Recently, many friends left me a message saying that there are always some professional terms that seem to be tall in NBA news, such as salary space, salary cap, luxury tax, middle-class contract, transaction exception, etc., ask me if I can use the simplest Language, make it clear what these professional terms mean. No problem, I accept the challenge, and today I will use the shortest space to do a minimalist science on the NBA signing and trading rules. We not only need to know why, but also why.
Disclaimer:
If you open the NBA official website, or the official website of the NBA Players Union, or NBPA, look for the content of the labor agreement on it, you can find a PDF document with more than 600 pages. To compress more than 600 pages of text into just three thousand words, it is inevitable that there will be excessive simplification, and some expression errors are unavoidable. Please bear with me, fans.
Labor Agreement (CBA)
To discuss the relevant rules of NBA signing and trading, you must first start with the labor agreement. The so-called labor agreement in
is an agreement signed by labor and management. The abbreviation is CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement). The labor refers to the players, and the management refers to the 30 team owners. The core key point of the labor agreement is to determine the distribution ratio of basketball-related income (that is, BRI). Simply put, it is the income that the NBA League earns from operating the basketball business. How much should be distributed to the players and how much to the boss. In the current 2017 version of the labor agreement, the money allocated to players fluctuates roughly between 49-51%. Here comes the question of
, why is the share ratio an interval instead of a fixed number?
is very simple. The NBA adopts a mechanism of “divide the money first, settle the accounts later”. Before the start of each season, BRI income is estimated. Players take half of this estimated income, which is 50%, and the season is over. After the calculation, if the BRI income is lower than the estimated value, that is, the denominator of the income proportion becomes smaller, and the player's income proportion becomes larger, the part exceeding 51% needs to be returned to the league to subsidize the boss group.
Salary Escrow (Escrow)
This is why the league has to take care of a portion of the players’ salaries every year. The purpose is to serve as a reserve fund so that the actual distribution of BRI income can match the range specified in the labor agreement . Due to the epidemic this year, the league is expected to lose more than 2 billion U.S. dollars. According to common sense, the proportion of custody of player salaries should be increased. Take Curry as an example. The original annual salary was 43 million U.S. dollars, and the trusteeship was 10%, and only 4.3 million was required. However, if 40% trusteeship was used, 17.2 million U.S. dollars had to be handed in, and the actual annual salary was only 25.8 million. .
However, after the latest labor-management negotiations, the NBA finally decided to maintain the original 10% trust ratio in the new season. Prior to May 15th, 25% of the part of the wages managed by the company will be refunded to the players.
Salary Cap (Salary Cap)
said earlier that the league is making less money. What if you make more money than expected? If the actual BRI income is higher than the estimated value, the proportion of the player's income will drop, and it will not reach the set minimum value of 49%, and the league will need to make up for the shortfall. The way to make up is usually to raise the salary cap for next season. As the salary cap increases, teams will have more salary space to sign with players, and players' income will naturally rise. That’s why we saw that when the NBA signed a 9-year $24 billion TV broadcast super-big deal in 2016, BRI revenue increased significantly, and the salary cap for the next 16-17 season was directly increased by 24 million, and subsequent Each season continues to grow steadily.
The salary cap for each season needs to be calculated in advance. The calculation process is quite complicated, and ordinary fans do not need to go into it, but you can remember a simple and crude conclusion: salary cap is roughly equivalent to 51% of estimated BRI income Divide by 30. The reason is simple. 51% is almost the upper limit of the player's income as stipulated in the labor-management agreement. As long as the total salary of each team does not exceed this number, the league can ensure that the player's total income meets the requirement of the share ratio.
(minimum team salary)
As mentioned earlier, the proportion of player income is a range, with upper and lower limits. In order to ensure that players' total income is not less than 49%, the NBA has also set a "minimum wage line" in addition to the salary cap, which is 90% of the salary cap. No team's salary expenditure is allowed to fall below this. Line. This "minimum wage line" is also called the "poor line". If the team's total salary is lower than the "poor line", the boss needs to make up the difference and distribute the difference to every player in the team, which is equivalent to the league's force The team gives a raise to every player in the team.
Luxury Tax (Luxury Tax)
In short, whether the salary cap or the poor line is a tool for the league to macro-control the player’s income share. But here comes the problem. The league has stipulated a salary cap. Are all the signings and transactions of the teams only under the salary cap? Nor is it. The salary cap implemented by the NBA is a "soft salary cap", which allows teams to break through the salary cap restrictions within a certain range. The upper limit of this range is the luxury tax line. The calculation of the
luxury tax line is also very complicated, but it can also be extremely simplified, roughly equal to 55% of the BRI income divided by 30. Each team can perform operations such as signing and trading above the salary cap and below the luxury tax line. However, if the team's total salary exceeds the luxury tax line, it must pay the luxury tax for the excess. The NBA implements a tiered luxury tax system, with different tax rates depending on the amount. If it is a "repeated offender" who has paid the luxury tax three times in 4 seasons, the tax rate corresponding to each amount interval will be higher.
