I think you are wrong here, look at what their biggest-market team did over the last few years - the New York Knicks unashamedly offered up a sub-standard product due to their merciless salary dumping in pursuit of LBJ's signature. They ended up with Amare and Felton instead, so they are at least decent this year, but their years of mediocrity could not have been good for the Knicks' bottom line. Would they have done that knowing they couldn't get either LBJ or Amare?
My other thoughts on this matter: There is also the effect the Douchision has on the "integrity" (term used under advisement) of the Draft. Cleveland tanked unmercilessly in order to give themselves the best chance at landing LBJ in the draft. Their reward is a single Finals appearance, the loss their star player for nothing except an effectively worthless trade exception, and a return to exactly where they were before his arrival, last-place mediocrity. And over the years, many, many other teams have had to endure the "Where will he go when his contract expires?" speculation with their star players. It happened with Duncan and the Spurs, it happened with the Cavs and LBJ and us and Bozzer and the Suns and Amare, etc, etc, this year its Melo, and we're also getting chatter already about CP3, DWill, Dwight Howard, etc, etc years before their contracts expire. Why are the sports pages filled with this stuff instead of the actual product on the floor?
The other thing the new rules will hopefully stop is this foolishness about trading players because of their contracts. Remember how Raef LaFrentz was always talked about as a valuable trade chip because of his contract, even though he hadn't played for years. We traded away Maynor just to get rid of Harpring's contract. Toronto hung onto Stojakovic for ages in case they could use his contract (as distinct from him) in a trade. Dampier's unique contract was the subject of so many articles over summer because IT was valuable even though he was worth so little as a player. We all know about AK's contract. And so on.