I remember the Kings a few years back when they tried to resign Chris Williams and it looked like he was headed to Eddy.

Kings went to the league and said Williams has told us he will not play here for less than $x ( insert extremly large amount)so we want any team that signs him investigated because that is what he is saying he is worth.

Williams never played here again.

Why cant the Dragons do the same thing. Unless they would be dropping themselves severly in it they could surely use this tactic regarding Ebe.

Dragons: Hey we sined Ebe at $x and he left for more money at the tigers so therefore he has to be making at least this $. If that figure blows the Tigers cap then they have to be over it.

I also like how Westover has been saying that Anstey could be getting paid more elsewhere and that they are playing at the Tigers at a discount. You can not compare different leagues with payments.

That is like saying Bruce is playing here for cheap because he would be worth a lot more if he was playing in the NBA.

Yeah....you're right. But I'd like to see the Dragons admit to one, so someone can get the entire starting 5 at the Tigers. EVERY one of those blokes make the individual player cap a joke.

It's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make.

Probably a good thing I don't own an NBL team, eh?



All this article proves is that the NBL has either :-

a) Their collective heads up their arses

b) a lack of guts to do anything about it

c) an owner on the board that may benefit from them looking the other way

or (and far more likely)

d) all of the above

So the Tigers have done everything possible to satisfy the points cap issue, yet you cry babies still have to have a tantrum waaaaa waaaaaaaa!!!

"Waa Waa" you are thick as pig poo.
If they shoe was on the other foot, you'd be saying the same thing, so we'll assume it's school holidays again and be done with it.
Anon 1- good point about Worthington, amongst others.
And how many more examples does Harmison have to give us of his do as I say, not as I do or am able to provide mentality?

So waa they have had the players provide tax returns have they?

If not then no they have not done everything. I would start with Anstey and then see what was left of the cap to sign others around him.

If Anstey takes up the suppsed 300-400 k that has been suggested then it would be very difficult to hide 9 other guys under the remaning space.

Dicko i dont see how the Dragons would be busted if they said, hey Ebe demanded this to play. Ebe never suited for them and so they have never broken the cap. Assuming he was the one that would send them over the limit.

3 levels of payment need scrutiny

and NBL can only catch the first 2

1/NBL Contract to play $
2/Non NBL (upto 50% above) other payments from 3rd party

3/Then the brown papaer bag.

So if the the Salary Cap is $845,000 then theoretically the team could cost 1.5 times the $845,00 = $1,267,500

The Brown PApaer bag if it exists is unknown and the NBL can't police with out whistle blowers.

I guess its hard to police the salary cap with out side payments and all that, so all they can do is go by the contract sent into the league, another way would be to raise the cap to around say $1.2 million, i dont think many, if any would be able to pay above that and those teams that cant afford (eg Wollongong and Spirit) that should be able to drop into a 2nd division with say a cap of $600k (thats why i like isaacs 2 division 16 team idea), i think this would hugely limit cap cheating as i dont think too many rosters would be worth more than the 1.2 million and this gives the big time owners a bigger budget to work with to legally get the players they want, and stops the cheaper rosters getting flogged every week as they would probably do very well in a lower division with a 600k cap, and would be able to remain sustainable instead of competeing with the cowans and mcpeakes.
With the points cap, i think the limit is reasonable at 68 if they lowered it too much it would just cut out those fringe starters/good bench players say if it went down to say 65 the tigers for example would probably cut say crosswell or corletto and replace them with a rookie so they could keep there awesome starting 5, i think some players should be rated a bit better though, as barlow IMO as an olympic starter should be a 10, but there are also many guys rated too high in the 7-8 region, so if they could fix that somehow the points cap would be a decent system.
I think if you are an olympian/Word Champs at the most reasent event you are a 10 and the nbl 1st team from the previous year should be 10's, and new imports everyone else should be a 9 down, there are some iffy 10's, then loyalty points should not be transeferred, and maybe make it so only say 2 players on each roster can use internal ratings, this still rewards development but also stops teams absolutely stacking there teams by having players on really low internal ratings, yes this means some teams will lose some players they have developed but this is what the system is meant to do, spread the talent and increase parity, the only other exemption should be say a month out from the season guys like Luke Martin and Luke Kendall should be able to get a gig at any team regardless of points, have a set date, almost like a draft day or something, to keep them in the league, say for example if only 1 team wants them they can sign with them for 1 season, eg the spirit and luke martin then have to be fit in under the points cap after that, if more than one team wants them they have to play for the team with the most spare points, eg if say the spirit and the tigers want kendall, the spirit have 4 points, tigers have 1 point so kendall has to play for the spirit, if he refuses to do this, he is out of the league, this will keep the parity reasonably even and keep these guys like kendall in the league, which is only a good tihng. Teams cant be dodgy and say they want a player to stop other teams getting them, if in my previous example they say they want kendall, and they are the team with the most points they HAVE to sign him. Lets face it in most seasons there wont be too many starter level players or stars availble at that point, so giving some of the bottom level, cheaper rosters with some points to spare say the spirit as an example a decent bench player say a kendall or martin wouldnt exactly turn them into contenders and i doubt too may other teams wouldnt really be too upset, and keeping guys like that involved is only good for the league IMO.

