"All we can do is make an educated guess"

[CeltsSteve@xxxxxxx]

Nothing new here but the article once again makes the understated point it 
just doesn't make sense for any GM to be made to restrict spending to an 
unknown $$ figure that won't be known for 11 months from now. Seems to me 
that the league office could establish a firm luxury tax threshold right now 
tied to a percentage of the salary cap; say 133% or 135% or 150%. Take the 
guess work out of the process and open up player movement. Otherwise, FA 
signings will be at glacier speed as we inch toward training camp. Too may 
decent players are being squeezed right now as things stand. 

I guarantee you when this CBA is up for a new vote in a couple more years the 
luxury tax issue (and the escrow tax) will be hotly contested by the players. 
Out of curiosity, I'm wondering how much of the escrow tax collected from 
player salaries has been diverted as seed money to fund the WNBA?


<A HREF="http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/sports_d3f5739037e2103b1060.html";>Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ajc.com: INSIDE THE NBA</A>
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/sports_d3f5739037e2103

b1060.html 


INSIDE THE NBA
Jeffrey Denberg - Staff
Sunday, August 18, 2002


Executives play guessing game 

At least one NBA top executive would never buy a car without checking prices. 
Funny then how league executives operate under a punitive tax that is imposed 
only after the fact. 

"The idea is to encourage teams to keep [their payroll] low," Hawks president 
Stan Kasten said. 

"All we can do is make an educated guess," vice president and general manager 
Pete Babcock said last week. 

With the exception of three teams --- Portland at $96.76 million, New York at 
$75.5 million and Dallas at $63.38 --- the NBA brethren are trying to operate 
under the luxury tax limit. To cross the line is to invite a 
dollar-for-dollar tax. The problem for teams like Atlanta that are flirting 
at the luxury tax line is that it's all ex post facto. The NBA will not 
reveal the number until next July after all of this season's revenues have 
been counted. 

The best guess, Babcock says, has the line at a low of $51 million to as much 
as $54 million. Since the salary cap was lowered to $40 million, chances are 
the luxury tax will kick in at a lower level. 

There is double jeopardy here because teams over the line play a dollar 
penalty for each dollar they exceed the limit, but they also are excluded 
from the distribution of luxury tax dollars that go back to those teams that 
remain under the tax line. Today there are 12 teams below a $50 million 
salary level, ranging from San Antonio at $47.3 million to the Los Angeles 
Clippers at $22.5 million. Of course, both teams have only 10 of their 
required 12 players under contract. 

Kasten says his team payroll now exceeds $54 million. The Hawks won't have a 
firm cap number until the expected signing of swingman Ira Newble, who wants 
more than the team is willing to pay. 

Babcock said he does not believe another team is competing for Newble's 
services. "We have right of first refusal, anyway," Babcock said. 

Luxury tax fears restrict a player like Newble, who has little bargaining 
power. More established players like Rodney Rogers, Keon Clark and Matt 
Harpring also have met with sharp resistance. Rodgers and Clark were 
basically told to go shopping. 

Rodgers landed a three-year, $9.9 million contract with the Nets after 
helping the Celtics to the Eastern Conference finals. Toronto declined to 
exercise an option on Clark, who got the Kings' $4.5 million middle-class 
exception for a year; Harpring signed a four-year deal with Utah reportedly 
in the $18-19 million range. 

Wins, not minutes 

Milwaukee intends to limit Toni Kukoc to 18-20 minutes a game as a back-up 
forward, hoping to keep his game sharp and his body whole in anticipation of 
a return to the playoffs. 

"If we're winning the games, that would be great,"' Kukoc said on a visit to 
Milwaukee last week. Kukoc added he would live with 10 minutes, "if we're 
winning the games. That's the most important thing I've learned in 
basketball. As long as you're winning the games, it doesn't matter how much 
you play. Winning covers everything." 

Of the trade that sent him, Leon Smith and a 2003 draft pick to the Bucks for 
Glenn Robinson, Kukoc said, "I guess it's a good thing. I don't really know. 
It's all positive. I think the team is good and ready to play good 
basketball." 

No stopping Shaq 

If the Nets acquired Dikembe Mutombo's three-year, $46 million contract with 
thoughts of knocking off the Lakers next June, they had to be disappointed 
with this honest assessment by their new center: "I still believe that Shaq 
[O'Neal\] is unstoppable," Mutombo said at a news conference. 

"When you see someone of his caliber, playing on that level, moving the way 
he moves, all you can do is take the hat off to him, because he's a great 
basketball player and he continues to improve night after night. Many people 
thought maybe he would slow down, but he hasn't slowed down. That's all it 
is." 

Speaking of O'Neal, if he has surgery on his arthritic toe, he may be 
unavailable when the Hawks visit the Lakers on Nov. 12, the final stop of 
their five-game, early-season Western trip. 

CeltsSteve