This is an excerpt from Berry Tramel's Wednesday's ScissorTales. Read it in its entirety here.
NBA fans in Oklahoma are getting more and more inquisitive about the finances of pro basketball.
Mark: “If the NBA collective bargaining agreement is between the league and the players association, and if the players association is made up of ALL the players equally, and if the league is 90% role players and 10% stars, why do they agree to a deal where the stars get 90% of the money?”
Berry: It's a great question. The CBA does not mandate that great players get 90% of the money. The CBA sets limits on salaries (30-35%, depending on a variety of factors). Really top-heavy teams (like the Thunder eventually could become) end up with the top three getting 85-90%.
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Two things, as far as I can tell, work to make the CBA fine for all.
^ If you limit salaries, then the amount of payroll spent will go down. Teams now go into the luxury tax quite often, usually for the very best players. But if you squash the salaries for the superstars, it's less likely that the teams will venture into the tax. Paying the luxury tax for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, or Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, is one thing. It's quite another to pay the luxury tax for Peyton Pritchard or Kevon Looney or Aaron Wiggins.
^ The players union knows that the greatest players actually are UNDERpaid. LeBron in his prime was worth more than he ever was paid. Certainly that's true for Jokic and Giannis and now SGA.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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