The Big Four?!?!

[thatlookseasy]

Really interesting article from Zach Lowe on a radical solution to this (and other) issues- The elimination of the maximum salary

http://grantland.com/features/miami-heat-lebron-james-carmelo-anthony-max-contracts-nba/

The Mystery of Max Money

What would happen if the NBA removed limits on individual player salaries?

 

That has raised the specter of Carmelo Anthony taking a pay cut to leave New York and make it a Big Four in Miami. The mere mention of that possibility, coupled with Kevin Love’s inevitable (and fairly ugly) departure from small-market Minnesota, have already reinvigorated long-held concerns about the NBA’s brass ring of competitive balance. At the center of it all lies a question: Can the NBA chase the dream of an even more robust free-agency market — more “player sharing,” as the league likes to say — while still helping teams, and especially small-market teams, keep their own stars?

Fans have an ambiguous relationship with players controlling the situation. The summer of 2010 prompted an outcry in some corners that the players had rigged the game. Fans had no problem when tinkerers atop the Lakers and Celtics “built” the super-teams of the 1980s, but they raised hell when players did the same thing themselves. That is a weird incongruity.

On the flip side, fans appear to hate super-teams until the moment there are none. We recall the late 1970s, when the championship toggled among unremarkable clubs, as the league’s coke-infested nadir. There is an almost pathological determination to point out that today’s teams couldn’t possibly compete with Bird’s Celtics and Magic’s Lakers. There is overlap in the Venn diagrams displaying fans who deride today’s super-teams and fans who think the NBA reached its glorious height with the powerhouses of the 1980s.

At the intersection of all this chatter lies the magic-bullet solution to competitive balance, tanking, and the conspiratorial construction of the All-Star colossus: scrapping the ceiling on individual player salaries. Lots of smart thinkers both inside and outside the league have pitched this as a catch-all fix.

The theoretical Big Four, and perhaps the Big Three before them, wouldn’t be able to team up if rival suitors could toss $40 million per season at LeBron. That is closer to LeBron’s true value, and what he would “deserve” if the NBA functioned as a free-market economy. In that perspective, the league’s dozen best players are effectively subsidizing the much larger middle class. The salary ceiling keeps the majority of the players’ union members happy, and it might help general managers build deeper rosters. But it also places an artificial restraint on a player’s earning capacity and leads general managers to inevitably overpay mid-tier veterans.

Teams angling to sign a superstar at an unlimited salary wouldn’t tank, because no superstar in his prime is going to a roster designed to lose games. If there are a dozen players truly worth the max, it seems obvious the league would generate more parity by placing those players on a dozen different teams.

Removing salary limits is an appealing idea, and it would probably inject a bit more balance into the league. Players would have to make a real choice based on wildly divergent salary amounts, roster strength, and other variables. Capping max salaries today works to (almost) equalize what everyone can offer, and that allows players to choose teams based on other variables: market size, the appeal of a team’s city, tax laws, and the presence of another superstar. A certain subset of teams will always lose out in that choice.

[SOJA]

idk why people are so against this happening. who cares? Miami's problem wasn't lack of offense. it was zero defense. Carmelo might actually hurt the heat

[RelaxImaPro]

So would it be the Big 2 now?  Wade isn't even close to what he was when they originally came together, and Bosh has decided he's just going to post up on the 3-point line all game.

 

With the exception of Jordan, I've never been a huge volume shooter fan... and that's because he's Michael fuging Jordan, and he was transcendent (and you knew that poo was going in).  That, and aside from 3's, he was good-great at pretty much every facet of the game

[cbarrier90]

Miami just got absolutely demoralized because of age and bench play among other things and you guys are concerned that trying to tie up even more money in only 4 players is going to give them a run at 73-9? This isn't 2k and Melo doesn't really solve the issues they had last season. He's just a name. They'd be more dangerous if they got a point guard and a center and a bench that didn't force them to wear LeBron down.

The southeast alone will have Washington, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Orlando all on the uptick if they stay healthy and all could potentially make the playoffs. Most of the lottery picks are going to the east and the spurs and western conference in general don't appear to be breaking up anytime soon.