Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[F Gump]

If things continue to move in this direction, with just a few players on max/supermax deals making huge amounts and everybody else making MLE or less, then you'd think there should be some pushback from the players in the next CBA to reign in the % for the SMax/Max deals.  I know the stars have unequally weighted amount of power, but there's not much left to go around for simply above average to good vets these days.

I hear the complaints, but have a different pov whenever this topic is raised.
1 The players have had this issue raised before --- EVERY TIME they do a new CBA. Not new at all.
2 So what we have now is the end result of that pushback the last time - and the time before - and the time before - and ....
3 When this all began, there was NO limit on how much of a team's payroll or cap a star player could get. His last year as a Bull, Jordan got 123% of CHI's cap (that would be like 190M this season!).
4 The argument can be made that stars are not worth so much - and then another one could be made that without the stars, the league is nothing because the stars are what sell the tickets, so the stars should make even more.
5 It's not like a non-star hooper is hurting at all - he can make a fortune every year. NBA player salary AVERAGES about the MLE, and 14M a year for playing a game is not starving. It's lottery money. Every year. At one time in the past 14M was the whole cap, and not so long ago it was a max deal. Michael Jordan only made more than $4M 2 years in his entire career, and now a 3rd stringer can sometimes get that much. The rich are getting richer.

Ultimately, this issue is inevitable, and will not change, because of the setup of the league and its success. Players and owners sell a product, split the money, and then the players get half. The players half of the pie gets bigger and bigger (massively). But then the players all continue to think their own personal share of that pie needs to be bigger (because look what someone else is getting!!). Unless you can mandate away greed and jealousy and "I want more" from the fabric of people, a new CBA will not make it go away, any more than the last one did.

/rant