Austin Rivers made waves this week when he criticized Damian Lillard’s trade request, but in the process, he shed some light on a less glamorous but perhaps more significant problem facing the NBA today. “Our CBA deal that we just signed, and I don’t even wanna get heavy into that, that thing is, don’t even get me f****** started on that deal that we got going because it’s top heavy,” Rivers bemoaned. “That’s why we’re seeing all these teams right now, you either make $50 million or $2 [million]. It’s the most lopsided contract, teams, it’s a joke bro. I can’t tell you how many mid-level guys are signing for the vet minimum around the NBA”
This was explicitly an outcome the NBA’s new CBA was attempting to avoid. One of the league’s primary goals in revamping its salary and luxury tax structure was to stimulate the middle class, both in terms of players and teams. The mid-level exception was increased as both a way to get free agents paid more and as a tool to encourage player-sharing. The rules governing salary-matching were loosened… but only on the lower end of the scale. Meanwhile, the prohibitive second apron was designed to force the league’s priciest teams to make hard choices about who they keep.
And, to Rivers’ dismay, those teams are almost universally choosing to keep their $50 million players. The Phoenix Suns currently have 15 players on their roster. Four of them are on max contracts and the other 11 are either on minimum contracts or, at best, Non-Bird deals limited to a modest raise upon a prior minimum contract. Their fourth-highest-paid player (Deandre Ayton) is making $32.5 million and their fifth-highest-paid player (Eric Gordon) is making $3.2 million. This is an extreme example, but not an uncommon one. The Warriors have five players above $20 million, but nobody else is earning eight figures. The defending champion Nuggets are currently allocating almost 87% of their total team salary to their starting lineup.
That new revamped non-taxpayer mid-level exception? A whopping three players used it to earn 2023-24…
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