Compensation Space (Room)
Some friends may ask, OK, the salary cap is clearly stipulated, but the team expenditure is allowed to exceed the salary cap. What is the significance of this salary cap? There are two key points here. First, if the team wants to complete the contract above the salary cap, it needs to meet a hard requirement: you must have a salary space.
Many people have a misunderstanding about the salary space, thinking that it means "salary cap" minus "total player salary". According to this narrow definition, the 30 NBA teams last season had no salary space because almost every team’s salary expenditure exceeded the salary cap. But in fact, this definition is not the whole "salary space". In addition to the difference between the "salary cap" and the "salary of players", each team also has a lot of special cases for signing and trading. These special cases are also the salary space they have. In other words, if a team wants to sign a new player when the total salary of the players exceeds the salary cap, it must use the various exceptions they have. If there is no special case, there is no way to complete the "sign on the hat".
local tyrant line (Apron)
The second key point is that above the luxury tax line, the NBA has also established a "local tyrant line", which is roughly equivalent to an additional $6 million on the luxury tax line. The local tyrant line is equivalent to a hard salary cap. If the total salary of the team exceeds the local tyrant line, in addition to paying the luxury tax in proportion, it will also be punished by a series of penalties, such as not being able to sign and then change, and depriving of various signing and trading exceptions.
Signing Special Cases and Transaction Special Cases (Exception) The original English text of
special cases is exception, which, as the name suggests, means "exception". Putting it in the context of the labor agreement, it means that although the salary cap is clearly stipulated, some exceptions are still allowed. This is the so-called "exception." There are three special cases, one for signing, one for trading, and the other for both signing and trading. There are four main special cases used by
for signing contracts, namely Bird Clause, Middle Class Special Case, Biennial Special Case and Rookie Special Case . The Bird Clause is also called "bird rights". It includes full bird rights, early bird rights, and non-bird rights. It applies to players who have played for the same team for three consecutive years, two years, and one year. There are different regulations for long-term, starting salary and salary increase ratios, in order to help the team retain old players. The special case of
middle class can also be divided into three types, namely full middle class, mini middle class and space middle class. The so-called middle class is roughly based on the average salary of all players in the league, which is equivalent to giving the team a chance to get an average player in the league. If the total salary of the team isBelow the local line, you can use the full middle class, but if you exceed the local line after use, you can only use the part that does not exceed the line. If the team's total salary has exceeded the local tyrant line, it can only use the mini middle class, which is lower than the full middle class. If the team still has regular salary space that has not been used up, it can use the "spatial middle class", which is less than the previous two. Each team can only use one special case of the middle class each year. In other words, if you have used the middle class in the space, you will automatically lose the right to use the full middle class. No matter what kind of middle class special case, it can be divided into different players to use. It is worth mentioning that the biggest signing space for the Lakers at present is a special case of a full middle class, which is worth about $9.3 million.
What is the biennial exception? Bi-year means that it can only be used once every two years, and it can only be used by teams whose total team salary is below the local line. If you have used the mini middle class or the space middle class, you will automatically lose the opportunity to use the biennial exception. The rookie exception is well understood. The team can ignore the salary cap restrictions when signing a contract with a rookie and just sign according to the rookie contract template given by the league.
I talked about the four special cases specifically for signing contracts, namely the Byrd clause, the middle-class special case, the biennial special case, and the rookie special case. Next, I will talk about two special cases that can be used for both signing and trading. It is the special case of basic salary and the special case of injury . When the total salary of a team has exceeded the salary cap, and there are no other exceptions, if he signs new players, he can only sign at the basic salary for a maximum of two years. The specific amount of the base salary is related to the seniority of the player. The longer you play in the NBA, the higher the amount of the base salary. Injury exception refers to a major injury to the team. If the player is diagnosed as reimbursed for the season by the medical team, the team can use the injury exception to sign a new player. The contract amount cannot exceed half or the annual salary of the reimbursed player. Full middle class. The special case of
used for trading is called special case of trading , and the English abbreviation is called TPE. Generally speaking, the team cannot exceed the salary cap plus 100,000 yuan after the transaction. But if there is a special trade exception, TPE, the team has the opportunity to break through the salary cap to complete the transaction. Team A has a player with an annual salary of 1 million called Zhang San, and team B has a player with an annual salary of 2 million called Li Si. The salary difference between the two is 1 million. If the two teams AB reach Zhang Sanhe Li Si’s transaction formed a special case of 1 million transactions. You can roughly understand that team A sends a special case of 1 million transactions to team B. Team B can use this 100 million within a year. Wan's exception is to trade with other teams. To put it bluntly, the special transaction is for the purpose of bookkeeping. It can be understood as a currency for deferred payment, but the team can only use it to make transactions, not directly to sign players. There are many restrictions on obtaining the special case of trading, and ordinary fans don’t need to go into it. They just need to understand what the special case of trading means and how to use it. For example, when James joined the Heat in 2010, the Cavaliers got a special deal worth $15 million from the Heat.
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