As we approach the end of the NBA regular season many have questioned whether rules regarding the buyout market have been fair or at least promoting the growth of teams. However, as shown in the following quote from fansided, this doesn’t seem to be the case:
“With Andre Drummond going to the Los Angeles Lakers and Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge to the Brooklyn Nets, there are front-office executives determined to push the commissioner’s office to reexamine the process of post-trade-deadline buyouts. If the clear-eyed reality is that these players are simply faded All-Stars released from the back end of expensive contracts, the visual of them flocking to superteam rosters in two marquee markets does cast a chilling impact on the league’s collective psyche.”
Having looked at the above quote, first, let’s set the scene for those that haven’t been following NBA basketball this season. This year the two dominant teams in the league are the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers who, while the lakers only have two major stars and the nets have three, both can be considered “super teams”. Despite these two super teams existing, many other teams like the Utah Jazz and Philidelphia 76ers still were potential contenders who had decent odds at making the finals. However, as mentioned in the quote above, activity in the buyout market towards the end of the season has allowed the Lakers and Nets to acquire players like Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin who, disregarding how injuries might affect the season, will likely further improve these teams odds at making the championship.
Before we get into the issue with this happening, what exactly is the buyout market? Simply put, it is a market for NBA teams to potentially sign players who have had their contract bought out by their former team, being bought out means that you are given the rest of the money owed in your contract in exchange for that contract being terminated. Teams buy out players for many reasons but the most common cases are like that of Blake Griffin where the team feels the player is being paid too much for their skills. When teams feel this way they often opt for a buyout because that player is filling the teams’ salary cap, teams are only allowed to give players a certain amount of money based off the teams’ overall income, yet not contributing in a meaningful way.
Considering what we’ve discussed so far, some may wonder what the problem with the current buyout market is. Regarding this, the main issue is that it promotes having players like Andre Drummond, who have been bought out, joining teams like the Lakers with a smaller contract as opposed to joining a weaker team and going from there. The reason why this is so bad is because having someone go to the buyout market generally means that the team couldn’t negotiate a trade for the player they bought out and thus had to give up on them. This often results in players having preference in where they want to go leading players to pick super teams like the Brooklyn Nets that already have a stacked roster. The solution the fansided article offers is that players would have to not have a say in where they go for things to be fair in the league again. However, the article also recognizes that this would require the player union’s support which would probably never happen. Regardless, it is shaping out to be a crazy season with all the injuries and rising stars in the league, and we can only wait till the playoffs to see whether restrictions on the buyout market are in our future.
Looking at the buyout market more broadly, in the sense of whether it brings the teams closer together in terms of competitiveness, or drives certain teams to becoming dominant dynasty franchises. In general, a league should veer on the side of competitiveness, and thus leagues implement draft orders and salary caps. It appears that through this, the NBA has made the league more lopsided, allowing big franchises that are already doing well to become even better, which will only be to the long term detriment of the league.
The current buyout market in my opinion is just another side effect of LeBron James’ “The Decision” all those years ago. Players are actively seeking out championships these days and not waiting for them to come to lowly franchises like they could have 20 years ago. The buyout market is just a way for players to make super teams in a unmatchable way. Typically, to construct a super team, large contracts that take up a significant portion of the salary cap need to be signed and/or many assets like picks and young players must be traded. Even though a team like the Nets can end up with three potential MVPs, they also lose their depth and their future. This is…
I think you explained and outlined some of the problems with the buyout market in the NBA really well. I agree that this problem is probably never going to be fixed, as larger and better teams will always be favored by the players who have been bought out and the teams will take them on smaller contracts for relatively larger impacts. The solution posed by fansided may be fair in theory, I agree with you that the player union would never agree to it. It was a shame to hear about what happened with Aldridge and his heart condition that forced him to retire, otherwise I believe he would have made an impact on that Nets team. I think the…
Great article Riley!! As a Lakers fan myself I can't be too mad about the buyout situation, but from a completely unbiased perspective I definitely see the problem with the buyout market favoring strong teams in good markets. This is an issue in my opinion that would likely be unsolvable without completely abnormal constructs such as giving smaller market teams higher buyout market cap space. I think not letting players choose would be pretty unfortunate as players already deal with the unpredictable nature of trades, and in instances where contracts are not being traded, and contracts are just paid, players should have that right to choose their destination. In instances where players do choose to win over getting money, these…