Eight of the top-10 teams in terms of total salary qualified for the playoffs during the 09-10 season, with only the Knicks (8th) and Wizards (10th) missing out on postseason basketball.

The Blazers and Thunder were respectively ranked 29th and 30th in 09-10 salary and both made the playoffs, but the teams ranked between 19th and 28th were all lottery participants. Considering there are merely 14 NBA teams that do not qualify for the playoffs, the presence of this glut of lower payroll teams playing shorter seasons does suggest spending money is a substantial factor in on-court success or failure in today's NBA.

However, I don't believe it is necessarily an indictment on the size of market and their ability to compete in all instances, particularly given the presence of the Warriors, Clippers, Pistons, Rockets and Sixers. The Bay Area, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston and Philadelphia are amongst the biggest markets in the country.  Some of that frugality from this group of franchises is a result of how ownership makes its finance choices and also because of past or future intentions of achieving salary cap flexibility. Cleveland and San Antonio are each smaller NBA markets and they had supremely expensive payrolls.

The average payroll rank for NBA playoff teams was 11.4 in 09-10.

Half as many teams make the MLB playoffs as the NBA, with only eight qualifiers. In 2009, seven of the top-13 teams in salary made the playoffs, with the eighth team being the 16th ranked Colorado Rockies.

The New York Yankees won the 2009 World Series with a payroll that exceeded $200M and was more than $50M more than its closest fiscal rival.

Winning is even more closely tied to payroll in today's MLB, though we do see far more teams like the 2008 Rays and 2003 Marlins succeed in the postseason due to the somewhat random nature of baseball.

The average payroll rank for MLB playoff teams was 8.4 in 2009.

The NFL had the most evenly distributed representation of playoff teams during its most recent season.  Out of the top-five teams in salary, only the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints even reached the playoffs.  In total, five teams in the top-10 in total salary reached the playoffs.  The 14th ranked Baltimore Ravens, 19th ranked Philadelphia Eagles, 21st ranked Indianapolis Colts, 22nd ranked Minnesota Vikings, 23rd ranked New England Patriots, 26th ranked Cincinnati Bengals and 28th ranked Dallas Cowboys also reached the playoffs.

The average payroll rank for NFL playoff teams was 15.8 in 2009.

The salary cap era is intended to be a mechanism that evens all franchises, but the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax makes spending more money easy enough for the richer clubs and prohibitive enough for the smaller budgeted clubs to be scared away.

''I think the Spurs were the last time we will see a non-luxury tax champ for a while,'' said Mark Cuban to the New York Times in 2003, a comment triggered by Gary Payton's decision to sign with the Lakers. ''In a law of unintended consequences way, the tax is a threshold that proves to players the team is willing to lose money to win. If a team is willing to pay two times to improve, then the player may be willing to lose a little as well since they are on the same side of the profit and loss statement.''

In the 2006-07 season, there were five teams that had a luxury tax bill, including the Spurs, who owed just $196k after winning the Finals. Two of the other teams to pay the tax that year (Knicks, Wolves) did not qualify for the playoffs.

This season, there will be twelve teams that pay the luxury tax, meaning an increase of greater than 100% over just four seasons.

The NBA's final four teams were ranked first (Lakers), fourth (Celtics), fifth (Magic) and eighth (Suns).  

Joining those four in the final eight were the Cavaliers (third), Spurs (sixth), Jazz (twelfth) and Hawks (eighteenth).

A hard salary cap would likely create an NBA with greater parity, similar to what we see with the NFL, but it is less advantageous for the overall health of the NBA. Teams that can afford an expensive team tend to be in markets where winning tends to lead to financial gain, whereas many smaller market teams have difficulty making money regardless of whether or not they win and are reliant on the trickle down economic revenue from the luxury tax.

Chris Reina is the executive editor of RealGM. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cr_reina.