Darius Miles and the Cap

So, Darius Miles got resigned by the Grizzlies. With games tomorrow against the Cavs and the Jazz on Friday, by this weekend, Portland's salary cap situation could be seriously impacted. For a quick recap... Miles is owed $18 million over the next two years. His previous injuries were deemed career ending so his salary was being paid for by insurance (he still gets paid either way) and won't count against Portland's cap space. However, if he plays 10 games, then his salary goes back on Portland's cap and they have to pay it. He's already logged 8 games this season (6 in preseason with the Celts and 2 with the Griz) so it's pretty much a done deal he's gonna get that 10 games played this year.

I don't really want to get into who's ultimately wrong in this whole mess. Miles screwed up by not wanting to rehab properly and slacking off during his time with the Blazers. He never put in the effort in the gym and with the trainers to get back on the court until he was cut by the Blazers. The Blazers screwed up by threatening the every team in the league with frivolous lawsuits in a petty and ineffective attempt to keep them from signing Miles. And the Griz screwed up by signing Miles just to mess with Portland's cap space. I doubt any fan really think the Griz are signing Miles to help them win games. Not when a perfectly healthy Jaric is getting zero minutes and the Griz already have two vets (Buckner and Ross) coming off the bench in the wing positions.

Still though, it's not the end of the world for the Blazers. If they let Frye and Diogu walk (both seldom used), they'll be at $46 mil this summer. Assuming the cap will be ~$59 mil, they'll have $13 mil in space With max years and max raises (8%), they can hand out a 5 year, $75 million contract this summer (or split it between a couple players). Too bad Granger already re-upped or else he'd be an ideal target. Here's a list of all the RFA and FA for '09 and '10. IMHO, the only appealing targets are Turkoglu and A. Miller. So while having the option would have been nice, it's not like Portland really had enough target(s) for $20+ mil in cap space anyways. The only real hit is probably having to pay Mile's salary instead of having insurance pick it up.

But this situation brings up an interesting problem regarding guaranteed contracts and the salary cap. Just about every team out there are bogged down by one or more bad contract(s). Whether it's the players' fault (lack of effort) or not (plagued by injuries), these contracts, coupled with the restrictions on the salary cap makes roster moves difficult. In turn, as fans, we get an inferior product because either players play lackadaisically and/or teams have to undergo "rebuilding" stages as they dump talent and wait for bad contracts to expire.

So with that in mind, here's a couple of my ideas for fixing the cap problem. I think either or both options can seriously help and if the NBA ever adopts anything like these... just remember you read it here first. ;-)

1) Stop fully guaranteeing contracts. Too many players simply go into cruise control after they get a fat pay day, or else start sulking when their team stops wining (causing more losses, less effort, etc.) So, here's what I propose... for non-rookie deals, only 50% of the amount equal to the MLE (Mid Level Exception, the average salary of all NBA players) and 50% of any amounts thereafter can be fully guaranteed. The rest of the contract must be incentive/goal based.

So, here's an example. Say Marbury's contract is $20 million. The MLE is $5.5 million. So, he'll have the first $2.75 million guaranteed, plus 50% of the remaining amount ($17.25 million / 2 = $8.625 million ). So he'll have $13.75 million guaranteed. The remaining $8.265 million must be "earned". I think that's a big enough incentive for him to want to play well and work hard to get back from injuries.

Here's another example... Jerome James contract is $6.2 million. So he'll have the first $2.75 guaranteed, then 50% of the remaining amount ($3.45 million / 2 = $1.75 million). So he'll have $4.475 million guaranteed and $1.75 million in incentives. Obviously, these deals are more significant for superstar type players getting max or near max deals. But usually, it's those players and their dead weight deals that can really wreck a franchise.

The number and type of incentives/goals can be whatever the team and player agrees upon on a case by case basis. Some examples could be individual based like "play in 60 games" or "average 15 points". Others could be team based like "win 41 games" or "make the playoffs". Some could just be behavior based like "no altercations with the law" or "no more than 10 technical fouls". The exact number and type of incentives is up to the player and team. If the team is dumb enough to just have a "win 1 game" goal or something similar, then it's their own fault.

And players can't really complain because they're still getting a good chunk of their money. Well more than enough to feed their families ;-) And they agreed on the incentives too... so they should think they're able to achieve those marks. And if you're Grant Hill from his Orlando days or Steve Francis since '04-'05... do you really think you deserve ALL of that money?

By the way, the reason for guaranteeing the first part of the MLE is to protect the end of the bench guys. If you're a NBA player and only earning $1 mil, it'd suck to have half of it get taken away. To further protect players, all unearned incentives are paid into a general pool at the end of the season, kind of like the escrow tax, and then redistributed to the players (proportions to be determined later). That way, teams won't intentionally bench a player or tank games just to save some money since they have to pay that amount anyways. And the players' whole salary (guaranteed and incentives) count against the cap, so teams don't give out stupid contracts thinking players won't earn them.

2) My second idea is a lot simpler... just DON'T count waived or retired players against the salary cap. They'll still count against the luxury cap, so teams still have to be wary of paying dollar for dollar if they spend too much. But the salary cap should be just for players that are actually PLAYING on the team. This will make it much easier for teams to make roster changes. Since it still incurs the luxury tax, I don't think this would be abused that much, since only very few teams (Portland, New York, maybe Dallas) have the rich and willing owners to go over the lux. If they do go over, the poor teams also get bigger luxury tax shares at the end of the season. They might also be able to pick up more bargains among waived vets who are now willing to play for near vet minimums since they're already getting a paycheck elsewhere.

Well, that's all I got for now. A bit of a serious/boring post, but those ideas have just been rolling around in my head for a while. More youtube and funnies later this week, I promise!