Explain to me how one player's salary being say $1-2M lower than it may otherwise have been if said player had pressed harder impacts CBA negotiations, especially within a system where revenues are shared via a fixed pot.
Players take less all the time for various reasons. Connor Brown just left money on the table to stay in Edmonton. Does this somehow impact the CBA or is it just a few marquee names? Top players take less to stay or go to no/low tax states. AP for example left money on the table as the top UFA to go to Vegas. Where was the outrage from the PA? In fact, where is the evidence that the PA has ever said anything about an individual players salary negotiation under the cap.
Where is the evidence that one player's salary explicitly prevents all others from negotiating freely to get what they feel they deserve should they choose to do so. Did the fact that MacKinnon had a cap hit of $6.3M in September of 2019 prevent Rantanen from obtaining a fair market deal? Did Matthews have to take less than $12.5M because McDavid was at that number? Do you think that if McDavid took $13.5M in his next deal that Matthews would surrender is leverage over the Leafs?
Can it happen that a star's lower salary could impact a few others negotiations. Yes. Indeed, the most obvious instance that one can point to where a star's salary impacted others would have been Holland's unwritten rule that no one on the Wings made more than Lidstrom. This effective hard cap did indeed play a role in the contract talks of several players such as Datsyuk and Zetterberg. But both players stayed with Detroit and worked out deals under the rules at the time that worked for them. Both could have had more if they had left as UFAs. The Lidstrom rule did not prevent players on other teams negotiating their deals. On the flip side the Lidstrom rule allowed the wings to pay more to other players keeping their depth happy. But even with this situation where management made the artificial cap on salaries public knowledge, we heard no outcry from the PA. Moreover one can easily argue that stars taking their "fair share" impacts far more negotiations in a negative. If Leon, McDavid and Bouchard took every penny that they were able to squeeze out of the Oilers what would that do to the negotiations with future Oiler players?? Less money on the table means the Oilers depth gets squeezed. Furthermore, and this is the key point, there is an implicit impact on every player in the PA when one player gets more because every additional dollar one player gets comes out of the pocket of every other player in the league including those with existing contracts and those negotiating future deals.
I was away for a few days sorry for the late response. I don't have any proof, but I have been negotiating contracts for almost two decades now. Anything you can use to strengthen your position is better. It is very reasonable to assume that Leons Agent is going to start by saying in the last 3 Seasons Leon has
148 goals 196 assists and 341 total points over 240 gps
Auston Matthews has
169 goals 129 Assists and 298 points over 228 games
Austins cap hit is 13.25 so let's start at 15,5 Leon has more points and has been more durable. the cap has gone up since Matthews signed that deal and is expected to keep rising. Even if Leon was willing to take an extremely team friendly deal, his agent wouldn't likely start at the number he is willing to accept.
As for how it helps the PA in CBA negotiating, everything in a negotiating the CBA is give and take, and you are correct the owners might not be willing to split more of the pot with the players, but the more teams that are up against the cap and in cap hell that are trying to contend, will add pressure. It is more likely that they could use this to negotiate a higher cap floor then ceiling. They could use this as leverage for anything that the players actually want. If you can't give us more money give us "X". Maybe the league wants to stop using Ebugs so they want teams to carry a 3rd goalie, the PA can say fine but your 3rd goalie at 1 mil/season doesn't count against the cap.
Again, I am not privy to actual information but seems pretty common sense. Players are always going to want more money/Jobs Security, so the PA and the agents are always going to push for the maximum amount of money possible.