One subtle change in the new NBA collective bargaining agreement is the alteration of the Over-36 rule to the Over-38 rule.
SB Nation’s Tom Ziller has a full description here, but the basic idea is that the Over-36 rule made it more difficult for players to sign lucrative long-term contracts that push them past age 36. The Over-38 rule pushes back that threshold to age 38.
So who stands to benefit most from this rule change? Players currently in their early 30s who might hope to sign long-term contracts in the next few years. Players such as, oh I don’t know, NBA Players Association president Chris Paul and his union-leading buddies LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.
Again, we’ll spare you the messy financial details, but according to Ziller, the payout for Paul will be massive.
The dividends for CP3 — assuming he wants to remain with the Clippers, and the Clippers want to keep him — are immediately evident. For all practical purposes, under the Over 36 Rule Paul would have been looking at a max contract of four years, $156 million.
Under the Over 38 Rule, he’s looking at a max contract of five years, $201 million.
In other words, because of this one simple rule change, this summer Chris Paul can potentially lock in $45 million in guaranteed salary for the season in which he turns 37 years old.
So are we cool with this? With the NBAPA president negotiating terms that help him personally?
On one hand, we should be happy with any rule change that gets rids of arbitrary caps on player salaries. If a team wants to pay a 37-year-old $30 million, why shouldn’t it be allowed to? Paul, James and Anthony are some of the league’s best players, and they deserve to be paid at least close to what they’re worth.
On the other hand, the NBAPA only has a certain amount of bargaining capital, and for Paul and company to use some of it on this feels a little self-serving.
Unions always face the challenge of representing all of their members at once, with the rights of longer tenured workers who sit at the negotiating table usually taking precedence, and this is no different. Paul helped negotiate this CBA, and he could get $45 million as a reward.