Could the CBA fix situations like KD and the Nets? What a new deal could mean for the NBA and its players
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have until Dec. 15 to decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement. If either side chooses to do so, the current deal, which went into effect in July 2017, will expire June 30, 2023 -- setting up the potential for an NBA lockout.
But while there is little to no chance of a lockout taking place -- the relationship between the two sides is arguably stronger than ever -- ESPN NBA Insiders Tim Bontemps, Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton discuss something that could become a major part of the next CBA negotiations: player movement, particularly in the wake of high-profile situations involving Ben Simmons, James Harden and Kevin Durant.
Bontemps: As we continue to monitor the Durant saga, are there any solutions -- via the collective bargaining agreement -- for the NBA's increasingly thorny problem of star players demanding trades despite being under contract for multiple seasons.
We saw Simmons throw Philadelphia's season into chaos, and likely cost himself well into eight figures in money, by deciding not to show up last season. We ultimately saw him traded to Brooklyn for Harden, who showed up without exactly showing up for his final few games as a Net, making it clear he, too, wanted to play elsewhere.
This offseason, we have seen Durant request a trade before his four-year contract extension worth nearly $200 million even began.
As a result, this is something that has become a huge topic of conversation in NBA circles, especially because it has now involved three different All-Stars in big markets. But, I will throw this question out there:
Can a new CBA fix any of this, or is this simply life in the modern NBA?
Marks: It's important to differentiate player empowerment into two different categories. There are circumstances when a player asks to be traded and eventually holds out when he is not dealt. We saw that last offseason when, despite having four seasons left on his contract, Simmons held out of training camp.
Philadelphia eventually fined Simmons $50,000 for every practice he missed and an additional $360,305 for each game missed. Simmons then filed a grievance to recoup the $19 million he lost in fines, which was recently settled with the 76ers, sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
At the time, NBA commissioner Adam Silver labeled the Simmons situation as a "one-off" and should not be perceived as a trend, because it had been unprecedented that a player under contract did not report to work.
The second and more common situation is when a player under contract asks to be traded, reports to work and is eventually dealt. This is nothing new, and you can go all the way back to the late 1990s, when Stephon Marbury asked out and was eventually traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the New Jersey Nets.
The Timberwolves recouped multiple draft picks and players for Marbury. I don't have an issue when a player under contract asks to be traded, considering the front office could trade him without his approval.
A good example is Donovan Mitchell, who signed a rookie extension in the 2020 offseason with the belief the Utah Jazz would contend in the Western Conference. The Jazz have clearly waived the white flag by trading Rudy Gobert to Minnesota, and Mitchell is within his right to ask for a trade now.
The unknown with Durant is whether he will report to training camp. If he does hold out, what more can the NBA do in the next CBA besides imposing significant fines?
Brooklyn could try to void his contract for failure to render services, but then Durant would instantly become a free agent and the Nets would lose his services without recouping anything in return.
Pelton: The first thing the NBA should consider is avoiding a fix that's worse than the problem.
We can point to all sorts of unintended consequences with past CBAs that have actually worsened issues. These are high-profile cases because of the names involved but affect a tiny percentage of the league's players.
Part of the context for the danger in making changes: We'll see what happens with Durant, but by trading Simmons for Harden, the Sixers got the outcome they wanted -- even dating back to before Simmons held out. So who was really the loser there?
Bontemps: Great point, Kevin. The only loser in the Simmons situation was, ultimately, Simmons -- and that's solely from a monetary standpoint. He got what he wanted, too: a one-way ticket out of Philadelphia.
And while Durant asking for a trade just as his new contract extension was beginning might not have been the best optically, it also was fully within his rights. No CBA amendments will change that.
And I agree with Silver, simply because I think there will be very few, if any, players who will sacrifice tens of millions of dollars to get out of a situation like Simmons did. Like Kevin alluded to: Any changes will have a ripple effect that the next CBA will have to address.
If there isn't a clean way a new CBA can fix any of those situations, what should be addressed in these upcoming CBA talks?
Marks: There are two items I have my eye on:
The first is addressing the extension rules for eligible players. The league has done a good job of overhauling the rules to allow players to extend for more money (up to 120% off their prior salaries or the average player salary) and years. I would like to see players eligible to extend for the percentage allowed if they were re-signing with their current teams as free agents.
