High Payroll, Big Trouble?

NBA trainging camps are just a few weeks away so I thought we would look at teams payrolls and determine what teams are making good money decisions and what teams are making bad choices. The problem with NBA contracts is that A. the money is guaranteed, and B. Players are way overvauled. This makes bad contracts extremely hard to trade. It seems that the NBA more than any other sport chooses players on potential rather than substance. Look at the New York Knicks, they have $140.5 dollar payroll for this up coming year (salary cap $53 million). The Knicks are probably the most poorly run Franchise in all of sports. The Knicks had the second worst record in the league last season winning only 23 games. If the Knicks double their win output from last season to 46 (realisticly the might win 30 games this year) the would be paying a little over $3 million dollars per win. The problem with the Knicks is they have a lot of aging players that at one time people thought they were going to be all-stars but fizzled out. This hurts because teams that can trade for these players value cap flexibilty rather than overpaid neverwas players.

Now lets look at a team like the Chicago Bulls, this years salary is almost $53 million. They added the #2 pick in the draft as well as the best defensive player in the NBA so lets say they win the same amount of games they won last year, 50. This comes out to a little over $1 million per win. The Knicks are spending 3 time more money for a win. Looks like the Bulls have Isiah Thomas’ number. As a matter of fact 3 of the highest payroll teams this year missed the playoffs last year and the Knicks and Trail Blazers (#5) will most definately be watching the playoffs at home again this year.
Heres a link to team payroll and players salaries www.hoopshype.com/salaries.htm