Bill Simmons On The NBA A rather long read but a thought provoking one. He singles out Morey for how he's managed the Rockets' salary cap and T-Mac for being overpaid: When the Writers Guild of America went on strike in 2007, something fascinating happened: The networks, production companies and movie studios slowly realized their infrastructure made no real sense. They had been handing out too many developmental deals, green-lighting too many pilots and overpaying for too many movies for far too long. It was a broken model. Only when that massive overhead was removed for a few months and Hollywood didn't collapse did everyone realize, "Wait a second, were we doing this the right way?" The answer, clearly, was no. The old way was like watching two people battle over entrée choices for dinner, then playing it safe by ordering everything on the menu. When the strike ended right as the economy was turning, new Hollywood tightened its belt, stopped overdeveloping and aimed for a higher batting average. Frugality and caution now carry the day. Sure, A-listers earn as much money as they always did, and expensive movies and television shows cost as much as they always did. But that's where it ends. Creative people in Los Angeles talk longingly of "the old days" now, back when you could waltz into someone's office, pitch a half-baked idea and walk out with a check. No longer. In the NBA, the owners are headed for a similar, "Wait a second, were we doing this the right away?" realization, if it hasn't happened already. The current system doesn't fly. The salary cap and luxury threshold ebb and flow with yearly revenue -- so if revenue drops, teams have less to spend -- only there's no ebb and flow with the salaries. When the revenue dips like it did these past two seasons, the owners are screwed. They arrived at this specific point after salaries ballooned over the past 15 years -- not for superstars, but for complementary players who don't sell tickets, can't carry a franchise, and, in a worst-case scenario, operate as a sunk cost. These players get overpaid for one reason: Most teams throw money around like drunken sailors at a strip joint. When David Stern says, "We're losing $400 million this season," he really means, "We stupidly kept overpaying guys who weren't worth it, and then the economy turned, and now we're screwed." This isn't about improving the revenue split between players and owners. It's about Andre Iguodala, Emeka Okafor, Elton Brand, Andrei Kirilenko, Tyson Chandler, Larry Hughes, Michael Redd, Corey Maggette and Luol Deng making eight figures a year but being unable to sell tickets, create local buzz or lead a team to anything better than 35 wins. It's about Jermaine O'Neal making more money this season than Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Serge Ibaka, Eric Maynor, Thabo Sefolosha and Jeff Green combined. It's about Rasheed Wallace -- a guy who quit on his team last season, then showed up for this one with 34Cs and love handles -- roping the Celtics into a $20 million, three-year deal that will cost Boston twice that money in luxury tax penalties. It's about Tracy McGrady making $22.4 million, being unhappy coming off the bench, then convincing his team to let him disappear until it traded him. It's about Gilbert Arenas hogging one-third of Washington's salary cap next season even though he brought guns into the Wizards locker room and had to plead no contest to a felony. It's about Joe Dumars dumping Chauncey Billups and Arron Afflalo (combined cost: $13.2 million this season) so he could give Rip Hamilton, Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon $143 million combined. It's about Jamaal Tinsley getting paid $10.6 million this season and the next by Indiana not to play there. It's about Brian Cardinal, Darko Milicic, Bobby Simmons, Eddy Curry, Kenny Thomas, T.J. Ford, Mark Blount, Etan Thomas, Andres Nocioni, Tony Battie, Adam Morrison, Marcus Banks, Marko Jaric, Matt Carroll, Jerome James, Mike James, Jason Kapono, DeSagana Diop and Dan Gadzuric making more than $120 million combined this season to dole out high-fives. And the owners are blaming the players? Really? Just in the past three years, we've seen general managers Sam Presti (Zombie Sonics), Daryl Morey (Rockets) and John Hammond (Bucks) build competitive teams by prudently watching their cap, searching for bargains, building around young talent and picks, and/or carving out enough cap space to take advantage of desperate suitors who will pay with draft picks or young players just to dump an unsavory contract. There's a method to their madness. They are the minority, not the majority. Most of their competitors sabotaged themselves and inadvertently reduced the value of franchises as a whole. For instance, when I was in Dallas for All-Star Weekend, I asked an extremely wealthy person the following question: "Why haven't you bought an NBA team yet?" His answer: "Because they're still overvalued. Anyone who buys in right now is