Salary Cap Limits Clippers’ Options in Talks With Manning

Perhaps it should be called the salary girdle, because it keeps the fat from rolling out, or the salary parka, because it kept some National Basketball Assn. teams warm and alive when times were coldest.

Then again, salary cap fits, seeing as how it keeps teams from going over the top. Whatever, the NBA’s cost-controlling rule is getting a lot of attention these days in Los Angeles because of the prolonged negotiations between Danny Manning and the Clippers.

It would be great to offer a simple explanation for the salary cap and how it works, but that’s not possible. Even the people who are paid to know its intricacies and loopholes have trouble remembering all the fine print.

“It’s as complicated as the internal revenue code or the Talmud,” said Arn Tellem, the Clipper general counsel and the contract expert in the team’s negotiations with Manning. “It’s not like the old days, when the general manager could sign anybody he wanted. Now, you need accountants and lawyers to figure out exactly where you stand with the cap.”

The salary cap was introduced in 1983 as a revenue-sharing plan between the owners and players. It guaranteed players 53% of the gross gate and television income while allowing owners to put a limit on the amount that could be spent on player salaries. The league hoped it would ensure financial stability for each franchise.

There would be nothing like “the best team money could buy” in the NBA, with others over-extending their budgets to keep up or simply falling behind.

“I think the bargaining agreement in 1983 was the turning point for the league,” Commissioner David Stern told United Press International in 1986.

With the economic success the NBA now enjoys, he apparently was right.

In 1983-84, the first season it was used, the cap was $3.2 million per team. From there, it escalated to $4.2 million, to $4.95 million, to $6.164 million and, finally, to the $7.232 million for this season.

The Clippers have $1,520,167 left to spend, under the cap, so Manning’s demand for $3 million, regarded as ludicrous to some, was flat-out impossible, according to the Clippers. They said they couldn’t give him what they didn’t have.

Using the Manning situation as a case study, the salary cap, in simplified form, works something like this:

Manning, the 1988 college player of the year and the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick, is allowed to get the $1,520,167 for 1988-89 any way he wants--in cash, cars, season tickets, interest-free loans--but the value of each is counted toward the cap. Possible incentive bonuses, such as money for making the all-star team, also are counted against the limit and are subtracted only if they are not paid.

The salary in the subsequent years of the contract can increase only by 30% of the initial amount. In Manning’s case, that’s $456,050, which means that the maximum annual salary he could get for the remainder of a 4-year deal would be $1,976,217, $2,432,267 and $2,888,317, respectively.

The numbers in the Manning deal would satisfy his agent, Ron Grinker, as long as all the payments were made during the season and as long as the contract was for 4 seasons. The Clippers have proposed a 5-year, $10-million deal in which they would pay Manning $1.4 million for 5 seasons, defer the remaining $3 million and, beginning with his sixth year, pay it off in yearly $600,000 increments.

Of course, there are exceptions to the salary cap. The biggest loophole is that teams are allowed to exceed the ceiling to sign their own free agents.

Again using a possible Clipper scenario as an example, the team could go over next year’s yet-to-be-determined total if necessary to sign center Benoit Benjamin, who is beginning the final season of a 4-year contract.

However, signing a free agent from another team or a 1989-90 draft choice, or acquiring a high-priced player by trade might require the team to get rid of some other player, if only to stay under the cap.

On second thought, maybe it should really be called the salary rope. The confusing ceiling, although positive for the league, can also do a pretty good job of tying up negotiations.