On Monday, the NBA revealed that it has reached a new multi-year agreement with Walt Disney and Turner Broadcasting, giving ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV exclusive rights in broadcasting the national TV games. The television networks will reportedly pay as much as $24 billion - nearly $2.7 billion annually. For the players and their agents, this simply means that there is more money on the table once the new deal kicks in at the start of the 2016-17 season.
Will this new TV deal and the rising salary cap that is guaranteed to accompany affect the long-term contract extension talks between teams and their franchise players like the Portland Trail Blazers and its three-time All-Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge?
Ken Berger of CBS Sports speculates that Aldridge might just take another route in free agency to capitalize the potential financial benefits of the new TV deal:
Individual max contracts for players with 10 or more years of service would start at $28.2 million in 2016-17 based on these projections and calculations negotiated in the 2011 CBA. This explains why James signed a two-year deal with a player option for 2015-16 when he returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers as a free agent this past summer. James' current max deal pays him $20.64 million this season. Other prospective free agents such as Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol are expected to take the same approach to maximize their earnings under the new TV deals.
Aldridge revealed to The Oregonian that he decided to wait for next summer before signing a contract extension to maximize the amount of money and years he can get adding that it was simply a "business move" and had nothing to do with his commitment with the Blazers.
But Blazers fans can stop holding their breath, though, as a league source said that the new deal won't have any impact on Aldridge's pledge to sign a long-term extension in Portland next summer according to Joe Freeman of The Oregonian:
The source said max contract players such as Aldridge sign deals based on a percentage of the salary cap - not a specific dollar amount. Aldridge's annual salary will pencil in at 30 percent of the Blazers' cap when he signs his deal, no matter how much it is. Afterward, he would receive 7.5 percent increases each year for the length of his deal.
Simply put, if Aldridge was truly intent on taking full advantage of the new TV deal - which almost everyone in the league knew was coming - he probably would have just agreed on a one-year deal that had a player option attached to it then cashed in on a bigger contract extension under the new cap just like what LeBron James did when he signed a two-year deal with Cleveland.
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