While I have generally been in a “neutral” camp for much of this lockout, my frustration with the process is certainly nearing a boiling point.  I am rapidly losing patience with the “line in the sand” positions it appears the owners/Stern are taking on some issues. I believe, opposed to the majority it seems, some teams are seeing significantly negative cash flows that are not entirely due to “controllable” (non-salary) expenses. Issues like having some degree of cost certainty is valid, but insisting on a hard cap is not.

Here are three brief ideas that present “win-win” solutions, and would at least push discussions towards middle ground.

Idea #1: No hard cap, but an accelerated luxury tax scale

A hard cap takes away flexibility. We have already witnessed too many “filler” players in trades just to make salaries work under the current system. Do we really want to make it worse?!

What might an “accelerated luxury tax scale” (trademark pending) look like?

I’ll use round figures for simplicity. For example, let’s assume a “standard” cap of $60 million.  If I team is under or that the cap? Zero tax. Spend $60-65 million? Teams are taxed 25% on the incremental amount above $60 million. Spend $65 to 75 million? Teams are taxed at 75% on the incremental amount over $65 million. Spend $75 million and above?  Teams are taxed at 150% on the incremental amount.  Eliminate all the mid-level exemption and other BS. Keep it simple. (Don’t worry, Larry Coon still has a day job). The tiers and rates are obviously up for debate. It’s the type of structure that I think will work.

Part II of the idea.  Salaries on trade do not have to be within 125% of each other (the rule for salary coming in for teams above the cap).  However, a minimum “floor” of salaries has to exist.  How about teams cannot go below some number like $48 million?  Teams have a small grace period (48 hours) to get back to that level after a lopsided trade.  However, effectively they would have to close two separate deals simultaneously or risk having to do a bad deal to take back salary again.  Keep it simple and allow for more flexibility in trades with less “fillers”.  Combined with idea #2, it should allow for trade flexibility, which all parties should want.

Why the players “win”:  Perhaps no one wins per se, but it continues to allow for flexibility.  This will ultimately result in increased revenue sharing as it shifts high spending teams tax dollars to “have not” teams.  Thus, “have not” teams will have more money and it will likely result in them spending towards the cap – with the extra tax dollars coming from luxury teams.  This means better contracts for the average player.

Why the owners “win”:  As per above, the “have not” teams get more resources without necessarily having to re-work sharing revenues from TV deals etc.  Owners/teams have more flexibility in moving players. Teams can add veteran talent to make a run without being mandated to navigate a hard cap (making deals very hard) if they wish to take the risk (since they’re likely to pay significantly more in luxury tax).

Potential issues: 1) Handling current “exemption” contracts. However, they can likely find a model to partially “grandfather” some of these current contracts. 2) The rich (i.e., high spending) owners may balk at having to pay such a high tax.

Idea #2: Partially guaranteed contracts

New contracts should look something like this: the last year of any deal is non-guaranteed. The second last year of a contract is fully guaranteed in the form of payment to a player, however, a team can cut this player and take only half that amount as a cap hit. If the player is dropped from the roster in the final or year prior to the final year, he is welcome to sign with any team.  One year deals would also be under the “pay in full” but take half the deal amount as a cap hit if the player was eventually cut from the roster (the cap hit would be a pro-rata amount over the number of games played by the team until the player was cut).

As an example: imagine a 5 year deal with a flat $10 million per year over its course.  Years 1-3 are fully guaranteed and the team takes a $10 million cap hit each year. In year 4, if the player continues to be productive, the team would maintain paying the player and take the full amount against the cap.  However, if they felt the player was not productive, they would still pay their full salary ($10 million) but take $5 million against the cap. This would allow them to sign or trade for another player and have more flexibility in doing so.

Why the players “win”:  A portion of all deals are still guaranteed. If it’s not working out with a team, the player still gets paid in the second final year and will have more options in terms of teams able to sign him.  It frees up money to ultimately pay them more.  If teams are able to shed “Eddy Curry” type contracts in later years, it means more money for the players who are productive. The “Eddy Curry” deals only benefit two people: that player and his agent.