For example, the Celtics' Jaylen Brown could sign an extension for 30% ($41.8 million) of the salary cap in 2024-25 instead of 120% off his $28.5 million salary. By tweaking the rules, Brown would stand to earn an additional $25 million on a three-year extension and $35 million if he signed an extension in the 2023 offseason.
The second tweak to this rule is to allow a player like Brown to add supermax language to his contract on an extension even if the All-NBA criteria has not been met. This is similar to what occurred this offseason with Ja Morant, Darius Garland and Zion Williamson. Those player have All-NBA language in their contracts that will see their salaries increase from 25% of the cap in the first year to 30% if the criteria is met.
If Brown signed a standard extension and earned All-NBA in 2022-23, the years (from three to four) and dollars (from $136 million to $219 million) now increase substantially.
Under the current extension rules, the likelihood is that Brown will bypass signing an extension in the next two offseasons, making him a free agent in 2024, because of the total value is considerably less.
Pelton: I really like the idea of retroactive supermax eligibility so players don't have to choose between hoping to qualify and signing an extension.
Right now, the limits Bobby described almost make it worse for teams when they sign a favorable contract like Brown's, because it becomes so difficult to extend. At the same time, I do wonder whether the league wants to make extensions too common because of the way it reduces the excitement around free agency.
Let's talk some more about the supermax, because it has become a clear example of those unintended consequences. As I predicted back in 2017, these extensions have often paid rapidly increasing salaries to players on the downside of their careers. We've seen John Wall and Russell Westbrook move around frequently because their contracts have become prohibitive.
The supermax has still been a useful tool for teams to retain true superstars, most notably Giannis Antetokounmpo, who extended his contract with the Milwaukee Bucks. As a fix, I've suggested tying the starting salary to different levels of qualification based on All-NBA teams, so sneaking on the third team isn't treated the same as winning MVP.
What do you think of that?
Marks: I like the tweak in the supermax rule to adjust the percentage based on the All-NBA team level. A player who wins MVP or Defensive Player of the Year or is selected to the first team should be eligible for 35% of the cap. The percentage would then decrease based on second- or third-team All-NBA. This would take teams off the hook on what they can and cannot offer a player.
Remember, the supermax rules do not mandate a team sign a player for the full 35% in the first year of the contract. The only requirement is that the contract has to be for six seasons, including what is currently left on the contract.
Besides the extension rules, should the league also examine the luxury-tax system?
Last year, the Golden State Warriors paid a record $170.3 million tax penalty and are projected to pay $165 million this year. Next offseason, the Warriors and LA Clippers could spend $400 million on salary and luxury tax -- each!
The counter argument is that teams below the tax are being rewarded handsomely (teams below the tax last year received a record $10.5 million each and this season are projected to receive $17.4 million).
I guess the proof of the tax system working is if Golden State takes a conservative approach in extension talks with Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. Retaining those players would push the Warriors over $200 million in tax penalties next year.
We have certainly heard a lot also on whether games played should be tied into compensation. I don't know how the NBA could ever legislate that and why the players' association would ever agree to that. Maybe as it relates to eligibility for postseason honors (MVP and All-NBA) but not when it comes to compensation.
Teams have the right to negotiate games-played language in player contracts. (With the evolution of sports science, the teams are the ones dictating when players should play based on their workloads.)
Bontemps: The games-played idea is a non-starter. It's way too complicated to ever come to be, for all the reasons Bobby laid out, and would essentially be going after fully guaranteed contracts. Along with a true hard cap on salaries, this would have the potential to send the NBA into a lockout.
I think the extension fixes are great ideas. The NBA wrecked the extension system in the 2011 CBA, and then went a long way toward solving it back in 2017. But, as you both pointed out, under the current rules, the Celtics' Brown has little to no incentive to sign an extension to remain with Boston if he doesn't make All-NBA. That shouldn't be the case.
The luxury-tax system could become the most fraught issue during these negotiations. The interesting part: This isn't a battle waged between the NBA and its players, but rather between different factions of NBA owners.
On one side, you have small-market teams that are afraid they can no longer compete. On the other, you have Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who has already declared that the system is unfair to teams like his that have drafted well and are just trying to reward their players.
Pelton: To some extent, I think of the luxury tax like refereeing. Given their perspectives are colored by self-interest, if both sides are unhappy, odds are things are actually working pretty well! Yes, the Warriors' payroll is largely made of players they drafted, but teams with lower revenue often have to let core players go because they can't support such high tax bills.
