MLE potentially worthless in 2015?

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One thing that we must address first is that the MLE is not tied to the salary cap. It will not go up drastically as the cap jumps over the next few years. Instead, it has already been previously negotiated and is set moving forward for the remainder of this current collective bargaining agreement. A team can use the MLE to give out a deal that goes up to four years in length with raises of up to 4.5% per year. This summer, you can use the MLE to give a guy a contract that starts at $5.464 million. That means that the max contract you can give a guy would be 4 years, $23.4 million. In year two, he would make 5.7 million; Year three, $6 million; Year four, $6.2 million. And those years are where the problem lies.
In the first year of his deal, the player would account for about 8.2% of the cap. But in year two, that would plummet down to about 6%, and in years 3 and 4, he would be making about 5% of the cap. Basically, in a few years, $6 million will be equivalent to what $3.5 million dollars is today. Good luck signing a quality, up and coming player to a deal that will be paying him about 5% of the cap in a few years. Agents know where the cap is going and they are not going to have guys locked into a deal that will leave their clients severely underpaid in years two and beyond.
This is the dilemma for any team that is depending on the MLE to get them a missing piece this summer. It could get you fringe starter or high level backup players in the past, but it likely won’t have the same pull this summer. Maybe guys will take one year deals, but a one year deal does not give you a player’s Bird Rights, and that makes him harder to retain if he plays well (see: Anthony Morrow). Maybe you can use it to rent a player, but the Pelicans seem more interested in collecting players that can be a part of the foundation moving forward. That will be hard to do with the MLE this summer.

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