As owners determine what exactly they are willing to agree to in a deal to end the NBA lockout, The Oregonian's John Canzano reports that the league has apparently reached a consensus on approving an amnesty clause that will allow teams to remove one player from their books completely. Canzano said that, like the 2005 amnesty program falsely dubbed the Allan Houston rule, players would still get what was owed to them, but would be waived and the luxury tax payments the team owed would be reduced by that players' salary.
But unlike the Houston rule, Canzano said the current proposal under discussion would wipe the waived players' salary off of the team's salary cap sheet. For the Portland Trail Blazers, that would mean waiving a player like Brandon Roy would give the team a chunk of cap space for this offseason.
This would obviously help the implementation of a hard team salary cap, should the league continue to press for that restructuring of the cap. The players' union continues to claim they will not approve a collective bargaining agreement that includes a hard cap.
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Not really understanding why this would have an appeal for the small owners
If a team could just drop a player and wipe the amount off the cap but still pay the player, it’s exactly the same as having a really soft cap.
I like the idea, and I think it’s workable, but it still gives the same advantage to the big market owners with big pockets. Even bigger, actually, because only the big rich teams can afford to just cut a player, keep playing him, and sign another player.
The only way to make this really work is to work it into revenue sharing. Each team can cut a player and remove him from the cap, but the players remaining salary is paid out of a leaguewide pool of money funded by luxury tax or some other weighted agreement.
This would give each team the ability to reverse mistakes, but basically the rich ones would pay more. It would give teams a quicker route to rebuilding. It would allow the player to get his money.
I think something along these lines is going to happen. But it’s not going to happen without a way for the player to still get paid.
Get The Frickin' Rebound
by fuhry on Sep 22, 2011 11:53 AM EDT reply actions
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