I do think there are a couple of areas for improvement. The first is the breaks where the marginal tax rate increases. Those have remained fixed at $5 million since first being implemented in 2013-14. Back then, $5 million represented 8.5% of the $59 million salary cap.
Now that the cap has more than doubled to nearly $124 million, those breaks are just 4% of the cap. That's probably too close together.
Second, as the tax distribution Bobby mentioned becomes larger, it makes the tax line too much of a hard cap for many teams. Being a dollar out of the tax shouldn't be worth $17 million more than being a dollar over. I'd like to see a similar graduated system in which the teams deep in the tax don't benefit from the distribution, but those barely in it still get a smaller share.
Bobby, how might those tweaks change things?
Marks: The luxury tax definitely acts as a hard cap for teams that are right at the threshold. The Miami Heat are $2 million below the tax and will likely not carry 15 guaranteed contracts this season because of the looming penalty. It's the same with the Cleveland Cavaliers and how it impacts the future of guard Collin Sexton.
The Cavs are $12.9 million below the tax and have drawn a line in the sand on the starting number for Sexton this season. Teams that are in the $0 to 5 million territory over the tax should still be able to receive a percentage of distribution that teams below the tax are receiving.
That being said, a team over the tax should still pay a penalty but at a reduced rate.
Even if the league decided to change the tax system, those changes likely would not occur until the 2025-26 season. When the new tax system was installed in 2011, teams had a two-year grace period to pay a $1 for $1 tax before the harsher penalties were implemented in 2013-14. A new tax system likely does not impact the Warriors or the Clippers now, but it will teams in the future.
Bontemps: Expanding the luxury-tax dollar brackets is the best idea I've heard on this yet.
If you made each bracket count across $10 million, as opposed to $5 million, that would radically drop some of these bills.
Last season, for example, Golden State would have gone from paying more than $150 million in tax payments -- on top of a $187 million payroll -- to roughly $119 million. That's still an exorbitant amount but a real reduction in cost.
Ultimately, though, there are no massive obstacles on the table for CBA talks.
That's why the expectation of most people within the league -- and on both sides of the negotiating table -- is another smooth process toward a new deal ahead of the December deadline.
Could the CBA fix situations like KD and the Nets? What a new deal could mean for the NBA and its players
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have until Dec. 15 to decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement. If either side chooses to do so, the current deal, which went into effect in July 2017, will expire June 30, 2023 -- setting up the potential for an NBA lockout.
But while there is little to no chance of a lockout taking place -- the relationship between the two sides is arguably stronger than ever -- ESPN NBA Insiders Tim Bontemps, Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton discuss something that could become a major part of the next CBA negotiations: player movement, particularly in the wake of high-profile situations involving Ben Simmons, James Harden and Kevin Durant.
Bontemps: As we continue to monitor the Durant saga, are there any solutions -- via the collective bargaining agreement -- for the NBA's increasingly thorny problem of star players demanding trades despite being under contract for multiple seasons.
We saw Simmons throw Philadelphia's season into chaos, and likely cost himself well into eight figures in money, by deciding not to show up last season. We ultimately saw him traded to Brooklyn for Harden, who showed up without exactly showing up for his final few games as a Net, making it clear he, too, wanted to play elsewhere.
This offseason, we have seen Durant request a trade before his four-year contract extension worth nearly $200 million even began.
As a result, this is something that has become a huge topic of conversation in NBA circles, especially because it has now involved three different All-Stars in big markets. But, I will throw this question out there:
Can a new CBA fix any of this, or is this simply life in the modern NBA?
Marks: It's important to differentiate player empowerment into two different categories. There are circumstances when a player asks to be traded and eventually holds out when he is not dealt. We saw that last offseason when, despite having four seasons left on his contract, Simmons held out of training camp.
Philadelphia eventually fined Simmons $50,000 for every practice he missed and an additional $360,305 for each game missed. Simmons then filed a grievance to recoup the $19 million he lost in fines, which was recently settled with the 76ers, sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
At the time, NBA commissioner Adam Silver labeled the Simmons situation as a "one-off" and should not be perceived as a trend, because it had been unprecedented that a player under contract did not report to work.
The second and more common situation is when a player under contract asks to be traded, reports to work and is eventually dealt. This is nothing new, and you can go all the way back to the late 1990s, when Stephon Marbury asked out and was eventually traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the New Jersey Nets.