doing it for ego only. That's why the league grabbed the Russian's [Mikhail Prokhorov's] money [for the New Jersey Nets] so quickly. He has a big ego and deep pockets, and he didn't know any better. He just wanted in. The pool of American buyers who fit that mold has dwindled. Look at [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison. Five years ago, he would have jumped on the Warriors like Cuban jumped on the Mavericks. Now he's being much more cautious. He doesn't think they're worth more than $325 [million] and they aren't. Not with the current revenue system, not without a new arena, and not with a lockout coming. It's a dumb investment." This is how the NBA's situation differs from Hollywood three years ago. Hollywood stumbled by accident into the realization that things were broken. But the NBA already knows. The league wants a system more beneficial to owners that features a hard salary cap, no long-term deals (only three or four years guaranteed at most) and no luxury tax. The players will dig their feet in and fight. We will have a lockout or a strike. It will last for months. And months. And months. Start preparing yourself mentally now. It's going to happen. And really, I would be fine with this. I would. Just one problem ... Let's say the owners get their way and the new system is better than the old one. Great. Awesome. Answer these questions for me: 1. Why should I care? 2. Why should you care? 3. Why should either of us care that owners might not lose as much money in 2013 as they did in 2010? Does it mean ticket prices will drop? I doubt it. Does it mean franchises with older arenas aren't in danger of having their team hijacked like the Sonics were stolen from Seattle? I doubt it. Does it mean failing teams won't continue to tank down the stretch for lottery picks, or dump some of their best players to contenders for 40 cents on the dollar to save a few bucks? I doubt it. So I ask you again ... why should we care? For instance, let's say you root for the Wizards like my buddy House. Over the last two years, House watched his team overpay Arenas ($111 million; nobody else could have offered more than $85 million at the time) and Antawn Jamison (a $41 million extension for someone about to reach his mid-30s) in a bizarre attempt to keep together the nucleus of a noncontender. Those contracts forced the Wiz to package the No. 5 pick in the 2009 draft, along with a couple of lousy contracts, for immediate help (Randy Foye and Mike Miller). When that move backfired and Arenas went child actor on us, the team called an audible and dealt three of its four best players (Jamison, Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood) for expiring contracts and the No. 30 pick in the 2010 draft. Three unintentionally funny outcomes here. First, Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld was the one who overpaid everybody, then had to sacrifice Butler and a 2009 lottery pick just to undo his own horrendous mistakes. Basically, he created the same cap space that could have been attained two summers ago, only Washington fans lost a lottery pick in the process. Did he get fired for this? Of course not. LeBron James wants to join Gilbert Arenas in Washington! OK, probably not. Second, the Wizards will have a ton of cap space this summer, only this summer's top free agents won't be saying, "Man, I'd love to play on a young team that's built around Gilbert Arenas." So it's a flawed business plan coming out of the gate. They shouldn't even mention the word "cap space" to their fans again. It's like promising your kids an ice cream at the end of a long drive when you know there's nothing in the fridge. Third, they actually tried to sell their fans that one benefit of the Jamison trade was dipping the Wizards under the luxury tax threshold. As House hissed afterward, "What the [bleep] do I care if the Wiz aren't paying the tax? How does that affect me? Does that mean they're lowering ticket prices for the rest of the year then?" Nope. Over the past five years, half the league's franchises crapped on their season-ticket holders at least once with mismanagement, salary dumping and/or tanking for lottery picks. Along with the Wizards, the following fan bases have reached a breaking point with their respective teams: Sixers, Pistons, Pacers, Nets, Knicks, Suns, Clippers, Warriors and Timberwolves. Depending on how the summer of 2010 works out, we could be adding Cavs, Heat, Raptors, Hawks and/or Grizzlies fans to that list. And four other teams have tried to put out a quality product but still hemorrhaged money this season: New Orleans, Milwaukee, Charlotte and San Antonio. (Yes, I just mentioned 19 of the 30 NBA teams. You counted correctly.) Some situations are fixable with a better revenue system, so let's concentrate on the "franchises that can't stop crapping on their fans" group (10 teams in all, counting the Knicks). Guess what happens when you get continually crapped on? It kinda makes you not want to support