Paul to Lakers falling apart

[Heathbar012]

One more thing: The way the new CBA rules are set up, a player like Paul who gets traded will actually make MORE money waiting until free agency and then re-signing with his team than if he gets traded and signs an extension as part of the deal.

So I highly doubt that ANY player will ever sign an extension as part of a trade.

... which ends up hurting small market teams that are trying to trade for a superstar. What were the owners trying to accomplish again?

 

[CameronFrye]

... which ends up hurting small market teams that are trying to trade for a superstar. What were the owners trying to accomplish again?

The owners are trying to show the world that they have the bigger dicks. They just don't realize that we the fans don't pay good money to watch the owners sit in the owners box. We pay to watch Chris Paul dish out assists and score points. We pay to watch Tyson Chandler block shots and gobble up rebounds. We pay...wait - we are Warriors fans. We pay to watch _avi_ Lee get abused on defense; we pay to watch Kwame Brown get posterized; we pay to watch Steph and Monta fight over the ball, compromising both players' effectiveness; we pay to watch this team win a series of meaningless games in late March and April, thus giving the team a much worse chance in the lottery than its talent level deserves.

Ah, but I digress. The potential free agent superstar still gets more money if he re-signs with his old team. Under the new CBA, maximum contract length is four years, but there is a new rule that allows a team to give one player a 5-year contract with a higher annual raise in that fifth year. So while it is beneficial to the superstar to stay where he is, the simple math in my head says that players will pass up that fifth year of contract eligibility for the chance to play on a winning team. Although the four-year contract will cost the best players somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 mil on that fifth year if he chooses the sign-and-trade, I think he will get most of it back on the first year of his new deal. We are definitely going to have to wait a few years to see how this one plays out, but I don't think it's enough of a poison pill to stop the trade demands and the collusion of players like Paul and Carmelo and LeBron and Bosh, et al.