Why the owners “win”:  While almost everyone echoes the “well if you don’t want to be stuck with a player don’t sign him for that large amount for that long”, there are just as many players who play hard for a few years, “get paid” and then shirk. The data is pretty clear (see “Moral hazard in long-term guaranteed contracts: theory and evidence from the NBA” summary here), on average, players are more productive in contract years and their performance falls after they sign a big deal.  This new structure would reduce guaranteed portion and thus players would have to exhibit more consistent play.  The owners also have much greater freedom in moving players since the team taking on a bad contract will have a shorter period to deal with it.

Potential issues:  1) We could see more “Vince Carter like” player strikes in the second final year of a deal.  Why? The player knows he’s getting paid in full, he can go on strike and wait to be traded to the team he wants.  To prevent this, perhaps the team that picks up that player will take on the other half of the cap hit, despite being able to sign them for a lower amount.

Idea #3:  Hybrid player-owner revenue share system

Why are they only negotiating a 39% versus 54% revenue split?  There seems to be a simple solution to me.  There are some minimum costs to run a team that are (relatively) fixed: player salaries, air travel, accomodations, coaches, trainers, etc.  Work out some reasonable number of what this is along with reasonable basketball related income projections for the league.  Then you have a formula, whereby the first $x.x billion of basketball related income is shared at say 45% to the players, while everything about that figure is shared at 55% to the players.  This creates more certainty for the owners while providing the upside to the players.

This hybrid system would “incentivize” all stakeholders the common goal to maximize basketball related income.

Potential issues:  Not many that I can see. The main one is that players would be hit significantly if basketball related income was well below forecasts (i.e. the “hurdle” rate).

Getting a deal done

These appear to be the major stumbling blocks.  Surely massaging each of these ideas should result in a deal which both gives the owners more certainty while still protecting the players – while giving the players significant upside in several cases.

There are enough smart and reasonable individuals on both sides on the table. Enough “take it or leave it” negotiating positions.  There is opportunity to find middle ground with innovative structuring of incentives.

There is no reason not to have a full season.  The North American economy needs you to have a full season.

Get it done. 

Addendum (9/24 8am): Tim Donahue, our ESPN TrueHoop colleague over at Eight points, Nine Seconds, posted an excellent rebuttal to my luxury tax idea. His thesis comes down to this: “ultimately, a luxury tax is neither a tool for competitive balance, nor a particularly sensible way to share revenue.” I still believe my proposal has merit, but its made me believe that there would have to be an ultimate hard cap at some level – perhaps $90 million in my example. And perhaps you raise the top tier to 200%. (I’ll try to run the numbers like Tim to see the net impact). Follow Tim’s work, its excellent. Having these ideas flow back and forth can only help narrow this large gap between the two sides.

Follow Eight points, Nine seconds and Tim Donahue on Twitter.

Addendum (9/24 8am): “Steve from Fredericton” notes correctly (via email) sees a couple potential issues. Two questions: 1) “Is there a limit on term?” (see NHL contract shenanigans) and 2) paraphrasing “Is there a limit to the salary increases each year” – e.g. he foresees “a 3rd year player getting something like this: $5M $5M $5M $10M $10M”. Good points as agents/teams could play around with both (Steve believes, in some instances, that this flex could be a benefit to both). However, my assumption (which I should have added in my piece) was that contract length and increases would be similar to the current system. So 5 or 6 year max and built in maximum increases. We want to avoid issues like Steve brings up which is impacting the NHL right now.

Huh?! Bear with me.

NBA Championship teams almost always have one of the the following two traits:

• Being a historic franchise in a large market.
• Having one the top few picks in an excellent draft.

We can safely say that the universe of large market teams with a history of winning consists of two teams – and perhaps four in total. Fifty-five percent of the NBA championships have been won by the Celtics or Lakers franchises. That’s 33 out of 60 (yes, I left a couple defunct 40s/50s franchises off). Add the largest market team, the New York Knicks, that have won only twice (sadly), so that takes us to 35.

We also have six Chicago Bulls teams that have won. Chicago is a great market with a long history, but could also be characterized within our second trait: a top pick (#3, some dude named Michael Jordan). Also in that draft was #1 pick Hakeem Olajuwon, who lead his team to back-to-back championships.

We’ve covered 44 out of 60 titles already with three big market franchises and only one draft!

So, what’s left?

The San Antonio Spurs won four (David Robinson #1 pick, Tim Duncan #1 pick), the Bucks won once (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar #1 pick), so did the Blazers 1 (#1 pick Bill Walton), 76ers (Moses Malone #5 in ABA) and Heat (Dwyane Wade #5 and Shaq #1). The Detroit Pistons won three, twice with Isiah Thomas (#2 pick). We are now at 54 out of 60 (I left one Detroit team off, see below).

