The NBA and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) have come to terms on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement. Per the new deal, players have assured labor peace through the 2028-2029 season.
The tentative deal, which would take effect with the 2023-24 season, is set to be ratified by league governors and players in the next few weeks. However, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the agreement contains a mutual opt-out after the sixth year.
One player spoke out about a critical element in the deal that he believed was unfair, the always opinionated Draymond Green. The new spending limits affect top-tier NBA teams like the Golden State Warriors.
Hate On The Top Tier
The highest-spending teams in the NBA are having their pocketbooks clipped, curbing their ability to continue running up salary and luxury tax spending. However, such teams will remain able to add talent to their rosters even as the league executes a second salary cap level at $17.5 million over the tax line. Those teams that exceed that number will lose several fundamental team-building tools, like the mid-level exception for signing free agents, utilizing cash in trades, moving first-round picks in drafts that are seven years away, signing free agent players in the buyout market, and taking on more money than is being sent out in trades, as ESPN reported.
Draymond Green took exception to the points that limited his team’s ability.
“Players lose again…Smh!” Green tweeted with a picture of the CBA spending limit rules. “Middle and Lower spectrum teams don’t spend because they don’t want to. They want to lose. So increase their spending capabilities, just to increase them. They continue to cut out the middle. And this is what we rushed into a deal for? Smdh! Never fails”
As ESPN pointed out, with these new changes, Golden State would not have been able to sign Donte DiVincenzo. Additionally, players like former Clippers guard John Wall would not have made his deal last summer.
In recent years, there has been an average of three teams in this highest salary and tax range. The NBA decided punitive luxury tax penalties did not curb the spending habits of some of the league’s wealthiest franchises to exceed the cap. The league hopes the measures will bring more parity to the competitive landscape. Initially, reports are that the league wanted an “upper spending limit” or a hard cap. However, the NBPA rejected that level of change.
The Dichotomy of Da Bag
The league is currently experiencing its most financially successful era in NBA history. The changes are believed to continue this trend uninterrupted for at least six more years, per the NBA press release on the collective bargaining agreement.
The new CBA will kick in this summer after over a year of negotiating, with the intensity and expectation growing in recent days. The handshake agreement was made during the early hours of Saturday morning at 3 a.m., a little after the league intended to inform the union of its plan to opt out of the current CBA on June 30.
Players will generally have to appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for the top individual awards like MVP. Teams will have an 80-game schedule for next season in August, including “tournament” games, probably four, which will count in regular-season standings. All teams will have two more games added to their schedule for a full 82-game slate. The two teams that make the tournament final will play an 83rd game that won’t count in the standings.
Not everyone will be happy in bargaining, and count Draymond Green among those not feeling it.
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