Let's start a list of professional leagues that don't have a cap of any sort... You go first.

Salary cap is being cheated. The points cap is being exploited, but could be improved.

Why are you assuming that your club AREN'T breaking the cap this year? Personally, I hope they're bending all the rules because they won't be competitive if they don't IMO.

exactly why it should not exist, no one obeys it, its pointless and breeds mediocrity.

Pro leagues that dont have it...all of them outside of the U.S. eg any football league in the europe.

The cap is not policed or enforced. How about trying those things first?

Isaac. No professional leagues in any European sport are capped. Nor in the major sports played in Asia (football, baseball in Japan, basketball).

Not having a salary cap is stupid, not policing a salary cap is stupider.

Not having a salary cap would mean that the richer teams would get all of the good players and dominate and the clubs that can't afford good players will lose many games.

Just like Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool all successful clubs with greater money to spend then Hostpur, Watford, Westham etc.

GET rid of the points cap! Let clubs offer extras such as cars, houses and free pay tv etc. Really police it so teams aren't giving more money then allowed and see how creative your club is!

The NHL doesnt have a salary cap, players were on strike for a season to ensure it doesnt.

The Caps are the only thing keeping a lid on Costs that would send 75% of Clubs broke as apposed to being unprofitable.

OK for clubs who have the deep Pockets.

Do we want only 5 teams in the NBL and 6 from overseas? Take the CAPs out and thats where it will possibly go.

NBL needs stabalization before growth.

Whats the purpose of the NBL for BA?
Promote/Develop the Elite BA Players

Why do we need 2 imports?
If more College bounds Ozzies stayed the NBL would be better.

Pay the leser players more not the Imports/Marque players more?

Does our Player payment system keeps the older player in the game too long rather than promoting youth?

Having Caps is one way to attempt to do something to control the NBL.

If we don't do that what does the NBL do?

I don't have the answers but it is not a simple or in a single solution.

PS I meant to say Match Fixing is for profit so to answer the first question no.

Libertine - in Australia?

Take away the salary cap and you can say goodbye to West Sydney and Wollongong. Then watch Adelaide change hands a couple of times. And see what happens to Singapore too.

Even an unpoliced cap is doing a touch more than none at all.

I think that we should have the salary cap at around $800,000 with two imports and then have the NBL offer several imports and australians from college/europe money to play for an NBL team.

This is how it works...

NBL pay $400,000 to the player, then he recieves bids from the NBL clubs and the highest or most lucritive contract he will accept. The player may gets 600,000 and the NBL has better players for a more entertaining match for spectators.

Im with Isaac - the cap as it is at the moment is better than no cap - we just cant afford to have a league where Eddie Groves owns every team!

IMO the salary cap is way to costly to Police properly - we cant expect the league to afford the accountants to search out which players wives sisters uncle is working for ABC Learning centres as a night watchman for 250k a year - and then when they have found it to prove its a breach of the rules. The best solution is the points cap - just make sure it is strict and not rorted (ala re-assigning points to Dench last year) The league can then adjust points to encourage local players coming into the league rather than go to college - or even to encourage them returning from college by giving them an attractive points rating.
Also he Saville situation needs to be addressed - sure he deserves to be paid what he is worth but by taking his rating of 5 to whovever he highest bidder is seems to be a smack in the face to the Hawks - annomalies like this need to be fixed to make the system work.

123abc - you say get rid of the points cap - and let clubs pay incentives such as cars etc etc - how can you see that working?

The points cap is useless. I'm saying just let clubs offer players things like cars, free paytv etc. See how creative your team can be. The incentives has nothing to do with the points cap.

The points cap is FAR from useless. It is the only thing stopping the Bullets from going back to back and making life interesting for the Tigers.

Clubs already offer incentives in terms of cars and so on.

Statman - the risk isn't Groves buying up all the teams, it's of Groves buying championship after championship while some other clubs lose fans because they can't compete (e.g., West Sydney's crowds last year were dismal).

just making and assumption but go back to mid to late 90s when the salary cap was 1.1 million i think, the competition then seemed much more enjoyable there were more then 2 teams competing was a much more exciting period,

why not increase the cap to 900-1 mil but put in some other restrictions eg, a team can only side 1 10pt player or 2 9 pt players, restrict the amount of "marquee" type players a team could have, abolish any points reduction for players leaving a club eg bradtke 5 at tigers moves to bris as a 5 instead he should move as X points player determined by his ranking in his prefered playing position which may have ranked him a 7 or 8.

same with saville hes a 5 for the gong but to any other club he would be a 9-10

baring in mind that the points system should be the strict part, eg no points reductions on appeal, and all imports are a 10 but reduced to 9 for the 2nd season in the nbl and maybe further reduction to 8 if they stay 3+ years with the club,

maybe do something similar to the AFL if a player stays at one club for 10+ season he gets put on the clubs veterans list enabling half his salary to be excluded from the salary cap, this promotes loyalty and in the case of a gong they could offer him more and have half of it excluded from the cap like the AFL.

these are just thoughts but maybe its worth restricting it through how many point players you can sign with a certain value.