The Timberwolves recouped multiple draft picks and players for Marbury. I don't have an issue when a player under contract asks to be traded, considering the front office could trade him without his approval.
A good example is Donovan Mitchell, who signed a rookie extension in the 2020 offseason with the belief the Utah Jazz would contend in the Western Conference. The Jazz have clearly waived the white flag by trading Rudy Gobert to Minnesota, and Mitchell is within his right to ask for a trade now.
The unknown with Durant is whether he will report to training camp. If he does hold out, what more can the NBA do in the next CBA besides imposing significant fines?
Brooklyn could try to void his contract for failure to render services, but then Durant would instantly become a free agent and the Nets would lose his services without recouping anything in return.
Pelton: The first thing the NBA should consider is avoiding a fix that's worse than the problem.
We can point to all sorts of unintended consequences with past CBAs that have actually worsened issues. These are high-profile cases because of the names involved but affect a tiny percentage of the league's players.
Part of the context for the danger in making changes: We'll see what happens with Durant, but by trading Simmons for Harden, the Sixers got the outcome they wanted -- even dating back to before Simmons held out. So who was really the loser there?
Bontemps: Great point, Kevin. The only loser in the Simmons situation was, ultimately, Simmons -- and that's solely from a monetary standpoint. He got what he wanted, too: a one-way ticket out of Philadelphia.
And while Durant asking for a trade just as his new contract extension was beginning might not have been the best optically, it also was fully within his rights. No CBA amendments will change that.
And I agree with Silver, simply because I think there will be very few, if any, players who will sacrifice tens of millions of dollars to get out of a situation like Simmons did. Like Kevin alluded to: Any changes will have a ripple effect that the next CBA will have to address.
If there isn't a clean way a new CBA can fix any of those situations, what should be addressed in these upcoming CBA talks?
Marks: There are two items I have my eye on:
The first is addressing the extension rules for eligible players. The league has done a good job of overhauling the rules to allow players to extend for more money (up to 120% off their prior salaries or the average player salary) and years. I would like to see players eligible to extend for the percentage allowed if they were re-signing with their current teams as free agents.
For example, the Celtics' Jaylen Brown could sign an extension for 30% ($41.8 million) of the salary cap in 2024-25 instead of 120% off his $28.5 million salary. By tweaking the rules, Brown would stand to earn an additional $25 million on a three-year extension and $35 million if he signed an extension in the 2023 offseason.
The second tweak to this rule is to allow a player like Brown to add supermax language to his contract on an extension even if the All-NBA criteria has not been met. This is similar to what occurred this offseason with Ja Morant, Darius Garland and Zion Williamson. Those player have All-NBA language in their contracts that will see their salaries increase from 25% of the cap in the first year to 30% if the criteria is met.
If Brown signed a standard extension and earned All-NBA in 2022-23, the years (from three to four) and dollars (from $136 million to $219 million) now increase substantially.
Under the current extension rules, the likelihood is that Brown will bypass signing an extension in the next two offseasons, making him a free agent in 2024, because of the total value is considerably less.
Pelton: I really like the idea of retroactive supermax eligibility so players don't have to choose between hoping to qualify and signing an extension.
Right now, the limits Bobby described almost make it worse for teams when they sign a favorable contract like Brown's, because it becomes so difficult to extend. At the same time, I do wonder whether the league wants to make extensions too common because of the way it reduces the excitement around free agency.
Let's talk some more about the supermax, because it has become a clear example of those unintended consequences. As I predicted back in 2017, these extensions have often paid rapidly increasing salaries to players on the downside of their careers. We've seen John Wall and Russell Westbrook move around frequently because their contracts have become prohibitive.
The supermax has still been a useful tool for teams to retain true superstars, most notably Giannis Antetokounmpo, who extended his contract with the Milwaukee Bucks. As a fix, I've suggested tying the starting salary to different levels of qualification based on All-NBA teams, so sneaking on the third team isn't treated the same as winning MVP.
What do you think of that?
Marks: I like the tweak in the supermax rule to adjust the percentage based on the All-NBA team level. A player who wins MVP or Defensive Player of the Year or is selected to the first team should be eligible for 35% of the cap. The percentage would then decrease based on second- or third-team All-NBA. This would take teams off the hook on what they can and cannot offer a player.
