NBA Lockout

NBA payrolls have been capped since 1983, but there have always been mechanisms for getting around the salary restrictions. The best-known exception is the "Larry Bird Rule," which allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own players.

The league's owners will reportedly push for a "hard" cap in the next CBA -- similar to the structures used in the NHL and, until recently, the NFL.

The players have vowed never to accept a hard cap. But then, so did the NHL's players -- before a lockout wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.

The players' argument against the hard cap is fairly simple. No one is forcing you guys to sign Drew Gooden to a five-year, $32 million contract, or give Joe Johnson a deal that will pay him over $20 million a year when he's 35.

The owners motivation, though, is equally simple. We need protection from ourselves... or, more specifically, from the dumbest among us. When the Bucks gave Gooden that deal, it set the market for moderately-talented rotation power forwards at $6 million per annum. What happens, then, when Blake Griffin's rookie contract expires? He's gotta be worth two-to-three times what Gooden is making, right? One bad deal can cause league-wide inflation.

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