Someone left a brown paper bag on my door step once.........For some inexplicable reason, it was on fire.

I agree Jonno.

Too many clubs don't consider vocabulary and syntax when selecting players and deciding on salary. These highly intellectual players are better at choosing names for plays and provide much more intelligent post-match interviews.

I'm behind you, Word Champs worth 10 points.

There is no way the Tigers are under the salary cap. But to be fair to the Tigers, I struggle to believe that the Dragons, Perth, Adelaide and perhaps even NZ are under it either. $850,000 for 10-12 professional athletes is simply fuck-all in this modern day and age.

The salary cap really needs to be raised to something around the 1 mill mark, IMO that would most probably make most teams cap compliant. Not the Tigers of course - 1 mill would be enough to get 3 - heck maybe even 4 - of their players under the cap. :P

As has been mentioned above, the difficulty for the NBL is policing it - they simply don't have the resources to do so. As Isaac mentioned, some tweaking to the points cap (ie. so that MVP-candidates aren't rated 9s and Boomers stars 8s) might go a long way to fixing the apparent disparity in the league.

Heck, let the Tigers give Anstey, Ebi, Sammy Mac, etc 500,000+ each if they can afford it - a decent points cap would have prevented the Tigers ever being able to put together the team they've got anyways.

A suggestion: talk to a local league that seems to do this OK, catch out clubs breaking the rules, and perhaps even has the ability to assist your league in creating and enforcing rules. Perhaps we could join forces with a league that would be in its off-season, hereby freeing up their resources to work with us. The AFL instantly springs to mind.

Does anyone know of any jobs going in the NBL? This isn't rocket science, but will require leadership.

Off course the Tigers are paying the amount on the players' contracts that are submitted to the NBL. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they want the NBL to see these contracts? What Harmison is not looking into is that these contracts may not be the only ones in existence. For all we know and for all he knows, each player may have 3 contracts but only submitted one to the NBL. A contract is a piece of paper. You can write anything you want on it provided both parties agree to it and sign. I am extremely disappointed that the check Harmison makes is limited to the details of the actual contracts presented to the NBL. A statutory declaration is not a lie either that the club is paying the players the amount shown on the contract. They are in fact paying that amount to the players. They are just not revealing that they may be paying them other amounts also.

Anyone wanna bet the the McPeake proofed that article and briefed Harmison before the interview.

Hey Chuck, how does McPeake's arse taste????

This is what pisses me off about the NBL, they think they can make up some BS press releases and expect the fans to buy it. I am 100% sure Melbourne ARE over the cap like most others with half a brain.. and they aren't the only team, by how much is the question.. not whether they are or not.

Harmison sprouting this crap exemplifies exactly what is wrong with basketball in this country. If the man who is supposed to promote and seek growth of our league comes out with this, how is this setting an example on how to run a successful league for the people working within the NBL, or how does it attract potential sponsors to support the league in the future.

