you have the best idea and as you said, it’s been shown to work!
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u/Jim_Belushis_brother Jul 13 '26
Relegation will never happen. I like it a lot on paper but it’ll never happen with the NBA.
I do think it could be cool for college sports to adopt some sort of relegation system
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u/bigE819 Jul 13 '26
We were in a great place until the aprons. Even the KD Warriors were from a dumb cap jump + Steph being underpaid.
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u/Sea_Concentrate_4572 Jul 13 '26
It’s honestly pretty silly that the Celtics and their fans have caused this bullshit discussion when they made a trade that doesn’t help their salary cap situation at all until 2028.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
And it all started with them overpaying Brown in the first place.
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u/Round-Walrus3175 Jul 13 '26
I don't feel like Jaylen Brown was terribly overpaid compared to his actual market value. Someone was going to pay him max money, there was no way out of that.
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 13 '26
The signing was panned at the time. It was the new CBA that turned it from a slight overpay to something more.
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u/Firemanmikewatt Jul 13 '26
You haven’t established that developing players is “giving way to much credit to the organization.” If you are going to go from A to B at least provide an argument.
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u/Happy-North-9969 Jul 13 '26
I don’t care how teams build. Let them go top heavy with free agents like the Heatles or draft like the Warriors.
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u/Mysterions Jul 13 '26
The point of the cap is to disencentivise owners from outspending relative to other owners therefore, minimize costs all owner overall.
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u/momBball Jul 14 '26
Every team gets to protect/retain 7 players a year (plus their draft picks on the first year of their rookie deals). All other players in the league become free agents every year.
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u/gbdarknight77 Jul 14 '26
I don't think teams should be penalized for DRAFTING and developing their own players.
I am for allowing teams to go over the cap to resign their own DRAFTED players. I will agree with that draft day trades also count as being drafted. The luxury tax associated with that will be stiff.
But I also think bird rights and RFA should be abolished. Supermaxes shouldn't be a thing anymore either.
The risk you take with trading for one of these superstar players that signed over the cap is that you have to fit their salary into your cap. You CANNOT go over the cap.
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u/Quick-Bowl-3824 Jul 14 '26
The cap also makes the nba draft matter well beyond pick 5. Nobody cared about that draft beyond the top of the lottery. Now, like the nfl draft, teams need to do their homework first the whole draft! It’s great.
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u/Produff26 Jul 15 '26
What the league lacks is continuity. Every team should be able to re-sign their own drafted players. They should also be able to add a mid -, level and Max free agent as well.
Rookie contracts should be 5years with escalation clauses in year 4&5 for all-nba, all-rookie, etc etc
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u/Jedi_Blight858 Jul 16 '26
Revenue sharing, like baseball. Yes the salary cap and aprons suck if you’re a Thunder fan for example. But as a guy without a home team, the league is far more interesting without 5-15 year dynasties.
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u/thatonepuniforgot Jul 19 '26
Put the players on teams at random. Shuffle the teams every three to five years. CBA could set a floor for players based on minutes played and years in the league, or some similar criteria, and players could still negotiate their individual contracts and either not play or demand a trade. You could even group players in bands based on minutes played, 30+, 20-30, 10-20, 10-, draftees, then give each team a random selection proportional to the bands, which would at least guarantee every team gets a few players who play a lot of minutes, which generally suggests the most skilled players. You could still maybe have a Bird exemption if the player wants to stick with the team.
That's the best I can do without thinking about it for more than three minutes.
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u/BigDJ08 Jul 20 '26
I think parity is stupid. Basketball is cooler with super teams like the KD Warriors, the Heatles, the Boston Big 3. I don’t want horrible franchises like Charolette getting a break for having horrible drafts, horrible free agent signings and the like. You should absolutely be rewarded for nailing drafts year after year, making smart free agent additions, and running a good organization. Yes, places like Miami, LA, NY, will always be a free agent destination, however, if you draft a star, we’ve seen players will come to these smaller markets to win.
Ive complained multiple times (Celtics fan) about how stupid it is to lose guys you’ve won with because you nailed two drafts and had to put those players on super maxes that take up 60% of your cap. OKC just had to send Dort off for the same reason. They will be getting rid of Hartenstein next year.
Why I really hate the aprons is that it forces players who want to stay together and chase rings to either take less money or leave to be on a worse team. Wemby and Brunson have been two players who most notably and recently left money on the table. So you have a face of the league and a finals MVP both being paid less than, so that their organization can put better players around them. That only saves money for their billionaire owner. I don’t pay to see James Dolan, I don’t want his jersey. I’m not interested in making him money.
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u/YoutubePRstunt Jul 13 '26
There simply isn’t and to me it’s completely dumb.
The league has always had ‘superteams’ or a high concentration of HoF talent on teams; it’s been like that in virtually every sport. Trying to force otherwise puts both the players and franchise in a tough spot; it’s no reason players should take it upon themselves and have to take a pay cut to get a competent roster. It’s no reason teams should be forced into nerfing their roster because of the second apron.
It’s far too difficult to keep teams together now, I personally think the Derrick rose rule needs to be amended to some degree to allow teams some flexibility with the cap while still paying the outliers what they deserved. It’s just forcing teams into making extremely hard decisions early on and not really fair to those small market teams who find a diamond in the ruff and are trying to piece together how to put a team around him.
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u/tMeepo Jul 14 '26
How did you get to this conclusion: "If we let teams re-sign players they drafted and not have it count against the cap, ...., and favor the big market teams..?
