Salary+Cap

= Pre-Salary Cap = = Prior to Stern becoming the commissioner, there were four teams that had the league's best players. These teams were the Boston Celtics, Los Angles Lakers, Detroit Piston, Houston Rockets, and New York Knicks. These teams had a larger advantage of signing big name talent because these five teams had the most money to pay. Back then, there was no restrictions about signing players to extensive contracts. =

An example of this is the Boston Celtics. Led by Bill Russell (pictured to the right), the Celtics won the NBA championship eight years in a row. Although Russell said that "unselfishness is most important team characteristic"(Brown), having the best players in the league is also an important team characteristic. Russell played alongside five hall of famers within the eight year run. A large part of this was the unlimited amount of cap space. Russell was the highest paid That may not seem like a lot today, but in the sixties, it is comparable to a team paying all of its players around 100 million in total. During this time, the NBA was a league of twelve teams that was not very successful. Stern wanted to avoid something like this happening again, so he implemented the salary cap.

= The Salary Cap = The salary cap "is the limit to the total amount of money that NBA teams are allowed to pay their players"(Wikipedia). This limit is based on a complex set of rules that are a result of the collective barraging agreement (CBA). The NBA's salary cap is considered a "soft" cap. The reasoning behind this is that there are several significant exceptions that allow teams to exceed the salary cap to sign players. This is done to allow teams to keep their own players and to potentially build a championship caliber team. By contrast, the NFL and NHL caps are considered hard, meaning that they offer relatively few (if any) circumstances under which teams can exceed the salary cap. If a team in the NBA were to excede the salary cap, the team would have to pay tax. Currently, there are many teams that are over the salary cap.

There are many restrictions on of the salary cap. For example, a player with six or fewer years of experience can be signed to a mx contract of 9 million dollars or 25% of the total cap space. For any player with seven to nine years of experience, a maximum contract of eleven million or 30% of the available cap space.The only exception of this rule is if a player makes two all NBA teams (at any level), make two all-star teams, and or become the regular season MVP. This rule is commonly known as the "Derrick Rose" rule. This rule is named after him because he won the regular season MVP, he was allowed to sign a contract for 30% of the cap space right after his rookie deal. Finally, any player with nine or more year of experience can sign for fourteen million or 35% of the available cap space.

= Innovation = The salary cap is one of Stern's greatest innovations in the NBA. It gave all of the teams in the NBA a level playing ground. Not one team could afford all of the leagues stars. Teams could only have two to three max contract players. The league would be much more interesting now since there would be better competition. The product of the NBA would continue to become better as more and more talent comes into the NBA. With ratings and merchandise sales of all teams rising, the salary cap showed how effective it had been. The NBA just continued to grow. Flash forward into the nineties. The NBA is as popular as it has ever been and the olympics are coming soon. Stern enabled one of the greatest teams ever to be formed that would spread the popularity of the NBA to the entire world. This team is most commonly known as the Dream Team.

Brown, Herb. __Lets Talk Defense__. State College: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Zimmerman, John G. __Bill Russell__. 2007. 24 November 2013 .

Wikipedia contributors. "NBA salary cap." //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.