One thing I like are trades being made but I like Macguyvering trades by exploiting loopholes even more. I still think that CP3 trade by Morey was just pure masterclass.
When you trade an elite player for picks, as with the Rockets' current case, you hope that by the time when the picks are used, that player will no longer be elite (age) or with the team (contract). If the pick is limited to the contract length, it pretty much cancels the insentive for trading good players for picks.
It was kind of an uproar when Morey were offering 4 FRPs for Butler. Now we got 4 + 4 for Harden. As the saying goes, it escalated quickly! LOL
let's not get too stuck on my spit-balling contract length limitation ... just think about any alternative. The point is, alternatives to 7 years in the future forces the trade to focus on getting more valuable picks in near future (or actual players), which means the whining Franchise player has less control of destination. Instead of picks 7 years out, maybe we see the return to franchise players mainly being delt on draft day for known Top 3 picks, or being traded for actual players (which is counter to tanking solutions) ... and actually, draft day trades are for actual players, too. it's just a return to the ways it used to be, before this new trend happened. What we are proposing is stopping the trend, not really proposing some new thing. just a return to past trading methods.
I think the simplest way is limit the number of picks you can trade, either in a single trade or in a year, or some combination. How far off doesn't matter that much, imo. Teams are free to trade a pick 100 years from now, but nobody is interested in something that far off. One concern is GMs not being accountable for something in the future when they might not be with the team. How about limit the time of the pick to the GM's (not the players') current contract? To further prevent abuse, you could cap the length of a GM's contract to 5 years. It'd be interesting to see how owners would sign or extend their GMs' contract just so their hands would not be tied!
i don't like that. If I stockpiled 4 picks for one draft, and want to trade up to the #1 pick with those, why not? It's about future time, imo. simplest way is changing time in future, per OP.
that's one thing i loved about morey. it showed he really looked for every available avenue to maximize his assets. all the little things he invented or created. for the cp3 trade, are you talking about how we matched salaries by signing people to non-guaranteed deals that could be waived? maybe i liked it so much because that's exactly how i would be as a GM. "well lookie here, it doesn't say we can't do this..."
If the NBA went to the wheel idea from several years back for draft picks, trading for draft compensation would be a lot more straight forward.
All these rules and limitations wouldnt be so bad if GMs werent so incompetent. Although to be fair the amount of "Khan" esque morons has been decreasing, prob cuz hiring analytics geeks have been vogue. If you look at what dooms franchises it isnt really losing their draft capital, its getting locked to horrible players on terrible deals. Look at NYN, they just had a horrible draft getting Obi Toppin when they could have had Haliburton. But the fans are actually semi happy cuz they dont have bloated contracts and Randle is playing well. OTH look at Washington they got a massive steal in Avdija and have all their draft capital are fans happy? Nah they're miserable cuz Bertans and WB who both have big deals are playing like trash. Bertans just signed 20M PER deal and promptly fell off a building lulz. It doesnt matter if they get Jalen Green next year unless he turns into Lebron 2.0 Wash will be bad till Bertans and WB are off the books. Thatll turn off fans and they lose all their popularity and stop making money. IMO teams should be given a yearly amnesty clause that allows them to buy out a player and wipe his contract from the cap. Thatll allow teams undo horrible signings they made instead of leaving them dead in the water till those deals expire.
This seems to be a concession for mega stars and hometown teams. It's weird the CBA's theme was to keep megastars but they're still able to engineer their departure within a season. I guess AD was a softie since he took more than a year to leave...
