Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 22 Article 12 Issue 1 Fall A New Solution for Salary Disputes: Implementing Salary Arbitration in the National Basketball Association Scott ukB stein Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw Part of the Entertainment and Sports Law Commons Repository Citation Scott ukB stein, A New Solution for Salary Disputes: Implementing Salary Arbitration in the National Basketball Association, 22 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 25 (2011) Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol22/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. BUKSTEIN (DO NOT DELETE) 1/5/2012 2:42 PM A NEW SOLUTION FOR SALARY DISPUTES: IMPLEMENTING SALARY ARBITRATION IN THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION ∗ SCOTT BUKSTEIN This paper proposes that the National Basketball Association (NBA) adopt a salary arbitration system in specifically defined circumstances—for restricted free agents who either last played under a four-year rookie salary scale contract, or last played under a two-year or three-year contract as a second-round draft pick or undrafted free agent. Part I of this paper summarizes the use of salary arbitration in professional sport leagues. Part II of this paper provides an overview of the current arbitration procedures in the NBA. Part III of the paper outlines a proposed new NBA salary arbitration model. Part IV discusses some of the problems associated with the NBA’s current restricted free agency and qualifying offer rules and explains how the proposed salary arbitration system would alleviate these problems.