It failed because one team was allowed to become disproportionately strong, which made two seasons in a row incredibly boring. The entire purpose of the cap is to have parity in the league. There is none. Therefore, the cap has failed.
First of all, that's not the purpose of the cap. It's not there to prevent a player like Durant from joining a team like GSW. To characterize the Durant to GSW free agency deal as a failure of the cap, is to not understand the purpose of the cap.
The purpose of the NBA's cap is not to create parity. The NBA is not after parity. If they were, they'd have a hard cap, no Mid-level exception, no Bird Rule, etc. The league knows that NBA fans, hardcore and casual, aren't attracted to the Finals because of the teams. They are drawn by the league's biggest stars, who tend to gravitate to the big markets. It is a by product of open FA in the NBA.
Besides, San Antonio has proven that you don't HAVE to be a big market team in order to get stars and win.
It may actually be good for league profits as you say, but it makes the league a whole lot less entertaining. So fine, you can argue it is good for business, good for the investors, bad for us.
Investors? You mean the owners. They don't want to see a a string of 4 game Finals, but we haven't seen that.
What is bad for the fans and owners alike, is an entire conference that doesn't know how to build a championship team. It is not the Dub's fault that the east is sub par. But as I have argued, this period where GSW dominates, is not likely going to last much longer despite the relative youth of their core.
Don't fix what isn't broken. Tell the east to do a better job of team building, rather than blaming their problems on league rules.
Be honest for a second. Other than people who have been Warriors fans for years, do you think *anybody* is more entertained now than they were two years ago when the Cavs/Warriors series was well balanced? Profits aside, purely speaking of entertainment value for the average fan whose home team is not Golden State.
"Years ago"?
Okay, four game sweeps are rarely entertaining, however, "years ago", as you put it (actually just 4 years ago), these two teams played an exciting 6 game series in the Finals. Three years ago the Cavs came back from being down 3-1 and won a stunning game 7 on the road.
It is only the last two years that the Cavs have totally sucked. Don't get distracted by the "shiny object" that is the Cavs stunning fall from competitiveness.
Also one more thing, your argument: "If you want any limits at all on free agency you want to completely eliminate free agency."
Stop it. That is dumb. A straw man argument, arguing against the extreme. Just poor debate.
Pretty much everything you wrote before pointed to a desire to stop Kevin Durant type FA deals. How are you going to do that and maintain open free agency? That's why I mentioned the NFL's franchise tag, because that would have stopped the Durant deal. Now, if you have a different rule or process that would have stopped the Durant deal...I'm all ears.
BTW, there are already limits on free agency. Read the rules.You are advocating additional limits to free agency essentially because of what has happened in the Finals the last two years. Although I don't consider GSW to be a superteam in the traditional sense (2 or more free agents acquired through FA to join other superstars), it is unlikely they'll make it to another Finals next season. Once again, the problem is not league rules, it is the lack of competence of management in the eastern conference. And even "true" superteams don't always win. OKC, anyone?
No one is saying get rid of the cap. The question is whether you want a soft cap that lets a good team sign good players even when they're out of cap space and lets them re-sign their players for even more money when they're over the cap or you want a hard cap that limits how much you can spend.
I see, yes, small market NBA owners have argued for years for a hard cap. The last CBA tightened cap rules even further. I can only assume the owners in favor of a hard cap think it will make the job of building a winner less difficult for them. The problem is, as always, the Spurs, who have proven that small market teams don't need a hard cap in order to win.
Implementing rules, like a hard cap, which would force more top tier players out into the open market, is a move designed to promote parity and I just don't think that is a good model for basketball. It works for the NFL mainly because there are so many more players and most of them are "faceless" because of the equipment.
Parity works in the NFL because the league sells teams v teams, city v city. Because of the nature of basketball, fewer players, identifiable stars, the NBA sells stars (unless it's Boston v L.A., or L.A. v New York).
Further, the NBA's soft cap does encourage players to stay with the team that drafts them, which is also to the benefit of small market teams. But if you draft the wrong guys, a soft cap wont help -- neither will a hard cap. It all boils down to the astuteness of management and ownership regardless of the FA and cap rules.
Finally, I am against rules that further restrict player movement. People look at the NFL and think that model is good for any team sport. That simply is not true and the NBAPA will continue to oppose it.
That would actually not be too bad, depending on whether Aldridge et. al. can play together effectively with Kyrie... and the second pick yields a potential all-star ready to go from the jump.