your team anymore. You know, because you have a big pile of crap on your head. Teams don't seem to understand this; apparently, neither does the league. For instance, I have Clippers season tickets. At last week's deadline, the Clippers dumped Marcus Camby, the league's second-leading rebounder and their best defensive player, for two expiring contracts and $1.5 million in cash. I had tickets last Wednesday to watch Atlanta kick the butts of the suddenly depleted/lousy/rebuilding Clips. Did the price of those tickets change? Of course not. Hey Mr. Billionaire Housing Discriminator Who Owns The Clippers, I'm glad you pocketed that extra $1.5 million. Really, I am. But what did that do for me? Why didn't you use that savings to discount my last two months of tickets? And what about the other "customers" who bought season tickets because you promised a good product and didn't deliver for the 17th time in the last 18 years? Now, here's where you say, "Simmons, you're an idiot for buying tickets for that septic tank of a franchise in the first place." Great point. I still own Clips tickets for two reasons: I like seeing the other teams, and there's a puncher's chance that someone like LeBron or Wade might be dumb enough to sign here. Stupid, I know. I'm delusional. But I have owned Clips seats for the past six years; in five of them, the season was over in mid-February. Does the NBA care that I feel like an idiot for continuing to renew these seats? I don't know. Does the NBA care about all the loyal customers in every failing city who feel like idiots for continuing to renew their seats? I don't know. Shouldn't I know? * * * Here's what we do know ... Teams survive on TV money, season-ticket revenue and luxury suites. They don't care about the upper decks. They care about getting fat checks in March and April for the following season, then banking that money for a few months and collecting interest on it. They care about getting us to pay for a spring's worth of playoff tickets upfront even though our team might survive only eight days in the postseason. And if they stink, they care about only one thing: creating an illusion of regret. The illusion of regret is crucial. It's the single most important dynamic in the NBA right now. It drives every lottery drawing, every trade deadline and every free-agency period. It drives Knicks fans to make the decision in 2008, "I'm gonna ride this out for another two years JUST IN CASE we get someone good two years from now." It's driving more interest in this particular offseason than any in recent memory; as incredible as this sounds, people are anticipating July more than June. The illusion of regret is also relatively evil, no different from America's lottery system that preys on the lower class: convincing people to pay for the unlikely chance that something good might happen, then making them feel like idiots when it doesn't. This is how the NBA differs from any other professional sport. In a league with 12-man rosters, in which only five guys can play at once, you're really only as good as your franchise guy. If you don't have one, you're screwed. That's where the illusion of regret comes in. A noncontender needs to convince its fans every spring, You better lock down another year of your seats, because if you don't, you're gonna miss out when we kick ass and make the playoffs and it's going to be impossible to get good seats and you'll be jealous! Hell, look at me. I want to break up with the Clippers ... but what if they get LeBron and I miss out? I would regret it. Every minute. Every day. Sure, they have about as much of a chance of getting LeBron as I have of becoming the WNBA commissioner. Doesn't matter. I can't miss even the 3 percent chance that it might happen. Which leads me to this moment in April ... "Here's another check, Mr. Billionaire Housing Discriminator Who Owns The Clippers. I'll keep my fingers crossed for another year. I hate you." I do it every spring. I have no protection. Neither do any of the other season-ticket holders for any of the other screwed-up franchises. In Cleveland, the Cavs asked for 2010-11 renewals last month under the guise of an "Early Bird Special." Cavs season-ticket holders will have to decide before the 2010 playoffs start, "Am I keeping my tickets next year? Am I rolling the dice that LeBron comes back?" If they keep them, and LeBron doesn't come back, it's going to feel like getting tipped over in a port-o-john. And yes, the Cavs would be doing the tipping. So why don't fans have protection? As a failing business -- and, really, a league that loses $400 million in a single year has to qualify as "failing" -- doesn't the NBA have an obligation to win customers back? Just this week, Minnesota announced that it was making 2010-11 season tickets available for up to 50 percent off in March. This made news because ... well, teams don't normally do this. But why don't they? Why not take Minnesota's move even further? Let's say the NBA made the