Remember, the supermax rules do not mandate a team sign a player for the full 35% in the first year of the contract. The only requirement is that the contract has to be for six seasons, including what is currently left on the contract.
Besides the extension rules, should the league also examine the luxury-tax system?
Last year, the Golden State Warriors paid a record $170.3 million tax penalty and are projected to pay $165 million this year. Next offseason, the Warriors and LA Clippers could spend $400 million on salary and luxury tax -- each!
The counter argument is that teams below the tax are being rewarded handsomely (teams below the tax last year received a record $10.5 million each and this season are projected to receive $17.4 million).
I guess the proof of the tax system working is if Golden State takes a conservative approach in extension talks with Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. Retaining those players would push the Warriors over $200 million in tax penalties next year.
We have certainly heard a lot also on whether games played should be tied into compensation. I don't know how the NBA could ever legislate that and why the players' association would ever agree to that. Maybe as it relates to eligibility for postseason honors (MVP and All-NBA) but not when it comes to compensation.
Teams have the right to negotiate games-played language in player contracts. (With the evolution of sports science, the teams are the ones dictating when players should play based on their workloads.)
Bontemps: The games-played idea is a non-starter. It's way too complicated to ever come to be, for all the reasons Bobby laid out, and would essentially be going after fully guaranteed contracts. Along with a true hard cap on salaries, this would have the potential to send the NBA into a lockout.
I think the extension fixes are great ideas. The NBA wrecked the extension system in the 2011 CBA, and then went a long way toward solving it back in 2017. But, as you both pointed out, under the current rules, the Celtics' Brown has little to no incentive to sign an extension to remain with Boston if he doesn't make All-NBA. That shouldn't be the case.
The luxury-tax system could become the most fraught issue during these negotiations. The interesting part: This isn't a battle waged between the NBA and its players, but rather between different factions of NBA owners.
On one side, you have small-market teams that are afraid they can no longer compete. On the other, you have Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who has already declared that the system is unfair to teams like his that have drafted well and are just trying to reward their players.
Pelton: To some extent, I think of the luxury tax like refereeing. Given their perspectives are colored by self-interest, if both sides are unhappy, odds are things are actually working pretty well! Yes, the Warriors' payroll is largely made of players they drafted, but teams with lower revenue often have to let core players go because they can't support such high tax bills.
I do think there are a couple of areas for improvement. The first is the breaks where the marginal tax rate increases. Those have remained fixed at $5 million since first being implemented in 2013-14. Back then, $5 million represented 8.5% of the $59 million salary cap.
Now that the cap has more than doubled to nearly $124 million, those breaks are just 4% of the cap. That's probably too close together.
Second, as the tax distribution Bobby mentioned becomes larger, it makes the tax line too much of a hard cap for many teams. Being a dollar out of the tax shouldn't be worth $17 million more than being a dollar over. I'd like to see a similar graduated system in which the teams deep in the tax don't benefit from the distribution, but those barely in it still get a smaller share.
Bobby, how might those tweaks change things?
Marks: The luxury tax definitely acts as a hard cap for teams that are right at the threshold. The Miami Heat are $2 million below the tax and will likely not carry 15 guaranteed contracts this season because of the looming penalty. It's the same with the Cleveland Cavaliers and how it impacts the future of guard Collin Sexton.
The Cavs are $12.9 million below the tax and have drawn a line in the sand on the starting number for Sexton this season. Teams that are in the $0 to 5 million territory over the tax should still be able to receive a percentage of distribution that teams below the tax are receiving.
That being said, a team over the tax should still pay a penalty but at a reduced rate.
Even if the league decided to change the tax system, those changes likely would not occur until the 2025-26 season. When the new tax system was installed in 2011, teams had a two-year grace period to pay a $1 for $1 tax before the harsher penalties were implemented in 2013-14. A new tax system likely does not impact the Warriors or the Clippers now, but it will teams in the future.
Bontemps: Expanding the luxury-tax dollar brackets is the best idea I've heard on this yet.
If you made each bracket count across $10 million, as opposed to $5 million, that would radically drop some of these bills.
Last season, for example, Golden State would have gone from paying more than $150 million in tax payments -- on top of a $187 million payroll -- to roughly $119 million. That's still an exorbitant amount but a real reduction in cost.
Ultimately, though, there are no massive obstacles on the table for CBA talks.
That's why the expectation of most people within the league -- and on both sides of the negotiating table -- is another smooth process toward a new deal ahead of the December deadline.
