The NBA is a great league because it offers the fans competition with the best players and teams around the world. It is believed that competition could be limited with the league’s salary cap. Others say it gives small market teams a chance to compete. Most importantly it creates revenue to allow an increase in salary cap and players contracts. The National Basketball Association is a big corporation. It offers the public competition at its best. The National Basketball Association or the NBA consist of 30 teams around the United States and Canada.
Although during the NBA’s history, it wasn’t always one of the powerhouses in major sports leagues. The NBA started as the Basketball Association of America or BAA on June 6, 1946. The league later merged with rival, National Basketball League or NBL to create the National Basketball Association. It started off with seventeen teams most teams around the east coast. By 1954 the numbers of teams decreased to eight teams, smaller franchises moved to bigger cities which to this day the still exist. During the 1960s a new era in basketball began.
There was one team that was dominant through 1959-1969. The Boston Celtics won eleven NBA titles, winning eight straight games led by legend Bill Russell. A dominant era which most likely would have been prevented with a salary cap. In 1961 the NBA added its 9th team the Chicago Packers (now Washington Wizards). From 1961 to 1968 the NBA went from nine teams to fourteen. This is how the NBA slowly began to grow and grow but there were still more changes to come with additions of TV deals and star players.
The NBA introduced a salary cap in the 1940s but later abolished it during the first season. Salary cap is a way for the league to restrict how much a team can spend on player contracts. The salary cap is determined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA. A Collective Bargaining Agreement is a contract between the NBA and its 30 teams to the National Basketball Players Association or NBPA. This contract determines rules of player contracts and other standards between both parties. Since the salary cap was added back in 1984 the amount has risen gradually each passing year.
During the 33 year history of a salary cap the NBA and the NBPA have only not agreed to terms four times, 1995, 1996, 1998-1999, and in 2011. These lockouts cause the season and activities to be shortened or canceled. There are two sides of having or not having a cap in salary. Both sides state good reasons why there should or shouldn? t be a salary cap on teams. The side that agrees with salary caps says that it gives small market teams the chance to compete. Also it gives the league more competition, draws in fans and revenue. The case for salary caps is strongest for sports in which the correlation between money and wins is relatively strong. There have been countless analytic studies on this subject, and they have largely shown that these strong relationships occur in sports with a small year-to-year variation in player performance, which makes it easier to accurately spend money and a large season sample size so that inferior (often poorer) teams are weeded out. ” ( Pagels 9 ) In the summer of 2016 NBA star, Kevin Durant entered as one of the top free agents in that summer.
He ended up joining the team that lost the NBA finals and the team that broke the regular season wins record, ended with 73-9 that season and still added another star but it cost them key role players and the team already had three stars of their own. This is why some people agree with the salary cap so teams aren’t allowed to build these “super teams” and over power the league. There is also a case against a salary cap. One of the cases that is made is that players shouldn’t be capped on what they should be able to earn through their career.
This is considered basically a discount for billionaire owners who don’t have to pay players nearly as much as they are worth. In the NBA the player with the highest guaranteed contract as of this season is Memphis Grizzlies Point Guard, Mike Conley. Despide never being an All-Star in the league, this underrated player is making $153 Million over 5 years. Meanwhile in uncapped Major League Baseball or MLB, Outfielder, Giancarlo Stanton who plays for the Miami Marlins is making $325 Million over 13 years. That gives you an outline on how much more money a uncapped league is compared to a capped league.
Both players have guaranteed money but a MLB player makes more due to the more years he has on his contract. People also say that salary cap is the reason why the league has a lockout when both parties do not agree on the set salary cap for the year. A lockout hurts the league, players, and fans since they aren’t able to watch their favorite team or players play. It has a domino effect that also hurts the business and players. The business gets hurt because there’s no money coming in and the players get a disadvantage since they don’t get to play the game they love.
Most owners in the league could care less about spending a lot of money on their players if it means it gives them a chance on winning a championship. The NBA also has a luxury tax which helps control the money one team spends. For a certain amount that the team spends a tax is added to every dollar they spend exceeding the salary cap. If a team exceeds $0-$4,999,999 a tax of $1. 50 is added to every dollar spent. This tax keeps on growing the more the team spends. This was made so teams wouldn’t spend too much on players.
While there is more money coming into the league the league should really add a higher tax or this method really wouldn’t matter to teams. During the 2015-16 NBA season the Cleveland Cavaliers brought its first championship to the city after 52 years. While this was exciting the owner of the team, Dan Gilbert, got a huge tax bill of 54 million dollars. This was due to their team overspending on their roster, this shows how teams could really care less about the luxury tax if they are successful. This isn’t always the case because having the highest payroll does not guarantee a championship season.
The NBA is still a league with plenty of competition, every season one team surprises everyone with the way they play. A cap only limits how players get payed but it doesn’t restrict how hard they play. If players really love the game of basketball, money wouldn’t be much of an issue if they’re still getting paid decently. This is why it wouldn’t matter if there is or isn’t a cap on salary the league and players would still want to be and play like if they were the best. To some players money isn’t everything some join a team for much lower salary if it gives them a better percentage of winning.
In the NBA players are judged by the number of championship rings they have. They can be one of the greatest players that someone has ever seen, but it wouldn’t matter if they don’t have rings since that’s how the media and fans judge players by. So the argument that the league can go both ways because their is two types of players the type that do it for the money or the type that want to win an go after a championship. I believe that the league should not have a salary cap. I believe this because no team should be restricted on how much of their money they want to spend.
As said earlier, the team with the highest payroll doesn’t always win a championship it just means they’re not afraid to spend and aren’t cheap. Also players shouldn’t be capped on how much they can make in their career. Also most professional athletes are underpaid. This is due to how much revenue the players bring to the league. For example, NBA superstar, LeBron James, is a household name, he has millions of fans that expand to a wide coverage that brings more viewers to the NBA which makes them more money while the player are capped to earn a certain amount and nothing above that.
Some may argue that the players earn endorsement deals and shouldn’t get paid more but the players have to earn them and not all good players earn endorsements. Their shouldn’t be a cap on how much players may earn. In every career there is a ladder to climb and possibly earn more than what you are making at the moment. This is why I believe there shouldn’t be a salary cap in the NBA or any other professional sport. If the player is working hard for his team and trying to compete each year for a championship there should be no restriction on how much that player may earn.
These players spend most of their careers playing in games and don’t see their family as much since they travel city to city and don’t spend much time home. To some players money isn’t everything in the world but money does help live easier than more rough. These are some reasons to why the NBA should abolish the salary cap not only in this league but also other pro sports. Competing means, to strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same. There’s no doubt that’s what these amazing players do every day in the game that they love to play.
