Mad Hatter
Weapon of Choice
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2005
- Messages
- 236
- Reaction score
- 616
- Points
- 93
As far as your compensation to teams, teams do get that. I believe the Cavs were able to get draft picks and they got "some sort of salary cap exception", the TPE.
We were compensated for LeBron leaving, but that was after the fact. It was also so LeBron could sign the larger/longer contract, and possibly even to avoid a collusion investigation. There was nothing that actually required Miami to give us anything in return. What I was saying is that there should be automatic compensation for free agents leaving (which I suppose would have to scale based on the salary of the player). And again, players shouldn't be able to get the largest/longest contract possible unless they stay with their original team. Even in a sign and trade, they shouldn't be able to do it.
There has to be a clear incentive for these players to stay with their original team. Either that, or a franchise tag, but I prefer "convincing" players to stay rather than forcing them to do so.
So with the Melo situation as an example, here's what I'd like to see:
- If Melo were to re-sign with Denver, he would be able to sign for the maximum amount of money and years (this wouldn't change from now).
- If Melo were to leave in free agency and sign with anyone else, Denver would receive automatic compensation (without the need for a sign and trade) and Melo would not be able to get as much money, or as many years, as he could get from Denver.
- If Denver for some reason did decide to do a sign and trade with Melo in advance of free agency, he would not be able to get as much money, or as many years, in the sign and trade that he would be able to get from Denver.
Wouldn't this be better than the current situation? Denver is not forced to trade Melo because they know they will get something if he does walk, and Melo is at least slightly more likely to stay in Denver since he can get more money and a longer contract there in every possible case. It also helps to prevent players from handpicking teams to be traded to and/or working their way into teams that don't have the cap space to sign them.
Believe me, I hope you are right and that it doesn't become more common for star players to be doing this. Hopefully the new CBA will deal with some of these issues as well.