Back in the day when the Jazz were good, they won the conference a couple of times. Even with an $82 million+ payroll this year, they started out 1-3 and will have a difficult road of winning the conference. Basketball must not be so much like baseball where championships can be purchased...
Friday, November 06, 2009
Flag Friday - Western Conference Champions
Back in the day when the Jazz were good, they won the conference a couple of times. Even with an $82 million+ payroll this year, they started out 1-3 and will have a difficult road of winning the conference. Basketball must not be so much like baseball where championships can be purchased...
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well, I think championships could be purchased in the NBA just as effectively as in MLB.
The Yankees spent 201MB (that's Mega-Bucks) this year. Which was just shy of 50% more than the second place team (the Mets at 136MB). The top payroll in the NBA this year is the Lakers at 91MB. So, if you can give the Jazz clearance to crank up their spending to 134MB this year, I think they could do it. With the extra 50MB they could pick up LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Amare Stoudemire, with 2MB to spare.
That would give the Jazz a starting lineup of Williams, Wade, James, Boozer and Stoudemire. Millsap, Okur, Brewer and Kirilenko off the bench. I think that team could compete for a title.
I'd have to agree that the team you proposed would compete for a title. I was more referring to the weak luxury tax penalties in MLB (starting at 148MB graduated up to 40%) - which doesn't penalize the Yankees all that much for their overspending. Compared to the NBA, which has a 1:1 ratio for luxury taxed teams (different than salary cap).
The other big difference is that of all the luxury tax money that the Yankees paid out, none of it went to other teams in the MLB, while the NBA's luxury tax profits are distributed to non-luxury tax paying teams - thus increasing the benefits of staying below that level.
On the other hand, 2 years ago, the Knicks had a payroll of 124 MB (74.5 MB) above the salary cap - and they were awful. But that comes down to coaching, crazy players and overpaid crappy players.
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