Agreed Isaac - I was being facetious with my comment and agree with you in that without some form of salary cap Eddie (or someone else with a silly amount of money) could just but the players to win a championship rather than buy all the teams and run his own league ;)

123abc - lets imagine Im really creative and offer a player a childcare centre - or a pub - or a whatever - to play for my team. How 'creatve' one can be depends upon how much money they have I suppose hence I feel your idea is flawed

the cap does not prevent one or two teams dominating..(see the nbl last couple of years)

A cap does not make super teams, yes in the premier league there are the big 4..but after them atm are reading??..Portsmouth???,...Bolton?? I believe what happens is more people than just Eddie get interested in the game and its possible benefits..they buy clubs we get a quality competetive league.

By the way, all those players who cant make NBA..but are going to Europe...are only doing it coz the money is better there...we could have the best players outside the US on our courts if we paid enough.

As long as the teams are run efficiently and are profitable, we will have better games.

That is why the salary cap isn't the problem. The points cap is - we had the addition of two teams in two years, yet the points cap has gone UP! More teams, more playing spots, yet clubs can recruit more? That is the exact opposite of what should be happening.

We need a better spread of talent across the teams.

Yeah, its crazy. There will be 20 more players playing next year but the pool of Australian players to choose from will be the same. There will be 4 more imports (40 points) but the other 16 Australian players to come in to various rosters are likely to be rated only very low (1 or a 2, maybe a 3 at best for the odd player returning from overseas). In any event the total rating of the players coming in is likely to be no more than 70. And thats for two new teams!

To make it truly fair they should have reduced the points cap by approx 5 by my calculations. That would make for some interesting (and more even) squads.

Exactly right. Someone on OzHoops did some calculations based on the talent pool, their ratings and the number of teams and came to a similar conclusion.

How the NBL didn't see this, I don't know.

Isaac, yes in Australia salary caps are a neccessity.

$$$$ talks, and quite simply no sports players in Australia can even DREAM about what their counterparts are earning overseas in non-capped (ie Europe, Asia) and capped leagues with super-gigantic television and sponsorship revenues(American pro leagues).

This isn't a basketball only issue:

FoxSports paid $130m for the A-League rights and saved it from extinction; 5 clubs are underwritten by the FFA and two more likely to follow suit (Adelaide Utd the only club in the A-League to post a running profit over the last 2 years).

For the NBL to work properly, the salary cap NEEDS to be policed, and the points cap NEEDS to be lowered. That way, equitable measures are in force to prevent dynasties and to ensure/promote long-term competition. Otherwise, have a DRAFT.

hmm the only thing worse than a salary cap... "THE DRAFT".

All of these ideas are about mediocrity and making a level playing field, this is an example of the schooling of the 80's- 90's where compettition and elitism has been removed and replaced with "the norm".

I dont want to see passionless, mediocre performances, just because a game is close, does not neccessarily mean its a great game. show me skill, flair, sparks of genius.

The current AFL has a salary cap and a draft...every team gets its 2-3 year turn at the top...but..is being fair and equal what you want in sport..or do you want brilliance?

Fair point, but without parity, the weaker teams struggle, get even weaker and die. As soon as the vultures are over the carcass, they struggle to recruit and you can wave goodbye.

The other thing I like about the points cap is it can be manipulated to help the league.

ie the bottom 2 teams can have an extra 2 points added to their cap to allow them to recruit better players and hopefully improve. Also teams breaking rules could have points docked as punishment(that one prob never happen but still is an option)

Again all this wont work unless the commish actually decides to police the cap correctly

Thanks Isaac and statman, in the last 2 posts i think you have completely confirmed my question, that being.. does it equal match fixing?

I think your posts say, it makes a more even competition and protects the weaker sides, so...therefore it is legalised match/league fixing?

Which by the way, makes the betting on sport just that little more successful as a business and IMO opens the door to a more lucrative opportunity for players to actually fix matches. (closer games = players more able to influence results).. but..i may be getting carried away there :)

The cap should be $5 million$+ then not so many players would leave for the european clubs = More exciting and better quality.

Not many teams could pay that and sustain it.