following rule right now: Any team that misses the playoffs cannot raise ticket prices the following season. Miss two straight playoffs, season-ticket holders get a 5 percent discount for renewals the following season. Miss three straight, it goes to 10 percent. Miss four straight, it jumps to 25 percent. Miss five straight, it jumps to 50 percent. Seems pretty reasonable, right? Geez, if you miss the playoffs for five straight years, you shouldn't be in the league. The Clippers missed in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Last summer, they brought back coach Mike Dunleavy, who had made history by losing 300-plus games for two different teams (the Clips and the Bucks) and also having a winning percentage under .400 with both. To nobody's surprise, the season fell apart and that squinty con artist stepped down last month. Now the Clippers are playing the illusion of regret to a hilt. We have tons of cap space, we're gonna have a new coach, and we're going after LeBron ... don't quit on us! Doesn't change the fact that Mr. Billionaire Housing Discriminator Who Owns The Clippers sacrificed the 2009-10 season when he didn't have to. OK, so let's say my discount penalty plan is in motion. Let's say the 2009-10 Clips knew that, if they missed the playoffs a fourth straight year, they would be looking at 25 percent discounts across the board. Is there any way they keep Dunleavy? No. Is there any way they dump Camby at the deadline? No. Financially, it wouldn't make sense. This is what kills me about David Stern, a shrewd man who loves the National Basketball Association and has devoted his life to making it better. He pretends that the economics of his sport don't work anymore, only he acts as though there isn't any blood on his hands. I beg to differ. By allowing franchises to antagonize season-ticket holders, and by refusing to put a system in place that protects fans from tanking teams, he's as guilty as anyone. How can a league have such crystal-clear vision with so many different things -- expanding its global presence, building a self-perpetuating Olympic team, dominating the digital market, experimenting with 3-D -- and look the other way every time its fans get kicked in the teeth? If I were running the NBA, eliminating the illusion of regret would be my biggest initiative. I would give every nonplayoff team the same odds for winning the lottery, just so these teams wouldn't destroy six to eight weeks of a season for paying customers. Then, I would cut the season by four games, guarantee only the top 12 playoff spots, then decide the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference with a double-elimination tournament for every nonplayoff team that I call the Entertaining As Hell Tournament (see my 2007 column for the gory details). Boom, we just killed the tanking and salary-dumping issues. Couldn't that work? Has it even been discussed? Wouldn't it generate a ton of interest and extra revenue? Wouldn't you watch? Wouldn't it put a ton of pressure on teams to stop shutting their best guys down or giving away contract-year guys for no real reason? You can't give away Camby! We need him for the Entertaining As Hell Tournament in April! And who knows, maybe a wacky 7-seed would gain momentum and pull off a Round 1 shocker in the playoffs. You never know. It's never a bad thing when those three words are involved. Since Stern works for the owners, I understand why he blames the economy instead of blaming the reckless franchises who got the league into this $400 million hole. That's his job -- to cover up the sins of his employers. Just know that gate revenues aren't down only because people have less money than three years ago. They're down because fans became tired of the illusion of regret, and also, because our consumption patterns changed. Many of us own nice televisions now. We can watch any game in HD on a 50-inch screen. We can watch one game while watching another on our laptop. If we want, we can watch the fourth quarters of 10-12 NBA games in one night. There's no real impetus to buy NBA season tickets anymore unless: (A) you're rich, and/or (B) you have great seats between the baskets. When I mentioned this theory to Stern in our recent podcast, he spun it into a positive by pointing out that the league should be praised for finding new ways to reach its fans. True. But let's spin it the other way. Teams depend on season-ticket revenue because it's guaranteed income. With the current setup, I could skip getting season tickets, then use stubhub.com, ebay.com and even team-endorsed ticket sites to cherry-pick choice seats for six or seven big games per season. So if the NBA wantw to keep me (or you, or anyone) as a customer, it needs to prevent me from sampling instead of buying. Ask any sales guy for any NBA team -- this is their biggest challenge. They don't want me for seven games. They want me for all of them. Stern didn't seem to think it was a problem. Which is a problem. He's running a league