Did removing the hard cap help teams win more, lose more, or trade more?
Posted: December 30th, 2024, 8:12 pm
Hey team, happy NYE!
Obviously one of the most interesting changes with the BBB era (of many) was removing the hard cap, previously a significant restriction in team construction and trading. I wanted to take a look at whether doing so helped teams who were competing, tanking, or both by enabling them to make moves they otherwise wouldn't have been able to make. Here's the dataset I pulled together:
Question 1: How many teams were over the prior $85m hard cap?
Answer: 18/29 teams in the league.
Question 2: Which teams were the most aggressive in going over the hard cap?
Answer: Sacramento, with a total salary of $106,014,557. Color me shocked. Top 5:
Answer: Generally yes. Teams over the $85m hard cap had an average win percentage of 57%, and teams under the $85m hard cap had an average win percentage of 45%. Major outliers were NYK, CHA on the high side and DET, MIA, and PHI on the low side.
Question 4: Did teams with higher cap usage generally get better or worse?
Answer: No, there is no correlation.
Question 5: Did removing the hard cap cause more trading activity?
Answer: Not really, though this was definitely impacted as well by the holiday season.
Obviously one of the most interesting changes with the BBB era (of many) was removing the hard cap, previously a significant restriction in team construction and trading. I wanted to take a look at whether doing so helped teams who were competing, tanking, or both by enabling them to make moves they otherwise wouldn't have been able to make. Here's the dataset I pulled together:
Question 1: How many teams were over the prior $85m hard cap?
Answer: 18/29 teams in the league.
Question 2: Which teams were the most aggressive in going over the hard cap?
Answer: Sacramento, with a total salary of $106,014,557. Color me shocked. Top 5:
- Sacramento Ballers: $106,014,557
- Utah Ballers: $101,327,859
- Los Angeles Ballers: $100,738,072
- Cleveland Ballers: $98,475,715
- Orlando Ballers: $97,122,096
Answer: Generally yes. Teams over the $85m hard cap had an average win percentage of 57%, and teams under the $85m hard cap had an average win percentage of 45%. Major outliers were NYK, CHA on the high side and DET, MIA, and PHI on the low side.
Question 4: Did teams with higher cap usage generally get better or worse?
Answer: No, there is no correlation.
Question 5: Did removing the hard cap cause more trading activity?
Answer: Not really, though this was definitely impacted as well by the holiday season.
- From the 96-97 to midway through the 18-19 season (22.5 total seasons), there were 1,523 total trades for 67.7 trades/season (h/t to Matt and Josh's great work in compiling this data)
- After the HC removal was announced, there were 38 actual trades in the 20-21 season (removing BBBuck and Pokemon trades).
- Taking into account injuries, future asset accumulation, etc as other "results" of cap utilization
- Counting which trades this season wouldn't have been possible without the hard cap removal, whether more "major" trades were made this season, etc
- Looking at post-day 4/5 FA signings (leftovers and in-season LLE/MLE), cutting, and player claims as other activities enabled by hard cap removal.