NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts yesterday "questioned several of the principles that have governed owner-player relations in the league for decades ... objecting to the concept of a salary cap while making clear she'd push for much more than a 50-50 split of basketball-related income," according to Pablo Torre of ESPN.com. Roberts said of a salary cap, "I don't know of any space other than the world of sports where there's this notion that we will artificially deflate what someone's able to make, just because. It's incredibly un-American. My DNA is offended by it." She argued that the rookie wage scale "is also problematic, as are max contracts, another entrenched restriction of the NBA's free market that Roberts wants dissolved." Roberts: "I can't understand why the (players' association) would be interested in suppressing salaries at the top if we know that as salaries at the top have grown, so have salaries at the bottom. If that's the case, I contend that there is no reason in the world why the union should embrace salary caps or any effort to place a barrier on the amount of money that marquee players can make." Torre noted while NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has "proposed increasing the NBA draft age limit to 20, Roberts rejected the philosophy underpinning an age limit." She said, "It doesn't make sense to me that you're suddenly eligible and ready to make money when you're 20, but not when you're 19, not when you're 18. I suspect that the association will agree that this is not going to be one that they will agree to easily." Torre noted Roberts also does not "expect the players to swiftly consent to the current plan for 'cap smoothing,' as relayed by the NBA's attorneys, wherein the league would avoid a TV-driven spike in the salary cap in 2016 by artificially and incrementally increasing the cap over multiple seasons leading into that season." Roberts would also like to "keep investigating the prospect of shortening the 82-game season" (ESPN.com, 11/12).
SILVER RESPONDS: Silver in a statement to THE DAILY responded to Roberts' comments, saying, "We couldn't disagree more with these statements. The NBA's success is based on the collective efforts and investments of all of the team owners, the thousands of employees at our teams and arenas, and our extraordinarily talented players. No single group could accomplish this on its own. Nor is there anything unusual or 'un-American' in a unionized industry to have a collective system for paying employees -- in fact, that's the norm." Silver added, "The Salary Cap system, which splits revenues between team owners and players and has been agreed upon by the NBA and the Players Association since 1982, has served as a foundation for the growth of the league and has enabled NBA players to become the highest paid professional athletes in the world. We will address all of these topics and others with the Players Association at the appropriate time” (THE DAILY).
