Changes to the NBA salary cap and is it similar to FFP?

This upcoming summer the NBA is changing the salary cap from 70 million per year to 90 million because of the lucrative 24 billion dollar TV deal that is distributed to teams around the league. The NBA has a lot of restrictions that have been placed over the years and ultimately commissioner Adam Silver believes that this system will allow teams to more freely pursue players even if they are close to the luxury tax level.

The problem is many people do not know how this is going to turn out. It could allow for teams already considered the best in the NBA to pursue some of the stars hitting free agency this summer. JA Adande wrote, “If, say, Kevin Durant signs with the Golden State Warriors, it would not only alter the competitve balance for the near future, but also could bring permanent changes to the framework of the NBA." A team that is the best team in the NBA history, being the fastest to get to fifty wins, wold be able to give a max contract to one of the top players in the league. This system was put in place to allow teams to more freely pursue players in the season and during the offseason, but the consequences could just be that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, said, "There will be unintended consequences from all this additional cap room this summer," he added. "I just don't know what those consequences will be." That is a little concerning as a fan of the NBA. The commissioner increases the cap by a little under 30% and does not have an idea what the unintended consequences could be. It is truly an experiment that could go well or could be disastrous.

This topic related a lot to European futbol in that it seemed like a move that gets teams in the NBA closer to an FFP model. The more money you can spend, the more capable you are of forming super teams and having certain teams dominate year after year without smaller market teams being able to use up a good portion of their cap space. In the NBA, the market a player is going to is a big factor in where a star goes in free agency. Teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Portland Trail Blazers constantly have to trade away their drafted star players because they want to be on a better team in a bigger market. Teams in big cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, and Miami all continue to sway players to come to their respective cities because of the attractiveness of their team’s location. To me this type of move by the NBA just gives more power to the big market teams and could be destructive for the move towards level playing field in the NBA. 

On the other hand, this could allow really good organizations in smaller markets to flourish. An example of this would be Indiana who is run by Larry Bird, one of the best general managers in the NBA. When the organization is able to spend more on players, and they already have a great system in place, this could entice big time players to make the move towards better organizations because they can now afford them rather than just big market teams.

Is this move by the NBA moving towards an FFP style of cap control or is it leveling the playing field? Would something along these lines be successful in European futbol considering it’s a lose cap? Will this work out for the NBA or just more power to the bigger market teams?

Source:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/allstar-14773976/adam-silver-supersized-salary-cap