The new CBA didn’t level the playing field. The NBA is still, long-term wise, a place for richer owners in bigger markets to dominate. It will just cost them more money. Team like the Bucks, Jazz, Spurs and Bobcats pushed for a whole renovation of the system. They didn’t get it.
GM’s who spent wisely over the years suddenly see this amnesty clause pushed from nowhere, making it possible for bad contracts to be taken off the cap. Teams like the Thunder and Pacers who spent wisely and stayed under the tax limits get kind of, screwed.
In Dallas, in Los Angeles and New York, they can still spend big. The new tax system goes into play two years from now. It will just cost them more money to keep the playing field uneven.
Atlanta Hawks
The Hawks will almost certainly lose Jamal Crawford. They have 66 million dollars tied up into 7 players, meaning an ownership that doesn’t want to go over the 70 million dollars tax limit will fill it with minimum wage type players. Meaning that the Hawks, as usual, won’t go any further than the second round.
Chicago Bulls
Nothing immediate, but mostly interesting to see how they deal with the new tax rules come 2013. Derrick Rose is up for a max extension, and it will probably cost the Bulls over 16 million dollars a year. Now, with Carlos Boozer ($14.4 million) and Luol Deng ($11.3 Million), the Bulls will surley be over the tax by next season. Jerry Reinsdorf has never gone over the tax. Will a Bulls title campaign in 2011-2012 change that?
Indiana Pacers
The team to be screwed by the new CBA, with the whole Amnesty clause making it possible for teams that weren’t always careful with their contracts to find a way out. The Pacers, a small market team which will be losing money this year, will find it hard to compete for top free agents, again, despite creating enough cap space these past few years.
Memphis Grizzlies
Marc Gasol, a restricted free agent, will be very hard to keep. Their proximity to the tax may make it very difficult to re-sing Shane Battier as well. Without those two, despite the very talented group they got there, another run in the Western Conference playoffs won’t be so easy.
Miami Heat
All about the willingness to pay the tax, because Miami won’t be able to avoid going over it. Now, if this team was in New York or Los Angeles, the high revenue potential would have helped make that decision. Having LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the same team will become more and more painful financially as the seasons go by. I’m not sure the owners are willing to take that hit year after year.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Another team that never signed a bad contract, but suddenly, the extensions they’ll have to use on Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have gotten a whole of a lot more expensive. The amnesty clause will give competitors who did make bad deals a chance to still rectify things, with the new tax rules only kicking two years from now. Keeping Serge Ibaka, James Harden and Kendrick Perkins long term became much harder.