A basketball league can not be expected to be taken seriously when such statements are made. I would rather some honesty and something along the lines of " we are finding policing teams salary caps difficult, we acknowledge that there is somewhat of an uneven playing field and we seek to rectify this in the planned restructure of basketball in Australia next year".

Be easier to head to a game not being convinced all teams are under the salary cap. In fact I suggest that the players actual wages are shown on the scoreboard so we can watch the ensuing fight between players who suddenly fight out how ripped off they are getting compared to their team mates.. the NBL website should already be quite good at doing this as putting extra numbers onto the scores is their specialty. Hummer anyone?

"heres a nice piece of shit"

I audited an AFL club for couple of years at the turn of the millenium, of the 16 audit reports that were issued for each team in the league that year 14 of them were qualified. Basically these audit reports said "These financial statements are true and fair and materially correct, however we can't give you any assurance on whether player salaries are correct".

The ATO would have the power to request players' bank statements, but I suspect such powers are beyond the scope of any NBL endorsed audit, as such these brown paper bag deals are extremely difficult to police unless the club is stupid enough to make payments from the club's bank account.

How on earth do you pay for a an increase of the Salary cap.

Those suggesting that pls put up a case of how its to be funded

I agree KC - those suggesting we increase the cap are living in la la land.

Policing the cap just seems to me to be beyond the NBL when it clearly has very limited resources.

Isaac, when you say "make the salary cap more realistic" do you just mean increase it? If so, won't this just defeat the purpose of the cap, which is set at a figure some of the smaller clubs can supposedly afford?

Also, regardless of the size of the cap, unless you can police it, why bother having one?

I say forget the salary cap and try to improve the credibility of the points cap, though that seems like a tall order, because it is very hard to find an objective measure that can't be rorted in one way or another.

In August 2002, it took a few auditors just one weekend to go through the books of the Canterbury Bulldogs and declare them over the NRL celery cap. As a result they lost all of their competition points and went from first to last.

As I suspect this process would have been a little more complicated than if it had to be done on an NBL team (at least twice as many players and a cap of around $3 million back then), why doesn't the NBL order the auditors in?

While the obvious answer is that the NBL has too much to lose if the Tigers were found guilty, perhaps it's actually because the NBL know there's nothing wrong and the Tigers (cough, splutter, cough) are well and truly within the cap guidelines at stated by the NBL.

Please stay with me on this one.

A quick look at NBL.com.au says about the cap "The A$810,000 includes all player payments, for example superannuation, car allowance, and accommodation." "Players may earn additional income from sources not linked to the club they are contracted to (eg. outside employment) provided all details have been lodged with, and approved by, the NBL."

To me this sounds like the Tigers have simply submitted all their player contracts which add up to a value equal (or less than) $810K. They then lodge all the additional income details for each player from sources external to the club. These documents bring the overall player salaries to their 'true' levels or what we all speculate them to be. The NBL approves these details and the Tigers go and win this year's title.

Going back to the NRL, players can earn as much as they can get from external sponsorship, just so long as the sponsor has no ties to the club. If there is an association between a personal sponsor and club sponsor, the amount counts towards the cap.

In any case and as much as I hate to admit it, I think the Tigers can actually be within the celery cap without too much trouble. The NBL are fully aware of this and approved all outside income sources anyway. It can't be this simple can it? Whether or not there is enough outside money to continue this in the future remains to be seen.

mmmm celery

mmmm celery

Spelling intended because the value of both is about the same.

Blazefan, if I read you correctly, the Tigers players are on good incomes because of the external component of the additional payments (which are legal). What's to say they can't earn that additional external income somewhere else. The point I make is that the Tigers are a superior team, well ahead of any other in the league. How do they get to be in this financial position that they can't achieve it somewhere else if they are being paid honestly under the salary cap. My suggestion is that none of the players are doing any other paid work other than playing in the NBL. I suggest whatever their incomes are, they are being paid from one source. Now you can make up your own mind on how much this one source is worth, $840K or closer to $2M.