This time, on camera!
Harden’s exact quote: “It’s decisions. But I love the Thunder. I’m excited to be here. I think we’ve definitely grown a brotherhood. So hopefully, I definitely want to be in Oklahoma.”
We all know the situation and the challenges in making Harden’s wish come true. But if you want to see what Sam Presti is probably staring at constantly, try out this Thunder luxury tax calculator made by reader Matthew.
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Oh my..I didn't realize Liz Cambage was that tall.
Should they ever marry and have children, at that rate, their kids would be 6' by middle school age
@Borgothh Ha! He says he's one of the best point guards in the world and plays shut down defense.
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@ou_sas A few additional notes not directly related to your spreadsheet.
1) I think the artificial suppression of the cap by setting it the same this year as last is skewing people's ability to assess the ability of super teams to retain their stars.
2) If the cap actually does jump significantly like my calculations suggest then max contracts signed before the jump in cap become even more valuable. (This is a guess I'm not entirely sure if max contracts are max for the first year and then a 7.5% non-cumulative raise each year or max all years. I'm pretty sure it is the former, but not definite.)
3) When people say Ibaka didn't give a discount they are assuming that he will be signing max like Westbrook or EG when in fact he too could have potentially been getting a 4/66 contract.
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As far as your points affect my spreadsheet, I'll just add that since i have no reasonable way of predicting either the Salary Cap or the associated Luxury Tax line, I made a slightly simplifying assumption of those numbers not changing.
That point number 2 actually suggests something interesting about Ibaka's contract. Unlike a max contract, it is not tied to the cap. Therefore, where KD and Russ will get salary bumps if the cap increases, Serge is fixed in at 12.25 mil. That sort of predictability is handy, especially if you expect revenues to increase by any significant amount.
My thought with the spreadsheet initially was to give myself a better understanding of how the different contract numbers would affect the luxury tax situation. I knew if we were above the line, each contract would be more expensive, but before that, I couldn't quite visualize by how much. Now, I can visually see the difference between, say, a flat contract and a tiered one.
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@ou_sas @Jax one more thing...it is a bit of a fallacy to calculate from 12-13 #s b/c the salary cap and tax were artificially set. That being said I'm absolutely confident that the Cap/Tax will increase and the Thunder will have no problem signing Harden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good Night TC. Good Calculation.
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@ou_sas @senseandsenescence @Jax
Given the current time and my estimated time of awakening, it's bedtime!
(by my calculations)
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@ou_sas @Jax Nice work on the calculations for benefits. There is also some stuff on that in 18/19 of CBAFAQ. Looks like actual benefits were higher than you calculated, but there seem to be too many ifs going on to how and when they get distributed that I don't know that we could get more than +/- a mil or two accuracy without being NBA accountants.
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@senseandsenescence @Jax It's as good a guess as any given that we're also talking about a league whose value is rising due to the Lebron/KD rivalry that seems to be brewing.
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@senseandsenescence @Jax I did a bit of number crunching (and saved in my spreadsheet \o/ ) and came up with the following:
Using your 4.32 Bil for BRI (which I'd say is completely fair, given how well you explained it), and using my rough method for backwards-tracing the projected benefits, and assuming that doesn't increase next year, then:
Salary Cap of $59.9 mil
Luxury Tax Threshold of $72.5 mil.
Not going to bother with Harden's Max numbers either.
@ou_sas @Jax No, I ignored that as one of my assumptions to ease calculation. I think that would be ~ 5% change which is less than a mil for harden and about 2-4 mil for the cap/tax. So maybe my calculations were a bit optimistic but you are still talking 14.X / 61.X / 73.X in 13-14 if my estimate is correct. Don't really care anymore tonight.
@senseandsenescence @Jax Thanks. Looking through, did you remember to subtract the approximately 130-160 million for projected benefits?
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I guess I'll make my calculations explicit so everyone can follow.
Case A assumes that revenue in 12-13 is the same as last season.
To do this I took the BRI from 11-12 of 3.375 billion (CBAFAQ #19) and rather crudely adjusted from 66 to 82 games by multiplying 3.375 by 82/66 which is 4.19 billion.
Then I took this and adjusted up 4.5% (CBAFAQ #13) on 2/3 of the value because Coons claims (http://www.hoopsworld.com/salary-cap-chat-with-larry-coon-82411/) that 35% of BRI is TV revenue and I used 33% for ease of calculation.
Thus 4.19/3=1.4 and adjustment is 2.8*1.045 + 1.4=4.32 billion BRI prediction for 13-14. This was very close to projected BRI for 13-14 so I felt it was a safe worst bet (it assumes TV revenue will stay constant).
Case B takes BRI projection for 13-14 (CBAFAQ #18) of 4.481billion.
Salary Cap calculation (CBAFAQ #13):
BRI*0.4474/30
Luxury Tax calculation (CBAFAQ #21):
BRI*0.5351/30
Harden Max calculation (CBAFAQ #16; see note 2):
BRI*0.4214/30*0.25
Results for Case A:
Salary Cap: 64.4 mil
Luxury Tax: 77.1 mil
Harden Max: 15.2 mill
Results for Case B are left as an exercise for the reader (don't forget to convert billion to million).
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@ThunderChick2010 @senseandsenescence @Jax I don't know if I saw the very first commercial, but I know I've seen several of the "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs" commercials, whether in print, on tv, or otherwise.
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@ou_sas @senseandsenescence @Jax
Do you know what commercial I'm referring to--or are you too young for that one?
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@ou_sas @senseandsenescence @Jax
These are your stats . . . These are your stats on scotch . . .
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@ThunderChick2010 @senseandsenescence @Jax It's okay, I'm counterbalancing by having a glass of scotch.
