It seems to be a fairly established concept that their are tiers of players and the tip top guys get shafted by the max contract while the low and midlevel role players overtimes are drastically overpaid.

What about working these tiers into contract levels that are all tied the revenue just like the overall cap and max level cap is.

1st Round Pick: Remains as it is with a crescendo from bottom to top

Tier 1: 0-$4M per year - Backups
Tier 2: 7-$10M per year - Veteran Quality Starters
MAX: ~$20M per year - All-Star Lock

Contracts in the gaps of those ranges cannot be signed.

Note: These ranges are based on the type of money being paid right now.

So no one can make between 10 and 20 million per year?

Also, how do you determine where each guy fits? Seems subjective to some extent?

College Wolf wrote:
Those tier definitions are complete subjective. A team could sign a guy to any tier it wanted, but obviously you have to live with the consequences.

Ex in New Orleans
Chris Paul - 13.5M to 17.8
Emeka Okafor - 10.8M to 14.8

Okafor makes 87% of what Paul does while Paul's value to the team is probably 90% to 10%. Looking more closely at the contracts (especially the bad ones) I don't necessarily think I have the tiers right. The overall idea is to either fully commit to a guy like Okafor being a star and paying him like one or you need to pay him less.

pants wrote:
Oh, I see. That makes mores sense. Thanks. Not sure if that would work, but then again, who knows. Not sure it could be worse than the way things are now.

Small markets, cold/undesirable cities, and bad teams would never be able to get a player through free agency ever again because everyone would be offering the same money. Then someone will get desperate and offer $20 million to a guy who doesn't even remotely deserve it and we're back to where we are now.