There were only a handful of teams that didn’t directly draft their All-star (2003-04 Pistons only had Darko Miličić as a top pick #2 in 2003 who obviously wasn’t key to that winning season). Otherwise, they drafted smartly higher up and traded for their key players.

I think its fairly clear. You generally win in this league by either being a big market to draw top free agents (Boston, Los Angeles, and New York). There may be a second tier of “big draws”, being Miami and New Jersey with a combination of life style, money and/or marketing power,. But beyond that teams are usually left to the lottery to find cornerstones.

The Toronto Raptors have a good sized market (yes, its a basketball market, our American friends will eventually figure that out). The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is 5.6 million strong and, as Canada’s only team, you could argue the home team for 35 million. Perhaps the size of market is not entirely relevant, since we have little “history” (four winning seasons in fifteen years). NBA players love to visit, but many certainly don’t put Toronto at the top of their free agent list. Its more about its history of winning than weather (though some will argue differently).

So with this knowledge in hand, do we:

1. Maximize the expiring deals and TPE to materially improve and take on longer term contracts from financially strapped and/or non-playoff bound teams?
2. Spend the remainder of the season developing our youth and trade for youth/picks?
3. Somewhere in between?

I argue for #2. We need to look to get top pick. We have Miami’s 1st pick this year which certainly won’t translate into a top pick. But ours may. I’m against tanking as I have debated with Michael Grange over the last couple of years. But I don’t think we were ever far apart – I was more against tanking late in 2009 as it wouldn’t matter much (only a spot or two at best). However, Mr. Grange started his argument to tank earlier and it potentially could have resulted in a much higher pick. I remain against purposely losing. I’m the “honour the game” type of guy. And perhaps this is cheating my argument some, but I do support playing our youth (Davis, DeRozan, Alabi, Bayless, Johnson) “more than normal” minutes than they may “deserve” with the purpose of getting them more experience. I’m all over working on development in game situations where we run plays for our young players even if it may not be the optimal shot. I want at least some of them in late-game situations even if it’s not our best lineup per se.

Isn’t this just another form of tanking? Maybe, depends on exactly how we define it I suppose. However, I propose coaches/management instill in the players the goal is always to win and never “throw” a game. I want the young core to win together. I want them to have a last-second-shot-to-win-it experience. But with playing our inexperienced players and thus suboptimal lineups, we are likely to lose more over the course of the season. I see it as a win-win.

What are the odds that we’d draft a “superstar”?

GM, assistants and scouts
There is little use in fans debating whether Chris Bosh was enough of a cornerstone to “build around”. That shipped has sailed and I do not entirely blame management for trying to put those last few pieces around him. It was always a tough task and we could debate the merits all day, but its time to move on. We have what we have and that includes a large TPE and significant expiring contracts. With the CBA around the corner, let’s use our upcoming cap space wisely. Its a big asset.

Salary space to work with…

Source: HoopsHype

Let’s look at the 3 to 5 year rebuild despite the urgency to get better now. The Raptors are right in the middle of the pack for attendance despite a poor record. Sell the fans on the build commitment, which involves patience to “do it right”. Draft and trade for young players that have a winning first mindset. Ones that are true teammates. Its difficult, but can me done.

“… it’s hard not to be selfish. The art of winning is complicated by statistics, which for us becomes money. Well, you gotta fight that, find a way around it. And I think we have… // We got 12 guys who are totally committed to winning.” – Isiah Thomas, during the 1989 playoff finals.

Coaches
It’s a tough balance between letting the young players play through some mistakes, but also creating a culture of accountability. They need to develop the young players by testing them in the heat of battle, and if they don’t perform or neglect their duties, then that will give an indication of where they might lie in the Raptors’ future plans (ahem, Sonny Weems).

Fans
If a multi-year plan to build a winner is put forward, is there enough fan support for the idea for MLSE to be bold enough to implement it? Look, very few organisations/owners are willing to suffer through years of losing tens of millions of dollars. It’s just not realistic and I do not expect anything different from ours. Owners have many investment opportunities to generate returns and while a very few are willing to take losses for their “hobby”, its just not realistic for them to endure many years of negative returns. Unless you have $400 million and like to lose money, let’s just accept this.

