It's time to institute a luxury tax

[KevFu]

With the economy the way it is right now, that's a bad look. Different rules for the rich?

I agree on the bad look, but you're not making any sense with the "different rules for the rich" part.

It's not different. The RULE would be the same for everyone: Each team would be allowed to put the exact same amount of disposable cash into a players' pocket.

If a player is offered a $10m contract by both the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators, AFTER provincial or state income taxes, the player would get:
$10m from FLA
$7.425m from OTT


And who's the "Rich" in this scenario? It's not Rich vs Poor. The tax rates are NOT in order of NHL economic might. Players from the rich NY Rangers and players from the poor Buffalo Sabres are paying the same state income tax rate.

But you look at how good teams are...
Teams for whom you'd lose zero to $450,000 in state/provincial income taxes... 7 of 8 made the playoffs
Teams for whom you'd lose $1.4 million to $2.575 million? 5 of 9 missed the playoffs.

No wonder no one wants to play in Ottawa, there's a big bite out of your check if you go there.

 

[KevFu]

For the record, I'm not advocating for that kind of change...

I'm merely making sure people understand exactly what it is we're talking about.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I agree on the bad look, but you're not making any sense with the "different rules for the rich" part.

I really tried a couple of times to figure that out, but couldn’t.

 

[BigT2002]

Well, the NBA never really had parity to begin with. Have you SEEN the list of NBA Champions?
Eight franchises (Lakers, Celtics, Warriors, Bulls, Spurs, 76ers, Pistons and Heat) have won 61 titles, and the other 22 franchises have won 16.

The NHL does have overall numbers like that (It's 55-22 in the NHL in the same time span), but most of that stems from the league having only six teams while the NBA had 8-12 for their first 21 seasons.


The big thing that allows super teams is all the Exemptions/Exceptions in their soft cap. It allows teams to add a third guy to create a super team when a hard cap would force players to be like "I can't get paid being the third guy." The NBA needs their top 60 players to be "two per team" and not "one team with four, and one team with none."

Which is fair to a degree. Hockey has had the luxury of being a world game for quite some time. The best players have ranged from Canada to Russia to Sweden to Finland to the US to Germany... etc etc etc etc. The NBA was widely a North American sport. I think Tony Kukoc was the first non-US-born player to be drafted. The NHL draft pool, as such, is much more diluted with overall talent potential than the NBA was in the 70's-90's. It didn't excel as a "World Game" until after the 92 Olympic Team crushed everyone in the first quarters of the game to ignite it being played competitively against the US in the 2000s.

But you are correct on your last point as well. Unfortunately, NBA teams can essentially sit out 2 of their 3 elite players and still win against another team purely because one is a destination city vs. a smaller market. Was one of the absolute hardest things with the Timberwolves back in the day, and it has literally taken two 1st overalls and trading away the future to bring together 3 players to even compete in the Western Conference Playoffs. And even that may not be enough...