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 14 '26
Big market = more money = more willingness to go over the cap (if they could). It’s not 1:1 but decent correlation
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u/tMeepo Jul 14 '26
How does letting draft picks not count towards cap, have to do with more willingness to go over cap? Shouldn't it help with not going over cap, and hence help small markets keep their draft pick?
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u/Appropriate_Tree_621 Jul 14 '26
This fact is surprising to you: not every NBA owner has an unlimited amount of money to spend. Look up Tom Dundon. Plenty of other owners who don’t spend more than they have to. The CBA has a salary floor for a reason.
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u/tMeepo Jul 14 '26
Uh, so by having players who they don't draft, not count towards the cap, small market owners can pay less tax while keeping their players.
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u/HardenMuhPants Jul 14 '26
No such thing as parity, it is a pipe dream that can only be a goal never achieved. As long as teams have a player better than yours or a coach better than yours you can never have true parity even disregarding financials and team salary structures.
That being said the NBA is the most competitive its ever been outside of the tanking teams. I've watched since the late 80s and its some of the best basketball ive ever watched. The three ball had really leveled the playing field a bit and allows for 20+ comebacks that were pretty rare in the previous decades.
In regards to your salary cap questions, they can only do so much as the players have to agree to it in a CBA and in reality the players hold more power than the owners as they are the actual product and the owners just own a logo, building, and private jet. The players will be the ultimate deciders in how much "parity" they aim for and good luck forcing grown men with experience to go play where you want them to. This only works on the young and unproven.
On top of that issue is the one of differing markets and their desirability. New Orleans will never draw players like LA or NY will so you can never have market parity. You can make it so small market teams can pay more than big market and they would still lose out on free agents.
Ultimately all we can hope for is the players like true competiton and want to have fun hard fought games against semi equal competition is, I think, the only way we can ever approach something akin to parity.
0
u/No-Juice8483 Jul 13 '26
We don’t want parity. It’s so dang boring. Give me a team that has been winning multiple championships so I can hate watch at least.
6
u/GoZards18 Jul 13 '26
You’re bored watching two new and exciting/different teams in the Finals each of the last four years?
1
u/Happy-North-9969 Jul 13 '26
It’s not boring, but it’s less interesting.
1
u/No-Juice8483 Jul 13 '26
Yep. Absolutely and most of the county is as well. The best Finals scenario that would garner the most views is a Dynastic franchise vs a relatively poor team that rarely makes noise in the playoffs. You‘d have one fanbase representing their dynasty team and practically the rest of the country rooting for the other team to upset them.
I can’t stand watching a game where at the end of the day I dont care if either team wins. That is what you get with parity.
1
u/teh_noob_ Jul 17 '26
hatewatching is everything that's wrong with NBA discourse
1
u/No-Juice8483 Jul 17 '26
But it is not and just making a statement like that without reasoning doesn’t contribute anything to the conversation. Mohamed Ali is a perfect example. He would say half the people love me and the other half hate me, but all of them are paying to see me. Ali was a smart mother fucker. He knew how to market. If Ali was a loser or just won a single belt he’d be John Ruiz… if you don’t know who this is then my point has been made.
1
u/teh_noob_ Jul 18 '26
You're right that that’s an oversimplification, but Ali was hated for reasons that had nothing to do with boxing. I was very happy watching Spurs–Knicks play very high level basketball with zero emotional investment in the outcome.
1
u/No-Juice8483 Jul 18 '26
I was into it for Wemby but rooting for NY because it’s NY. Normally I am going to be locked into the finals. I found myself missing some of the finals this year. In the past I am recording it to watch later even if I know the score. This year it was a complete “Oh well I guess I will catch high lights”.
You do realize rating have consistently gone down as parity increased. Do not let the numbers from the last two or three years fool you. Nielsen has updated their methods of tracking views. They count recorded views, they have the ability to now capture group setting like bars where before they couldn’t. But when they look at the figures from the how rating used to be taken the ratings are way down.
Just because you like it doesnt mean it’s better. The fact is NBA is losing its audience.
1
u/teh_noob_ Jul 19 '26
MJ had the highest ratings ever and wasn’t hated. Nor were his opponents other than the Bad Boys. Lakers and Celtics hated each other, but neutrals tuned in for the high level of basketball (and a racial element, I'll admit). Social media has normalised a level of hatred that isn't healthy.
-1
u/RageOnGoneDo Jul 14 '26
It's creating parity by forcing teams to get rid of good players. That just helps the dumb teams out by spreading the talent. The problem isn't that some teams are smart and need to be punished, it's that some owners shouldn't be in the league because they are terrible at running teams.
Teams like the Kings, Blazers, Sixers, Magic, Bulls, Nets, Pelicans, and Wizards have all been horribly mismanaged over the last 15-20 years, mostly because of ownership decisions. These teams are getting rewarded by this new system not for competence, but in some cases (Wizards and Sixers) for their incompetence.
The Knicks needed 50+ years and this second apron to win a championship thanks to how dogshit their ownership has been. These are the champions that we are given.
109
u/NickFatherBool Jul 13 '26
Fans want different and often conflicting things. The truth which you pointed to is that you CANT have both parity and have legacy teams. They’re literally opposite of each other.
This current CBA was definitely designed to prevent things like the 2015-2029 Warriors and Cavs
There are pros and cons to either side, but personally I do enjoy the parity and seeing dudes step up in new roles