Ethiopian Review

The NBA’s latest admission of feeling duress in These Trying Economic Times was the announcement that the league’s salary cap will be lowered for next season. The NBA, who orchestrated its own sort of bailout package for struggling teams From the monolith:

The figure the league announced Tuesday night was about $1 million less than last season’s cap of $58.68 million, even though league-wide revenue rose 2.5 percent. The number is expected to drop further next season when the full effect of the economic difficulties hits.

The luxury tax level also dropped to $69.92 million. Any team whose salary exceeds that will have to pay $1 for every $1 it goes over. The tax level last season was $71.2 million.

The midlevel exception [which is a salary level that teams may use to sign a player if they begin a season over the cap] will be $5.85 million.

Back the truck up. So league revenues were up for the year and the salary cap goes down?! Who negotiated this CBA for the players? Barry Zuckerkorn? And why do you need so many exceptions for teams that only have to sign 15 players? How freaking hard is it to add up the sum total of 15 contracts? That’s one spreadsheet. Even the most crack-addled prostitute can keep up with that level of bookkeeping. But whores are great with numbers. It’s why they end up peddling sex to make ends meet.

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