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@ou_sas @senseandsenescence @Jax
You guys are thinking way too hard for this hour.
@senseandsenescence @Jax That's the other thing I did with the spreadsheet. I saved a copy of it seperately that's me only, but that entire spreadsheet should be publicly editable. But if you to make guesses on some of those numbers, I'd be happy to plug them in.
@senseandsenescence @ou_sas Regarding Harden's max versus EG's max, @Jax suggested in the previous thread using it as an approximation of what a max contract looked like, since all I had any idea for was to plug in round numbers (hence why most of the sheets are filled with easy scenarios). I realized at the time that EG's was a matched max, so his raises were only 4% instead of 7.5%, but since I didn't have any better numbers to work with, and I was trying to make quick guestimates for the purposes of judging how far into the tax we might be, I didn't bother myself too much about it.
And I notice that you address only the Salary cap. Do you know the direct calculation of luxury tax from salary cap numbers? I tried to look in Larry Coon's FAQ, but I got lost. O.o;;;;
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@ou_sas @ou_sas I think your salary calculator is off. The two problems I see are no change in salary cap/luxury tax and Harden getting a max that equals EG.
1) Salary Cap- the salary cap can be determined in two ways.
A) The Player's Association and the league disagree:
If this occurs then the salary cap takes the league revenues from the previous season and (ignoring tv revenue which is preset) increases BRI by 4.5%. The rules for Case B then apply.
B) The players and league agree:
If this occurs then salary cap is 44.74% BRI projection divided over 30 teams.
Case A is likely the worst case scenario. If we assume the worst (tv revenue does not increase year-to-year; BRI does not increase year-to-year) the 2013-2014 cap would be something like 64.4 million.
Case B takes the BRI projection for 2013-14 and multiples by 0.4474 and divides by 30 teams. Thus the cap would be 66.8 million. Thus I would be a bit surprised if (assuming my calculations are correct) the cap was not 65 million by the time Harden's extension kicks in.
2) Harden Max>EG
Max Based on the very probable assumption that salary cap rises fairly significantly over the next few years, Harden's max contract will be significantly more expensive than EG's. The max he would receive is 25% of salary cap as determined by BRI times 0.4214 divided by 30 teams. Thus his 2013-14 salary will likely be between 15.1 and 15.7 million using my Case A and Case B numbers. Averaging to 15.4 million the 7.5% yearly bonus becomes 1.16 million.
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@senseandsenescence Ah, fair enough. Still, the cap for '13-14 is still unset, and that's when the extensions would kick in.
I'm still a padawan in my CBA understanding.
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@ou_sas Ok I'll repost. I think it got spam filtered for excessive hyperlink sourcing. In it I address how to predict the cap.
I think you missed my point on the max. I think the max is determined by the max salary the first year and then the 7.5% (non-cumulative) raises. I'm not certain about it, but that is how I understand it. Either way your third paragraph's point stands.
@senseandsenescence No, I missed it. And this was my first post on this thread, I think, so I don't even have the backlog to review.
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@ou_sas Can/did you see my first comment? It is showing as deleted for me now.
![[censored]](http://avatars.fyre.co/a/1/5d0b5ea94a92dcc03142b09808cad674/50.jpg?v=1367800215)
I gather Oklahoma's more into college football but is there an NFL team that Okies are generally aligned with?
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@Old Man Game 49ers... father was a 49er fan and it rubbed off on me when I was a young buck.
@Old Man Game @justin_mia I think Singletary did help the D too....the foundation was there in terms of toughness/physicality, altho schematically Harbaugh and Co. changed things dramatically.
@justin_mia @Old Man Game @C-Wil Believe it or not, I have SF going to the superbowl this year, vs, you guessed it, the Broncos!
@Old Man Game @C-Wil SFO would be interesting in the playoffs to the general public only because of Jim Harbaugh. I think he'd become the story if they ever made it to the Super Bowl since nobody on the team is really all that marketable. Maybe if Moss does something, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
@ThunderBelize @Old Man Game @justin_mia I'm playing around I actually really like SFR and was pulling for them last year. I would like to somehow get a Baltimore/ San Fran super bowl matchup but it's unlikely. The League would love the numbers from a Green Bay/ New England SB.
@Old Man Game Singletary wasn't good for anyone but Vernon Davis. Singletary fixed Davis, that's about all he accomplished.
@C-Wil @Old Man Game @justin_mia I would have liked to see Jeff Garcia get a chance with Harbaugh back in the day... I thought he was a solid QB. Watched him play for the Calgary Stampeders (my home town Canadian Football League team) and he was among the top in the league and won a couple grey cups as well.
he walked into a terrible situation in San Fran...
Agree with Justin ... 2 Muffed punt returns... those still hurt on the replays... and cost me a bottle of rum!
@Old Man Game But yes, a better QB would be nice... Manning I dunno about, I doubt he was even in real consideration, it was just agent bluster and Manning maneuvering for Denver $$$.
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@Old Man Game I'm not an Alex Smith apologist by any means but he did play well last season. They brought back their entire defense and added a couple names on offense, they can win with Smith. They were two muffed punt returns away from a SB last year with him.
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@Old Man Game Best thing to happen to the 49ers in awhile.. nothing's been sadder than the coaches they've paraded in since Mariucci.
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@justin_mia Mostly Cowboys. But Kansas City is a close second ever since Bradford went to STL I know some OU fans like to follow them, but the Rams suck hard. Then of course, lots of bandwagoning going on when the Vikings were good, cause of AD.
But pretty much Dallas and KSC.
@justin_mia Also used to be a sizable Kansas City Chiefs contingent but they've been so awful the last 10 years or so I think that's dropped off quite a bit.
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At my house . . . some years Seahawks and some years Redskins. Most years disappointing.
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