If you take away 6 nba cities right now, thats what the nba used to look like. I mean, bird,parrish and mchale would never be on the same team in their prime unless they did what lebron and company did. Magic goes to la and join a 5 time mvp and a couple of year later get worthy. Cleveland in the 80's had kj behind price and still had daughtery and nance along with williams off the bench. People will always find something to complain in regards to this team. A perfect example is ok city vs cleveland. The old sonics didn't overpay for lewis and they got rid of allen to get another lotto pick to go with durant. They hit the lotto again and got westbrook and later harden. Cleveland could have let big z go and kept boozer. They couldve drafted someone other than luke jackson or given away 4 of their possible 7 picks since lebron was there. Did they really need to pay varejo 7m per? Hindsight is 20/20, but obviously, the small market of ok city kept adding talent around durant vs the cavs going for band aids.
Depends on if I'm a fan of the team that is gaining or losing the player. Bird, Parrish, and McHale all started their career with the Celtics....
Free Agents in the NBA don't move around. this is all a ridiculous overreaction. Lebron spent seven years in Cleveland, is that not enough? As a matter of fact the league makes it easy for a team to re up its young draft pick on their second contract.
What's the major result here? One team will go from contender to garbage - Cleveland. Not exactly what the NBA wants. One team will still continue to suck - Toronto. No one cares except Toronto fans. (Sorry Toronto, I feel your pain.) One team will go from playoff pretender to championship contender - Miami. Miami replaces Cleveland's spot as one of the EC's top teams. Net benefit is a more watchable team than Cleveland. That's an upgrade for the NBA. A monopoly on championships could hurt. But consider 9 of the last 12 NBA titles have been won by the Spurs or Lakers. (I surprised myself just looking that up.)
exactly, free agency is actually good for the NBA in particular because championships depend so much on having a franchise player. its all about perspective
You're right, for some reason I was thinking Parrish was drafted with the pick they traded to Golden State for him. Still doesn't change things that much: Bird: drafted. McHale: drafted. Parrish: Traded their first overall pick for him. The three of them landing in Boston within a year of each other was a fluke, but it has nothing to do with free agency like leebigez postulated.
You are right. This is one reason I am still watching the NBA. There are still a lot of limitations on NBA FA. Your earlier post seemed to suggest that since the players "have the right" to be FAs, it must be good for the league. That's what I had a problem with.
For one it's spelled "Parish". 2, Bird Parish and McHale landing on one team was not a fluke. It was Red Auerbach being the genius he was in rebuilding the Celtics to what became the 3rd dynasty era of that team. The Celtics had the 6th and 8th overall pick in the 1978 draft. Red took a chance and drafted underclassman Larry Bird with the 6th pick because they would retain his rights for year under a rule that's since has been changed. That was phase 1. Phase 2, they had an unhappy Bob McAdoo that Auerbach didn't really like, so he traded McAdoo to the Pistons for ML Carr and two 1st round picks in the 1980 draft. Phase 3, Auerbach traded the 2 picks from the Pistons (1st overall and 13th) in the 1980 draft to Golden State for Robert Parish and their 1st round pick (3rd overall), which Red used to draft McHale. With that complete, the Celtics became a dynasty in the 80's. Red Auerbach was no slouch in building championship caliber rosters.
Doesn't the NBA have revenue sharing and the luxury tax is split equally among teams that stay under it, correct? I don't see what the problem is.
I understand all that, but the way it all worked out was basically a fluke in the same way that I think of the Spurs getting Tim Duncan as a fluke. It was an improbable series of events that, with a little luck, worked out and will likely not be replicated again. Fluke, n. 1. A stroke of good luck.
It seems you still fail to understand my argument. I don't know why you keep on going with what players "should" have, or their "rights", or whatever. I'll repeat myself one last time. What's best for business and what's best for employees is not always the same. Whether you work for others, or own a business, you should see this clearly. Because not all teams are created equal. If players simply get to pick and choose where they want to go, half of the 30 teams in the NBA would likely fold because of pure imbalance among cities. It's only through restriction of player movement that the league can prosper as it gives a fairly level playing field. Not seeing the relevance of this. The NFL has a much greater parity, and much bigger following. Just because the NBA hasn't folded from lack of parity doesn't mean it can't be a bad thing.
Losing Bosh wont affect the Raptors as much as people think. 2010-11 will be little more than a small blip overall. The guy wasn't exactly a fan draw and despite being an all-star, he led the team nowhere. Toronto sports fans are learning that the "franchise player" mentality is a fraud. From Carter to Sundin to Halladay and now Bosh, they have been over hyped by those trying to sell tickets when the fanbase is far more concerned with either winning, or hard work. There's a reason guys like Clark and Domi, or Oakley and Jerome Williams are fan favorites. If the Raptors go into next season with a $64 mil payroll, they'll actually pull in more profit than if they kept Bosh and became a tax team in the $74 mil + range. There's no way ticket revenues drop by more than a couple of mil, so and if the team is young, hard working and entertaining the fanbase will come out in droves and could not skip a beat in terms of ticket sales. Despite being in Canada, the team is on solid financial footing with or without a star and has a fairly solid fanbase. They continually posts a respectable profit even in non-playoff years even while spending right up to the tax threshold.
A fluke doesn't happen 3 times which happened in the Celtics getting Bird, Parish, and McHale. That's called masterminding an agenda which Red had. I'll give you Bird even though it was apparent in college he was special, the only reason he was drafted lower then 1st overall was that he didn't decide if he was going back for his senior season. Red outsmarted his peers by taking that gamble. But getting Parish and McHale was not fluke. To compare the Duncan/Spurs situation to what Red did, that was more fluke. Because even though a blind man could see that the Spurs were clearly tanking in the year DRob was out, they still had to win the lottery to get Duncan (and they only had the 3rd worst record). But getting Manu and Parker was taking calculated chances on players they scouted before any other team took notice. So, as much as I hate giving credit to Pops and the Spurs, getting Manu and Tony were shrewd manuevers. There's a little luck in all of decision making, especially building a pro team. But what Red (and Pops) did was pure genius.
I agree, and I think more parity is better. My point is things are not inherently worse than they are now if Miami racks up titles. The NBA has always been about dynasties or mini-dynasties (Lakers, Celts, Bulls, Spurs, etc) and this would be no different. If anything this could end a possible Lakers run.
I'd agree with that. Although the NBA could've blossomed more this offseason if these players gone separate places, i.e. if Lebron went to NY, Wade to Chicago, and Bosh to Houston. Instead, the Chinese market is lukewarm to Houston with Yao's health on the balance, and 2 of the top 3 markets in NY and Chicago only made some improvements. And if these players haven't colluded, I'd almost believe that would be a very realistic scenario. Basically, Heat hurt the NBA only in the sense that they prevented potentially bigger and better things from happening.
The fact that they got all 3 was the fluke, not each individually. It took a lot of weird variables falling in place, including one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history. I give all the credit in the world to Red because he put the team in the position to reap those rewards, but like I said before: it was an improbable series of events that, with a little luck, worked out and will likely not be replicated again.
Didn't Kidd try to run to Duncan? When did Wade become a franchise player? I mean unless the definition is now watered down? I think he has been in only 2 50 win teams his entire career and he needed Shaq for both. If he was in the West, he would have been in the lottery 5 of the 7 years he was in the league.
