[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7027843/sources-nba-owners-move-slightly-hard-cap-demand

Highlights from the article:

•The "Larry Bird exception," which allows teams to exceed the cap to retain their own free agents regardless of their other committed salaries, is limited to one player per team per season.

•The mid-level exception, which the league valued at $7.4 million last season and could be extended by as many as five years, is reduced in length and size.

•The current luxury tax, the $1-for-$1 penalty a team must pay to the league for the amount it exceeds the salary cap, is to be severely increased.

In last week’s negotiating session, the owners proposed that the players’ share of basketball-related income, or BRI, be sliced from 57 percent to 46 percent, and a source told ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard that the players were offered 48 percent of BRI on Tuesday. The owners also want a five-percent reduction on all existing salaries for this season, a 7.5 percent reduction of all 2012-13 salaries and 10 percent reduction of 2013-14 salaries, a source said.

Even before Tuesday’s session, several agents expected that the owners would relent on the hard cap but dubbed it a negotiating ruse. One prominent agent, who requested anonymity, said the players already were effectively working under a hard cap in the last deal because of the existing escrow system, whereby owners were allowed to hold and keep eight percent of each player’s salary if total salary expenditures exceeded 57 percent. Although it was not outlined in Tuesday’s proposal, presumably the same escrow system would be in place, only with the threshold being 46 percent of BRI.

That means, then, sources said, that the only concession owners made Tuesday — in the face of an array of cuts sought by the players — is no concession at all.

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

That does not sound incredibly encouraging. I like the drop of the "45 million dollar hard cap" routine, but the other "concessions" don’t sound to great for either side. I still can not believe they want the players to take a 9% drop in BRI, it just seems incredibly unfair. I am done guessing what they are going to do, and I have yet to hear a good method of solving things that would make both sides happy. While I am for dropping the length of mid-level exception contracts, I think limiting Bird exceptions would screw teams over, big time. I thought things were moving in the right direction, and I am guessing they are, but it is hard to be overjoyed with the news of this new proposal, especially the way this article put it.

[fastdanParticipant]

One Bird rule per year would be awful. Teams will have to chose between players who were signed or drafted in the same year. Lebron or Wade, Amare or Melo, Harden or Ibaka ect…Though I suppose loop holes of sign one to get to the cap, then use your Bird rule for the other would be available. I hope.

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