If you want to understand the modern NBA, you need to understand the salary cap. And if you want to really want to understand the ins and outs of the salary cap, you need to understand the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, commonly known as the CBA. No one on the planet who isn’t employed by the NBA or one of its franchises understands the CBA better than Larry Coon. Moreover, no one - employed by the NBA or not - has done more to make the CBA accessible to fans than Coon.
In 1999 the CBA was something that hardcore fans might have heard of, but the exact contents were known only to those deeply involved in the profession. That’s when Larry Coon, a computer scientist and Los Angeles Lakers fan, stepped in. In true computer geek-style, he created a FAQ - a list of frequently asked questions - with answers based on the information he could gather from public sources about the salary cap. This first version was a start but was nowhere near complete. Important pieces of the CBA, the document that (among many other things) lays out the rules of the salary cap, were simply not publicly available.
A fellow hardcore basketball fan got him the phone number of Rich Cho, future Portland Trail Blazers GM, who at that time worked for the Seattle SuperSonics. In an effort to get the missing information about the CBA, Coon gave Cho a call, and Cho told him to talk to Dan Rube in the league office. Coon was able to convince Rube that his agenda was simply to help folks understand the salary cap and the CBA better, and soon Coon received a full copy of the 1999 CBA. Coon’s next version of his FAQ had 104 questions, all answered in meticulous detail. Every time the CBA has been changed since then, the FAQ has been updated to reflect those changes.
Larry Coon has announced that he is retiring from maintaining the FAQ. Having retired in 2024 from his “real” job, he simply is finding that family and other activities and interests outside of basketball are what he wants to spend his time pursuing. The site will continue to be accessible, and he is hoping that “the cream will rise to the top” and someone will continue the FAQ going forward.
The latest FAQ consists of 127 questions and answers, and it remains the best resource available for making sense of the NBA salary cap and CBA.