With the new NBA TV deal and the players ability to opt-out and renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement slowly approaching, there’s been plenty of discussion about player contracts and some big changes that could be made. Kevin Durant suggested that there should no longer be max contracts, therefore eliminating the limit on how much players could be offered. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had a counter for that suggestion and said if that goes through then contracts should no longer be guaranteed.
via NBA.com:
“If you give up guarantees,” Cuban said. “It’s a trade-off….
Cuban said owners discussed doing away with max contracts during labor negotiations in 2011 and would be willing to do so again, but players would have to be willing to give up fully guaranteed contracts. When an NBA player signs their contract, he is guaranteed the full amount even if he is eventually cut by the team or injured.
Doing away with guaranteed contracts would move the NBA to more of an NFL model where guaranteed money is only a portion of the total stated value of the contract.
“It was discussed during the lockout time among owners, but never got anywhere. So it was just one of those trial balloons,” Cuban said. “I’m not offering this as a negotiation, I’m not suggesting it, all I’m saying is that was something we discussed before, and max contracts are always big question, guarantees are always a big question. But we have two years before that’s even an issue, so no point discussing it now.”
