I think you'd have to consider at least 3 marquee players for each team over the 100k mark easily.

Most of your starting lineup would be around 80k+ with the change going to the bench.

Read on another post how Saville was on a couple of hundred grand more than the max which is $170,000.

No way Bullets, Tigers, Kings, Breakers, Taipans are under the cap.

Considering the hateful starting lineup the kings have with 2 imports on the bench.

You'd be giving Smith, Saville and Worthington more than 100k easy and I wouldn't be surprised if Kendall and Crosswhite are up there too in that category.

Read on another post how Saville was on a couple of hundred grand more than the max which is $170,000.

No way Bullets, Tigers, Kings, Breakers, Taipans are under the cap.

abney is on around $400000

If Abney is on $400k than how the hell are the Taipans under the Cap?

Who says that they are?

I sure as hell don't :-)

how much would jawaii be getting this year?

Maybe the NBL should adopt the NBA rule with regards to exceeding the salary cap and at the same time have more operating funds. My understanding is that for every dollar an NBA team exceeds the salary cap they pay the equivalent amount to the NBA as a penalty - in some case this amounts to millions of dollars. Now I'm not saying that NBL teams can afford millions of dollars but this type of system would certainly have an element of reality whereby teams would have to reveal what they are actually paying players. Cynics might say that teams will still conceal payments but it is an alternative to the current system.

I've always thought the luxury tax would be worth considering but, as you said, there's still the issue of enforcing it.

Assuming it was enforced, it would just serve to bring the average player salary down, which would mean that more players would be playing off shore and lower the competition.

Great idea in theory, in reality there is just not enough money in basketball in Australia.

Stat padding follows.

Of course only a few years ago (c.2001?) the salary cap was set at $1,100,000. You can't really expect the salary cap to be properly enforced when the cap is reduced to $750,000 in one year (now back 'up' to $810,000).

What are all the players supposed to do, be happy with 32% pay cut and keep playing for the love of the game? Not very realistic.

Just because the salary cap was reduced doesn't mean that the player's value on the international market was reduced. If you want the talent you need to pay what they are worth.

It seems to me that the NBL's salary cap is just designed to give the appearance of a level playing ground, without any intention to make a level playing ground.

The cap is to save clubs going broke, 1500 crowds how can they afford more?

Saville is on $350,000 (turned down 400K at Brisbane)

Brisbane has 3 players who combined are over 1 million.

How do they get away with it? They pay to use 'their image'....such as I will give Sam Mack 300K to use his image for a poster...etc

Cairns New Mascot

What 3 players at Brisbane? Mack, CJ and Ere?

"Brisbane has 3 players who combined are over 1 million"

I don't know if that's the case THIS season..... I think one of those players was a recently retired member of their championship team who came accross with a very low points rating and played Centre.

I Could be wrong though.....but there's plenty of players on rosters everywhere that are payed more than the league maximum.

Qlder , Eddy Groves would be worth close to $1Bill that is how they can afford more. Dropping $1million (PLUS) on 3 players is like pocket change.

i think eddy is worth closer to the $300mil mark, still pretty loaded but usually the people who get that wealthy dont like flushing $million+ down the toilet every year.

I think XY is quite right, the salary cap is just a figure to give the appearance of a level playing field. Most if not all the clubs are over the cap (by alot), but they aren't exactly going to dob another team in when they are over themselves. Plus the NBL wouldn't want to enfore the current cap, as the quality of the league will go down.

This whole we will lose all our players to Europe if they enforce the cap I don't believe is true, IMO what is happening is that these wealthy owners are after certain players and willing to pay then ridiculous amounts of money and then the other players who aren't that far off these players are thinking to themselves wait a second, he is not worth double/triple what I am, and then next year he wants his salary doubled.

Its a vicious cycle but I truly believe that although we have some players that are good enough if the salary cap was enforced there would be no mass exodus.

On top of that, I don't see European teams knocking on the door of every NBL player.

If they don't get more, they'll go to Europe. It's not even an option for most of them who would have to play as imports.

We would only lose those with Euro passports and not even all of them, since the Euro leagues don't need our rubbish.

Groves, McPeake, etc will screw the league with their big spending.

I agree that it would be rare for Aussies to make Anderson-like money in Europe, but plenty of Aussies have played there (even if only during NBL off seasons).

Off the top of my head I can name numerous Aussies currently in the NBL who have played overseas: Rogers, Maher, Mottram, Anstey, Catt, Pero C, Jones, Heal, Penney, Rillie, Smith, Stiff and CJ. There are probably others, not to mention past players such as Bradtke, Gaze etc.

Not all those players are 'elite' and I can't think of any of them having EU passports (I could be wrong).

Europe may not have its eye trained on Aus for imports but if you think that all of the elite players here couldn't get a gig over there if they were truly interested I would be shocked.

The question comes down to whether for the lifestyle or 'extra' pay it is worth it for Aussie players to ply their trade as imports (with the uncertainty that comes with it) in Europe or sit comfortably in a team in AUS being paid a great salary.

Change it so that a Catt or Saville or CJ can only be paid max $175,000, or much less if the team was 'stacked'. If they could be paid double that in Europe, of course they would go. But why would they if the NBL is paying them what they are worth on the international market (which is way more than the paltry NBL salary cap). According to the NBL basketball players were 'worth' 30% more 7 years than they are now. That is not a sustainable model.

What are the salaries like in the euro league div 1 and 2? And what about the other countries not in the euro league like england etc. Steven hastings from North is playing over there, I wonder how much he's makin?!?!

Man I wish I was playing in the NBA. NBL SUCKS!

Why do the crows fly upside down over the NBL?!?!?

BECAUSE THE NBL IS HARDLY WORTH SHITTING ON!

yeah cairns was way over......gaze was on 350,000 in the mid to late nineties and Shane heal was on close to 750,000 a=in his pat several years