We do have a supportive base it appears. There are many “fair weather” fans everywhere, but I believe fans will support the franchise in the rebuilding years IF a clear plan is delivered and executed on. MLSE has significant profit leverage if they can build a winner – Maple Leaf Square is just begging to host a multiple playoff series.

MLSE should not be considered a penny-pinching organization. The Raptors have always been in the middle of the pack or closer to the top-third in NBA salaries (currently 15th), so to say they aren’t willing to spend is incorrect. It’s true that they have never shattered the luxury cap barrier, but has there even been a reason to? Have the Raptors ever really been one mid-season move away from something special? Probably not. On this point we may have to take Colangelo’s word that the board is willing to cross the luxury-tax bridge as long as it’s justified towards winning. I noted before in this that winners spend well over the cap. But this post should have been the “prequel” to it. You need to have the foundation in place before you add that last missing piece or two.

So. Things aren’t as bad as ESPN might have you believe, in fact, they’re looking up.

I was following a number of Twitter discussions regarding Chris Paul’s apparent dissatisfaction with the Hornets and potential trade request, it prompted me to think about what system is best for the NBA.

Our esteemed ESPN TrueHoop colleague Matt Moore from Hardwood Paroxysm made these comments as part of a larger debate:

@HPBasketball: @needsrebooting so you have no problem with players being pawns, it’s taking control of the situation to creat superteams that’s lame

@HPBasketball: @ticktock6 so the owner can trade him whenever he wants, but the player made his decision and has to live with it?

These quotes certainly need to be viewed in context of the larger thread, but they provided inspiration for us to try to answer the questions:

How much freedom should the players have? And what impact could that have on compensation?

Give me six months and I’m sure I’d have enough to write a book on the topic. But we don’t have the time or space here. And this post is not a direct response to “Should Chris Paul have the right to ask for a trade?” – please don’t read it that way. It’s about maximizing the opportunity for both players and owners.

The league structure, as it exists today, has been quite effective. Why do I say that? The NBA salary cap gives us reasonable proxy as its derived from Basketball Related Income (BRI).

Source: Wikipedia

Over the last 25 years, this represents a CAGR of 11.7% – an incredible figure for that length of time. There are several explanations to explain this growth.

I will argue one key reason for the basis of this growth is: League parity

In part by its traditional definition

the “best” team is not significantly better than the “worst” team

But I would add that sport also needs

a structure also enables a poor team the opportunity to rebuild into a winner within reasonable time frame.

Certainly, in any one year, the best teams in the NBA are significantly better than the worst teams. However, there are not many easy wins over the course of a season. Most of the league is quite competitive – a quick highlight of this point is in the West last season, where the 2 through 8 seeds were separated by only 5 wins.

Why is this important? Why do you go to games? Why are TV ratings so high?

As Raptors fans, most of us keep going to games for a chance to see this and this. Or you’re constantly watching the game on TV to see these situations.

Revenue is driven by superstars – superstardom is a result of hitting big shots in close games. In close games. In close series. Going 7 games creates superstars. Close games are why fans show up. Close games drive revenue.

So what’s the point?

A completely free market basketball league will likely result in lower salaries.

Why? Let’s look at a completely free market system.

• No draft – you simply sign players – maybe you see potential at age 14 and you sign for their rights then.
• No salary cap.
• No restrictions on trade – no need to match salaries.
• etc.

What would happen in this scenario?
The vast majority of superstars would be signed early by the rich franchises. If they missed talent early, they’d simply pay up later.
So you would have teams like Boston, LA Lakers, Dallas (Cuban), New York, Chicago and perhaps a few other “haves”.

What would happen to other teams?
Below is a chart from NBA.com and Forbes magazine on the value of the top franchises.

We calculated that the top 10 teams averaged $24.1 million in operating income. The league average is only $7.8 million. Which means some teams are already losing a fair bit of money. In completely free market system, how would they have a chance in heck of signing marquee players? They couldn’t.

