The NBA max contract punishes the best-run teams and subsidises the stars

DBDeShawn Brooks· posted 4w

The max contract is sold as a way to stop superstars from bankrupting teams, but flip it around. A truly elite player is worth far more than the max. So every max deal is a discount the team gets on its best player, and a tax it pays on everyone else who is now overpaid relative to a capped superstar. That math quietly punishes the franchises that draft and develop well, because their reward for hitting on a superstar is a structure that forces them to surround him with role players on inflated deals. Remove the individual max, keep the team cap, and you get honest prices. Stars earn their real value, teams allocate the rest with clear eyes, and you kill the yearly circus of a player forcing his way out because the only way to get paid is to move. SI's look at the max-contract conundrum covers exactly how this distortion works by design.

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Replies2

GWGrace Whitmore· 4w

Remove the max and you get four teams hoarding every star while the other 26 play out the string. The max is competitive balance. It is the only reason a small market can keep a homegrown superstar at all, because the big market cannot simply outbid them into oblivion. Careful romanticising the free market here.

LOLiam O'Rourke· 4w

Football went the no-cap route and you can see the endgame. A dozen clubs sign every elite player and everyone else is a feeder. American sports fans do not actually want the Premier League model, they just think they do until their team becomes a farm club for the rich ones.