Upper end player salaries & "value"

[Crow]

In 2014-15, 54 players made $10 million or more. In 2015-16, 67. In 2016-17, 98. How many wlll next season, 130-150? How many "should"? What do people estimate a point over average production per 100 possessions to be "worth" next season? How many of the guys making over $10 million / year will be worth that based on previous season production or realistic expected production? How many paid less than $10 million next year will be worth that or more? I know there is a bit of uncertainty how much teams will actually spend directly.

[Crow]

I looked at last season salary & RPM by rank levels. LeBron James as the best player by RPM was paid $3.7 per RPM point. The 40th rank on salary delivered 1 point per $6.7 million. The 80th ranked, cost $9.2 million per point. 120th, cost $15.6 per point but only delivered half that so half the outlay. At 160th and 200th the RPM is negative. At the very top and these lower levels the marginal point between levels is worth about 2.5 million. The most expensive / worst value marginal point gains are 120 to 80 and 80 to 40, with marginal costs 50-100 higher than outside these ranges. So the old adage about pay the very best but not those right below it rings true. But GMs chase the good and near good when they can't get their fill of the great. The right salary structure is all the great you can get, then get guys just above average, passing on the overpaid guys in between. Unless you can spend more and want to.

I didn't look at the relative value of guys between 120-200 vs. lower. But if you have the cash left over and want to be the best you can be, take the best impact guys left that you can afford.

[jgoldstein34]

Elite players create so much excess value that putting a max salary on them forces teams to pay too much for more marginal talent.

That being said, $10 million in 2014-15 is the equivalent of $14.9 this past season and $16 million in 2017-18. $10 million in 2014-15 was 15.9% of the cap. 58 players in 2016-17 made 15.9% of the cap or more, so it seems to be pretty even to the 54 who made that in 2014-15. Comparing salaries from this season to even 2-3 years ago by using raw dollar values is just a poor way of looking at it because of the insane cap jump.

[Crow]

It was a starting point.

[jgoldstein34]

I'd be most curious by how salaries would change if we got rid of a max salary and let teams pay whatever they wanted. Elite players subsidize everyone else to such a massive degree. If the league ever really wanted parity, they would get rid of the max. Much harder to agree to join a super team when it means getting paid $15-$20 million instead of, say, $50-$55 million.

[Crow]

The vast majority of union voters should oppose it and may have tacitly or actively. A lot of owners probably would too. Do you pay LeBron $70-80 million / yr or lose him? Probably would make sense to overpay him than lose him if there was no cap, if winning was the main goal or only criteria. In a truly free market, there is nothing to compel superstars to stop at fair value, if someone will pay or can be forced to pay more.

[jgoldstein34]

Oh the union would and should be 100% against removing a max salary, it only stands to hurt the wallets of most players. But, it also leads teams to have far more chaos which I am a huge fan of. I'd be fine with no salary cap at all, but that's a different argument entirely. Elite players are already more valuable because they are elite, but artificially limiting their salaries with a "max" makes them infinitely more valuable. Similar with the rookie scale, these guys can outplay these artificial limits put on by the CBA to become way more valuable than from a purely basketball perspective.