If you look at league attendance last season (here), you’ll find a solid correlation between filling the building and superstardom. What happens when you add a superstar? When the Celtics added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the summer of 2007, home attendance went up 73,008 in 2008. With an average ticket price in the $65 range, that’s $4.7 million. Its also another 73,008 buying a couple of beer, hot dogs, hats, jerseys etc. The Celtics probably increased the luxury box fee as well. I More people are watching the local station for games. Thus, advertising revenue goes up. Can we round this to $10 million easily? I think so. The reverse is likely also true. Bloomberg pegged the loss of LeBron James could equate to the value of the Cleveland franchise declined $250 million. Yes, you read that correctly. The article also says:

The Cavaliers were coming off a 17-65 season when they took James, from Akron, Ohio, with the first pick in the 2003 NBA draft. Their average attendance that year was 11,497.

Over the course of 41 games, the Cavaliers sold 371,665 more tickets in 2009-10 than in 2002-03. Let’s call in $50 per seat – that’s an eye popping $18.6 million difference – without counting the spin-offs of luxury box price increases, more food and beverage sales, jerseys, etc.

Forbes claims that the Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Charlotte Bobcats, New Jersey Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies and Milwaukee Bucks are all losing money. In a free market scenario, could these teams take a further $5 to $20 million hit due to lower attendance? Not likely (well, besides Dallas).

What would this mean then?
It could mean that:

10 teams fold -> leading to significantly lower league attendance -> lower TV ratings -> lower merchandise sales -> lower basketball related income -> lower revenue for teams -> deepening losses.

And with perhaps 4 dominant teams, the remaining teams will struggle. Fans slowly stop showing up or watching – why bother if games are not competitive? Who wants to see 4 games sweeps through two rounds?

What happens in free markets? Industries often start with dozens of competitors, but only the strong survive over time. Ultimately you end up having a few strong players in a market segment. But that will not work in sport – it needs and thrives on many strong competitors.

Thus the need for the current system – tweaks can always be made. But its the draft structure, Bird rights, salary cap, revenue sharing that makes this league as successful as it is. Please don’t compare it to the “real world”. Yes, most of us have the opportunity to leave our employer for greener pastures if we don’t like the situation we’re in. A far-fetched example, but what about this offer – you have less flexibility in your choice of city, but because of this system we can pay you $5 million a year instead of $85,000. And you can live 4 months a year wherever you want. And after a few years, you can go wherever you want year round subject to a couple of conditions. Would you take it?

Here’s another simple way of looking at the situation: if the players are so constrained and would like a free market system, then just do it. All should quit the NBA, pool all their money and create a new league. One with complete freedom. They collectively have the money to do it. Go for it. Just don’t hire LRMR Marketing to run it. But without the checks and balances in order to keep some semblance of league parity, you’ll only have a few successful teams. And without group success, the rewards will be smaller. How many games will you enjoy when the final score is 132-96? Will you attend the next one between those two teams?

The NBA are experts in marketing. And to market this game to maximize revenue it requires some form of competitive balance. That’s why we pay big money to watch it. And its a system that greatly rewards the best players on this planet.

The NBA is expecting it’s salary cap to be around $56.1M. This is considerably higher than what experts had predicted in December when the league’s basketball related income was projected to be lower. What does this mean for the Raptors?

First up, the Raptors will no doubt renounce the rights to O’Bryant, Wright and Nesterovic thus freeing up a cap-hold of $5.57M. This amount would otherwise be counted against the cap when making any transactions. The only question is whether they will renounce Amir Johnson or not. His cap-hold is $7.88M.

1. If Bosh exercises his $17M option

The Raptors will have $63.47M tied in salary, preventing them from signing free agents from other teams. They can still sign their own free-agents using their Bird rights but as I said, the only players I can even think of re-signing are Amir Johnson and perhaps Antoine Wright. Any new NBA players we acquire would have to be via trade. Of course, we could always sign players from other countries who don’t have contracts with NBA teams. Maybe that’s why there was a rumour about Colangelo looking at a couple players from the Israeli league.

As Bosh has already said that he’ll test free-agency, this is really a moot point.

2. If Bosh walks

Assuming we renounce Johnson (thus giving up his Bird rights), the Raptors will have $46.32M tied in salary in 9 players – Turkoglu, Calderon, Bargnani, Jack, Evans, Banks, DeRozan, Belinelli and Weems. We will likely select 13th in the draft which means we have to pay the rookie approximately $1.60M. So, we’d have $46.3M + $1.60M = $47.90 in salary tied up. This leaves us with about $8M to sign other teams’ free-agents to fill the other 2 roster spots (plus the three inactive roster spots taking the total to 15). By giving up Johnson’s Bird rights, we cannot sign him after signing other free-agents as it would likely put us over the cap. The only way we could sign other free-agents for those $8M and re-sign Johnson is if we heavily back-load his contract which I’m not even sure is allowed.

