Where the owners and Adam Silver can get more competitive balance out of this is by making the cap hit percentage prohibitive enough that it makes creating superteams difficult.

MLS teams are currently allowed two designated player spots, and they can acquire a third, because the still-emerging league wants better teams. The low cap percentage hit encourages teams to lure top talent with outsized pay. But let’s say the NBA made its designated player cap hit equal to 40 percent of the team’s cap. For next season, that would be $25.2 million. We are already discussing how problematic it is for teams like the Knicks and Lakers to pair another major piece with Carmelo (if he re-signs) and Kobe because of their salaries. Depending on how much harder or easier the owners wanted to make it to double up on established standouts, the cap hit percentage could be adjusted accordingly.

So, what would the league’s elite players do in that kind of system?

For starters, it would be extremely difficult to have two superstars in any one market, because one of them wouldn’t be constrained by the cap in terms of compensation while the other would be. Would Dwyane Wade be OK with the Heat paying LeBron $100 million while he could only make $20 million there, or would Miami have just made him its designated player instead? For that matter, would LeBron ever have left Cleveland if staying could have earned him five times as much as taking his talents to join forces with his friends? Remember, there are only so many prime markets in the league, so these slots would rarely be available, presumably.

The immediate concern from some on Twitter was that small-market teams wouldn’t be able to compete in this system (as if they currently do?). That said, this kind of setup should actually increase the likelihood of small-market teams keeping drafted talent or luring a star they never could get now.

LeBron’s not going to Utah, but there are plenty of others who might.

With designated player spots in the marquee cities almost always filled (sidebar: this rule is made for someone like Carmelo Anthony, who has significant, demonstrated off-court value to his franchise, but whose on-court value as compared to his expected salary is questionable), what happens after that? Wouldn’t someone like Chris Bosh be tempted to take $30 million a year in a lesser market instead of maybe half that to play with a team that already had a designated player? Wouldn’t Andrew Wiggins, if he’s five years into a future Hall of Fame career, strongly think about Dan Gilbert’s offer of $40 million a year if designated player spots are not available in markets he would prefer (and LeBron’s not in Cleveland)?

NBA free agents already are conditioned to take as much money as they can in a constricted market. It’s hard to believe they would operate differently if the market opened up and the salary differentials were magnitudes larger. It might cost owners a little more of their profits to do things this way, but the expectation is that they will concede a bit in the next CBA negotiations anyway. Why not do something like this, which appears to be a giveback, but significantly benefits ownership as a whole, as well?