Silver says the league will opt out of the CBA if no deal reached by midnight Friday.

[Kblaze8855]

They can’t officially do it till June but Friday is a soft deadline to prevent it happening at all. That said it’s supposedly a smoother than usual negotiation and nobody wants a lockout that would damage ongoing rights negotiations that will bring in a huge revenue/cap increase. That increase is one of the issues though

The league has reportedly tried to institute an upper spending limit to prevent teams like the Warriors and Clippers from racking up payrolls that are tens of millions of dollars higher than the rest of the league's. Reports have indicated that the league has softened its stance on this somewhat, but that the league's luxury tax structure could be altered to make it harder for teams to spend as much as the Warriors and Clippers have.


The league would like to come up with a way to ensure that star players participate in more games. Load-management has become a major issue in recent years, with players frequently missing nationally televised games and fans feeling cheated when they purchase tickets to see players who don't suit up.
A new media rights deal (which has not yet been negotiated) is expected to increase league revenue significantly ahead of the 2025-26 season, but after the 2016 cap spike led to Kevin Durant joining the Warriors, the league is expected to push for some form of cap smoothing.


There have been ongoing negotiations about lowering the minimum age for entry into the NBA Draft back down to 18, where it was until 2006.


While there has been little reporting on this issue, both players and teams are seemingly motivated to tweak the league's current rules governing contract extensions, which limits most players to a 20% raise in the first year of a new deal. This has made certain players, who have outperformed their contracts, almost unextendable even if both sides want to come to a new agreement.

The NBA's revenue has grown so high that neither side is likely to force the issue of a work stoppage. There are billions of dollars at stake for all parties involved. However, the league and the union have pushed this deadline multiple times now. A deal should get done, but that feels far less certain today than it did a few months ago

[Kblaze8855]

I don’t know what they do about load management. Teams can always just lie and say such and such is a little banged up. I don’t know what the plan is there. Scheduled load management submitted to the league before schedules are released to the public to accommodate national tv games?

[Im Still Ballin]

I wonder how much bench guys are making compared to stars of the past. Would have to factor in inflation.

[Im Still Ballin]

I don’t know what they do about load management. Teams can always just lie and say such and such is a little banged up. I don’t know what the plan is there. Scheduled load management submitted to the league before schedules are released to the public to accommodate national tv games?

Bonuses/incentives? Minimum games played requirements for awards? It's the stars people want to see. Hard to know where the line would be drawn.

[Kblaze8855]

I wonder how much bench guys are making compared to stars of the past. Would have to factor in inflation.

You don’t want to look into current salaries versus past. In 2003 only four people in the league made 20 million. Three people on the current nuggets make more than 30. 9 players right now make more than the entire salary cap from 2003.

[Real Men Wear Green]

The only cure for load management is less games. You have an 82 game season where by comparison one NFL game is almost as important as 5 NBA games and players needing a certain amount of time to fully heal from various ailments that can affect their playoff performance. And a culture that emphasizes the idea that nothing matters but championships. An individual team will never consider how much damage is done to the league if they sit their star for a game when they think that start needs rest. Nothing they can put on the CBA to fix this because the teams and players are working together to do load management.

What Silver has to do is talk to owners behind the scenes and convince them to get their coaches and players to play more. Maybe with a focus on their nationally televised games. If players coaches and owners all understand that certain games are more important to the league's bottom line they will at least keep in mind not to hurt the relationships with ESPN and TNT. But that's more of a handshake agreement you really can't legislate it because team and player can always claim to be injured and then what can you do?

[Wardell Curry]

The only cure for load management is less games.

So you're saying there is no cure for load management. Less games = less money = nobody is agreeing.

[bladefd]

You don’t want to look into current salaries versus past. In 2003 only four people in the league made 20 million. Three people on the current nuggets make more than 30. 9 players right now make more than the entire salary cap from 2003.

TBH 20mill today was worth 12mill in 2003 if accounted for inflation. How many players made over 12.2mill is the better question to ask.

(20mill in 2003 is 32mill today btw)

I believe your overall point still stands though.

[Im Still Ballin]

TBH 20mill today was worth 12mill in 2003 if accounted for inflation. How many players made over 12.2mill is the better question to ask.

(20mill in 2003 is 32mill today btw)

I believe your overall point still stands though.

I think David Robinson, making 4-5m, was the highest-paid player in '94 or '95. Crazy to think that, even adjusting for inflation, bench guys are making comfortably more than that.

[Xiao Yao You]

I think David Robinson, making 4-5m, was the highest-paid player in '94 or '95. Crazy to think that, even adjusting for inflation, bench guys are making comfortably more than that.

I hope David still has a roof over his head

[Kblaze8855]

TBH 20mill today was worth 12mill in 2003 if accounted for inflation. How many players made over 12.2mill is the better question to ask.

(20mill in 2003 is 32mill today btw)

I believe your overall point still stands though.

12.2 and up in 2003? 21. 20+ today? 61.

[Im Still Ballin]

I hope David still has a roof over his head

The legends of the past built the league up so that bench scrubs can make millions more than them. I bet some of those old guys are super jealous of the players today.

[Full Court]

The biggest problem in the NBA right now is flopping. It's made several teams almost unwatchable. This is the only problem that I care about the NBA fixing.

[iamgine]

I don’t know what they do about load management. Teams can always just lie and say such and such is a little banged up. I don’t know what the plan is there. Scheduled load management submitted to the league before schedules are released to the public to accommodate national tv games?

Salary cut/fines for every game missed if you make within 20% of max salary. i.e you make $40M, every game you miss you and the team will be fined $75K each. If you miss 5 or more games in a row (which indicates real injury), then there's no penalty.

[warriorfan]

The legends of the past built the league up so that bench scrubs can make millions more than them. I bet some of those old guys are super jealous of the players today.

definitely. even though xaiou has a point, it’s all relative. anyone will be bent out of shape when they don’t feel like their performance has been compensated for. it would be difficult for past players to see lesser players be making way more no matter what