Assuming we don’t renounce Johnson, his cap-hold will count towards the cap which would take us to $54.2M which is pretty close to the cap. The would only leave enough money for us to sign minimum salary players ($475K). We could squeeze a couple of these while staying under the cap and then sign Johnson (using his Bird rights) to go over the cap.

If we have an eye on a particular free-agent, the only option is to renounce Johnson and throw the money at the target.

The following teams can currently sign Chris Bosh to a max-deal as they are significantly under the cap. Teams with a * next to their names have the cap space to sign two free-agents to max-money contracts.

• New York Knicks*
• Miami Heat*
• Washington Wizards*
• Chicago Bulls
• Sacramento Kings
• Minnesota Timberwolves
• LA Clippers
• NJ Nets*

Overall, a higher cap is bad news for the Raptors as it allows teams to offer Bosh more money without releasing cap-holds on existing players. You should check out Larry Coon’s article on ESPN which talks about the potential ramifications of the cap figure and how it creates opportunities for teams like New York which weren’t there before.

3. If a Bosh sign-and-trade is engineered

We would renounce Bosh’s rights, sign him to a max-deal and trade him within 48 hours. Bosh would be entitled to make 30% of the salary cap which amounts to $16.83M with the salary escalating each year. Note that the benefit of signing an max-money contract with your existing team isn’t in the base-year salary, but in the percentage increases per year. If we trade Bosh to a team that is under the cap, then we don’t have to receive an equivalent amount of salary in return and could potentially still be under the cap after a Bosh trade. If we trade Bosh to a team that is over the cap, the contracts we get in return would have to be within $100,000 of the salary traded.

Depending on what the Raptors’ long-term plans are, they could opt to use Bosh as a salary dump or as a mechanism to get some pieces back. In the case of a salary dump, we’d be about $8M under the cap (assuming we renounce Johnson).

4. If Bosh decides to extend at the max

This is very much like #1 as the first year salary for a Bosh max-extension and his opt-out amount are very similar. Ideally, we’d like to pull something like what Milwaukee did in 2005 when they waited to sign Michael Redd using his Bird rights until after they had signed Bobby Simmons. However, Bosh’s cap-hold is too high for that to happen.

–

If the Raptors want to use the mid-level exception to sign a player, they need to be over the cap but under the tax at the beginning of the off-season. If the Raptors renounce their free-agents early enough, they’ll be under the cap and not have the MLE (approximately $5.5M) available. Since the Raptors used the bi-annual exception to sign Rasho Nesterovic last summer, they cannot use it this year.

What I’m really driving at is that in order for the Raptors to create any sort of flexibility, they must off-load a big contract such as Turkoglu, Bargnani or Calderon. As you can see, without doing that we’re simply left to play around with Johnson and Wright’s contract which really won’t bring in anything of significance no matter how you slice it. The only way this team can retool is via trade and Colangelo will have to get very creative in order to do so because he’s selling stock that is over-priced.

If we don’t shed some salary or manage to pull a trade which nets credible talent, we’ll be left searching for minimum-salary players or once again venture into Europe looking for the next coming of Will Solomon. The easiest way to shed a contract is to be under the cap (aka renounce some free agents) and then do business with a team that’s also under the cap. Since I think Colangelo would want to use the MLE, he’d want to be over the cap at the start of the off-season which means he’ll conduct business early to do both – 1) shed a contract 2) allow himself a shot at the MLE.

It’s also interesting to note that if the Raptors had hung on to Jermaine O’Neal’s contract for another year (instead of turning it into Banks and Marion and eventually Turkoglu) and not prematurely exercised the option on Marco Belinelli ($2.38M), we’d have enough cap space to re-sign Bosh and another free-agent to a max-money contract. Since we sucked with a high salary this year anyway, it would’ve been nice to just suck with a lower salary (and expectations) and be in line to make a play on someone like Joe Johnson or Dwayne Wade. Colangelo’s penchant for applying bandaid fixes really bit us and it’s the main reason Miami is in the advantageous position it’s in.

Hope all that made sense. Thanks to phdsteve and Ryan Wolstat for providing input to this post.