AROUND the NBA: Pat Bev Suspended 4 Games Next Season| PHX Fires Vogel

[audiosway]

The players won't accept a hard cap ...

But it can be argued that the luxury tax is going to discourage teams from being willing to spend, at a certain point. I can't imagine that the Warriors revenues are big enough to support spending about $750M in a year just on player salaries (contracts plus tax), which is what we are talking about here.

The idea of giving Draymond away next summer sounds good financially (it would cut the $500M tax bill down to only $250M), but it's hard to move giant contracts for no salary in return, because the teams with enough cap room are so limited. More likely, maybe they shop him at the deadline for expiring contracts?

But at some point, they just don't sign someone in the first place -- for example, if they just let Wiggins walk, and keep everyone else including DG, the savings to them (in salary and tax together) is over $400M! I would think that number is big enough to get someone's attention and make them inclined to say "Stop."

We will probably see lots of articles about this looming GS issue in the next 6 months, as the Warriors moan and groan about having to make choices. (Although perhaps just whispers to get the articles written, without speaking directly, since they got slapped down and fined for whining about it already.) They don't like it, but the tax is going to be doing what it was intended to do - spread the talent and force teams with varying revenues to spend closer to evenly.

Yeah. I know the players won't accept that. The biggest problem that most of the Mavs fans don't see when discussing this subject is ticket pricing and other extras. I live in the Bay Area. An average GS nosebleed ticket will usually run you $125. That's for a week night game against a crap opponent.

There is no way Dallas could ever charge that kind of pricing. Between tickets, merch, ads, and other sources of revenue open to the Warriors other teams can't compete. The Warriors literally do not care about the luxury tax.

Think of it this way. These silicon valley guys are ok with a slight profit or break even to bring in a title or titles. The main reason is because they have plenty of other ways to monetize out here. They also are building up the value of the asset as a whole. The Warriors are now up to a $5.6 billion evaluation. Forbes says that they pulled in $258 million last year and lost $44 million dollars.  Meanwhile, the local beat reporters said they brought in over $700 million in revenue last year counting outside sources. When you factor in the taxes they paid they probably walked away with around $100 million and a title. Plus a 19% growth in overall team valuation. They will take that every year.

Cuban may have gotten cheap or maybe he just realized that you can't lose money every year and continue to own the franchise. Even though Dallas is considered a larger market it's only for the Cowboys. The Mavs are an afterthought. They will never be able to throw down the kind of money that an LA, NY, Bay Area team can. The luxury tax is a joke to these guys out here.