[Source](https://twitter.com/theathletic/status/1571878450163490819?s=46&t=OGLw9QpTHWL58Z602aJs-Q)
> As the NBA and NBPA work towards a new CBA, several issues that are being discussed include:
>◽️ Lowering draft eligibility age to 18
>◽️ New mental health designation on injury report
>◽️ More punitive luxury tax penalties
38 comments
Simmons won
I saw this tweet about a minute ago. We’re slippin r/nba
I thought Ben Simmons would fuck up the CBA negotiations lmao
> More punitive luxury tax penalties
Lacob in shambles
High school to NBA back on the menu boys
More load management incoming
Interested to see how they would incorporate the mental health designation
There’s no reason to not be allowed to play out of high school. For a lot of folks that’s where their education ends anyways.
Mental Health being treated with the same gravity as Physical Health would be a massive W for the NBA and the players
Adam Silver: Onto increasing the punitive luxury tax penalties.
Joe Lacob: Yeah… about that… I had something else in mind.
It’s obviously well intentioned but I’m already cringing thinking about how the peanut gallery on Twitter and Reddit will react to a guy getting the mental health designation.
I think that having a mental health designation is GREAT.
And I think it is good for BOTH teams and players.
There will be clear parameters. For example, seeing a team appointed therapist. This was something that Simmons was circumventing. This would allow the player to get any help they need but not allow somebody to manipulate and exploit mental health to force a trade (not to suggest that is what was going with Simmons, but the optics of that situation weren’t great).
You’d think Silver would want stars to stay with their teams, to incentivize teams/GMs/Owners to build through the draft and keep their talents in house. Don’t penalize the organizations that do well in this process, penalize the teams that just throw together 3 megastars with max contracts. Yeah there should be some punishment for everyone that goes over the cap, that’s why the cap is in place, but one is not like the other. Having 4 teams with 12 of the best talent and marketability the league has to offer diminishes the value of the other franchises around the league. It’s also feed into tanking strategies. Look at Utah, they’ve realized that with the stacked teams in the west, it doesn’t make sense to try to make a playoff team. Their window is non-existent, whereas the clippers, lakers (healthy), warriors, nuggets, suns, heck even MIN, have windows for the next 2-4 years. It’s smart GM’ing, but the reality of shipping their stars out hurts the pockets especially for small market teams. It’s kind of like the MLB. Everyone else is a farm system for the dodgers, Yankees, etc.
I feel like they should have a rule where they only tax the amount for players who were not drafted by the team when taxing over the limit. For example, if the salary cap is 100 million and drafted players add up to 125 and you have 30 million for non-drafted players (like from trades and free agency), you only tax the 30 million over. Seems like the fair way to go about it. Or you have reduced tax for the 25 mil over for drafted players and higher tax for the other 30 mil.
Owners are about to mutilate their ass because of Simmons, Kyrie, and Harden. There is about to be benchmark set of games played to earn full salaries mark my words.
If the draft eligibility drops to 18, would the G League Ignite team will start taking 15-17 year olds and be more in-line with something like Overtime Elite or sports-focused academies?
The idea behind GLI is to be an alternative to going to college for one year to then be draft eligible. I wonder what impact this age change will have on that. I guess it’ll all depend on how enthusiast teams will be on drafting high schoolers (again).
The mental health designation is gonna get abused to hell unless players are required to go to therapy or some alternative instead of the game.
Players should be allowed to play at 18, but it’s going to mean that a lot of talented players get put on the court before they are ready and ruin their careers.
I know people are making fun of Simmons over this mental health designation, but I think it’s a really important step to help us realize that these people do have mental health issues, and no amount of money would fix that. Kevin Love talked about it first as well.
Problem is, I worry that a lot of fans will just make fun of players out for mental health issues, just like we’re already starting to do here.
I’m a huge advocate for mental health but I definitely feel like players are going to abuse that rule.
Drafting a high schooler over a college player is my favorite draft storyline. Let them kids start a career. If an owner is willing to take a chance on them, let them.
I just want the additional money from a supermax to not count against the cap if the team also drafted that player. So small market teams can keep their homegrown star players without also shooting themselves in the foot in terms of long-term flexibility.
I’m not certain if we should let high schoolers back into the NBA personally, but I also feel opening up teams to draft them (maybe even adding a third round to the draft too?) is fine, so long as they play a year in the G-League. Thus, the Ignite team would no longer need to exist, and the G-League could operate as a proper minor & development league.
A more punitive luxury tax makes sense as long as it comes with some sort of compromise on how your own drafted players count towards the tax, we shouldn’t really be dissuading teams come from keeping home grown cores together.
It’s great that they’re implementing a mental health injury report designation, but they’re definitely going to have some clinical requirements to go along with that after a certain amount of time.
and with the 44th pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select LeBron Raymone “Bronny” James Jr…
While punitive luxury tax penalties sound the right thing, they will make max and supermax deal less and less feasible. So I think the luxury tax penalties will have to come with higher cap space for paying drafted players. Otherwise, it will harm players more than owners.
Why would the players want harder luxury tax measures? Wouldn’t that affect “super teams?” Especially if it’s an owner who doesn’t have the money like other owners. Would almost insure teams like golden state or the clippers can edge out smaller owners. Ik the Lakers are a huge market but Jeanie couldn’t keep up with that ? Serious question lol
The league **really** wants to break up the Warriors
Treating physical and mental health the same would have a lot of repercussions. Can a team get a player injury exception for mental health? Can a team void a player’s contract if they aren’t going to their therapy sessions? Can a team put clauses in a contract that a player can’t have social media accounts because it will effect their mental health?
My big wishlist item is that the non-rookie contracts of homegrown players count less against the salary cap and luxury tax. For instance, if you extend your prize rookie and he gets $25 million per year, it might only count as $20 million against the cap (percentages up for debate). And maybe that discount continues to increase the longer the player is there.
Players get their money, owners get a discount for team building success, and teams aren’t penalized with restricted team building options for rewarding their own players. Suddenly having a superstar stay for their full career becomes a huge advantage for the team and the player.
Right now teams need to thread this needle of assembling their core on rookie deals and signing free agent role players before rookie extensions or super max deals kick in and the team is basically locked up and they have limited options for continuing to build around their core without mortgaging their future in trades.
Honestly, I think they should keep the 1 and done rule. Kids coming straight out of high school are way harder to scout properly and it’s gonna lead to way more busts and less opportunities for guys who really can make the league.
And for people who are going to say that scouting now is much better, I present to you Marvin Bagley (number 1 in 2017), Harry Giles (number 1 in 2016), Romeo Langford (number 5 in 2018), Vernon Carey (number 6 in 2019) and let’s not forget that some scouts were saying that if Emoni Bates were eligible as a fucking Sophomore in high school, they would take him number 1 overall.
They should let teams start their own school/shool programme collab with a local school so teams can develop their own talent like european sports.
More punitive luxury tax penalties for free agent signings but deductions for maintaining home grown talent is the way imo
“Injury Report – Kyrie Irving listed out due to mental pressures associated with having his 3rd eye open at all times”
Mental health designation oooh boy. This should be fun.
So the shitty and cheap owners really want to stop the good owners from spending money to keep a good team together, got it.
Hopefully their are also provisions around forfeiting guaranteed dollars for each year left on your deal when you submit a trade request, or for when you don’t play for non-injury related/excused reasons.