Kevin Durant and Mark Cuban are negotiating CBA deals through the media. Durant mentioned that the players might want to do away with the limits of max contracts in order for players to get paid what they’re really worth, ala Lebron and Durant. Meanwhile, Cuban countered that offer saying the players are going to have to give something up like fully guarenteed contracts. Well Durant didn’t agree with that trade off at all.
“I don’t think that makes sense,” Durant said Friday. “Give up guarantees? Nah, I don’t think so. Why? Why would we do that? Just because we asked for … I’m not going to talk about this, man.”
Durant said he had a lot to say on the subject, but said it wasn’t the appropriate time for him to express those thoughts publicly.
Either the owners or the players can choose to opt out of the current CBA in 2017 and most expect it to happen. The NBA’s newly signed mega TV deal will raise team salary caps in 2016 but won’t raise max contracts. Some of the guys at the top of the NBA want to have the freedom of making more than the max but that would hurt the middle and lower rung players. If Lebron got paid what he truly deserved to be paid how much money would be left for the other guys on the team? The NBA Players Union has to fight for the majority over the minority. Durant and Lebron are the 1% and the Union needs to worry abot the 100%. This is all negotiating tactics as players will never give up guarenteed contracts and owners will never eliminate max deals. It’s going to be fun seeing the little seeds planted leading up to 2017.