Lakers News: How L.A. Could Benefit From NBA's Proposed Hard Cap

The name of the game across sports is to not only make it competitive, but also keep it fair. The smaller market teams tend to find it harder to not only sign big time contracts, but to also retain their best players from hitting the market.

This creates a domino effect of allowing the bigger market teams to be dominant (for the most part) while keeping the smaller market teams at bay. This isn't always the case of course with the dominance of the San Antonio Spurs through the late '90s and early 2000's, but Adam Silver is trying to implement a new tactic that could inevitably help the Lakers in the long run.

In wake of large market contenders Golden State, Brooklyn and the Los Angeles Clippers running up massive payrolls and luxury tax penalties, the NBA's proposing a system that would replace the luxury tax with a hard limit that teams could not exceed to pay salaries, sources said.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 28, 2022

The NBA luxury tax was implemented for this reason alone, but it soon became evident that with rich enough owners they essentially find ways around the luxury tax. With the new proposed system, a hard cap will be implemented to have each team an even chance at a player setting a hard cap.

Jeanie Buss would be one of the beneficiaries down the line in comparison to Steve Ballmer and Joe Lacob, the owners of the Clippers and the Warriors respectively. This could give the Lakers a better chance of signing high caliber players at the right price despite being labeled as a big market team.

It remains to be seen how the players will take this as they could inevitably earn less money with a bigger team. With all the endorsements and tv revenue and ads, the NBA is entering its richest season ever with players looking to be compensated properly.