The NBA salary cap should be a hard cap

There will always be arguments and debates about whether Major League Baseball should implement a salary cap. The NFL has a hard cap designed for parity and is the most profitable league in the United States. The NBA, with its low salary cap, falls somewhere between these organizations.

To understand the current craze surrounding the NBA salary cap, it’s important to understand Bird Rights. There was once a time when the NBA thought it would be best to allow teams to go over the cap to re-sign players on their current roster. They were unable to sign players over the cap who came from other teams (in free agency).

This should prevent teams from being penalized for successfully recruiting and developing players. In a further effort to keep players on the teams from which they emerged, maximum contracts could be signed with a player’s current team. However, if the player decided to leave this team for greener pastures, he would receive fewer guaranteed years and less money.

Players, agents and front offices desperate to win exploited these loopholes, not to protect the team but to make everyone rich. The players signed lucrative, long-term contracts with a maximum term with one team, only to be immediately transferred to another team. Backdoor free agency ruined parity and a level playing field.

The 2024-25 NBA salary cap is currently just over $140 million. There are 30 teams in the league, and 29 of them will be over the cap on opening night (Detroit Pistons $130 million). What’s the point of having a cap if every team can exceed it?

The league currently has aprons designed to prevent overspending, but they don’t work. A team in front one (over $178 million in cap space) can only sign limited free agents and trade players. Teams that fall in front two (over $189 million), of which there are currently nine, will face stricter restrictions.

The total of all payroll in the NBA is $5.41 billion. If that amount is divided by 30 teams, the league could have a hard cap of $180 million. There would still be 14 teams over the cap, but they would have to trade or cut those salaries to get under it by 2026. The league would benefit from more parity and fewer “super teams.”

Instead of a team like Phoenix having three super max playersThey could afford just one of them, two at most, and the talent in the league would be more evenly distributed. However, it will never happen. In contrast to NFL owners, who want to keep as much league revenue as possible for themselves, NBA owners like to give money away. If they had their way, there would be no salary cap, just like there is in Major League Baseball.