blessed with a giant TV contract and its biggest talent boon in two decades, only it's about to lose $400 million, and he's acting like everything is out of his hands right now. Huh? Maybe he needs to be more honest with himself. Yeah, the revenue system needs to be fixed. But so do the playoff system, the salary cap, the ticket plans and the customer/team relationship. It's all part of the same problem. And if the commish doesn't think the NBA is fundamentally screwed up, just look at what happened last week, when the Knicks, Bulls and Clippers all gave away players and/or picks to shave 2010-11 cap space for LeBron, Bosh, Johnson, Stoudemire, Gay, Boozer and Wade. Was it the right thing to do? Sadly, tragically, disgustingly ... yes. The illusion of regret was taken to new heights. Only one fan base can end up with the best player alive. A few others will settle for lesser stars, some will come up empty, and in the case of Knicks fans and Cavaliers fans, there's a chance for genuine damage. Like, "I'm never rooting for those guys again" damage. Just know that the players didn't create this do-or-die scenario; the owners did. And sure, like with the Hollywood strike, an NBA lockout will end up working in favor of the owners. It will lower operating costs, protect teams from overspending and create a system in which A-listers get rewarded (the LeBrons and Wades) and the working class (the Goodens and Farmars) gets screwed. Costs will drop, franchise values will increase, and the owners will believe all the acrimony was worth it. The ship will have been righted. Or so they will say. I hope they're right. I still don't know how it benefits you and me. Bill Simmons is a columnist for ESPN.com and the author of the recent New York Times best-seller, "The Book of Basketball." For every Simmons column and podcast, check out Sports Guy's World. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sportsguy33.
Really enjoyed the read. Something like this, however, probably should be quoted only in part, with people using the link if they're interested. That way, the writer gets credit for the hits.
Simmons gets it. Why do these GMs keep signing mediocre players to knee-jerk long term deals? Those are the types of deals that kill franchises.
I really like the idea of a completely random lottery system and the "Entertaining as Hell Tournament" to ensure that fans get a quality product from October-April rather than the weighted system we have now that encourages tanking. These two additions make economic sense (More games played equals more tickets sold) and competitive sense (No tanking, fans engaged all year) I would add one caveat to the completely random lottery. The worst team in the league CANNOT end up with the number 1 pick. If at random either one of them are selected #1 then draw again. There absolutely should be a penalty for being New-Jersey-Net shi**y (especially considering all the talent they have). I honestly dont think the current pay structure of the NBA necessarily broken. Its just that dumb GM/Owners sign off on stupid deals. Guys like LeBron, Kobe, Wade "deserve" 20+ million a season because they make that back and more for their teams and the league. The only thing that I would change is that contracts should be 2/3 years in length for players getting their second contact and 3/4 years for veterans. (2 years if you change teams, 3 to stay with your current team for expired rookies & 3 years if you change teams, 4 years to stay at home for vets). This way mistakes on 24 year old Free Agents (who, in theory should still be improving) don't kill your franchise for a decade. I despise the fact that lux tax money goes back to all teams that were under the tax. If the reasoning behind it is "The Haves helping the Have-Nots" then luxury tax money should be collected every year into a pot and used to help teams that are in serious trouble when necessary. It makes no sense for the Clippers owner to turn a profit year after year and still get "welfare" from the NBA because he wasn't trying to make his team better. You shouldn't get tax money if you turned a profit and you shouldn't use tax money to help you turn a profit. (i.e. if the Jazz lost $2 million this year and the tax rebate was $3 million then the Jazz should get $2 mill and the rest should go back to the NBA's pot). Whatever money is left over could help small market teams finance arenas or it could go to owners of playoff bound teams or it could even feed the "NBA Cares" hype machine to get fans in the communities excited about their teams. The NBA needs to establish two major focuses heading into the next decade: Make winning profitable and Give fans a reason to care for all 82 games.
*I forgot to add, I'm really glad I'm a supporter of a genuinely well run franchise. Even when we had our lean years Post-Hakeem the team was still exciting with Cat and Francis and there was hope. I think the most hopeless I've felt as a fan was when we lost that game 7 at home to Utah. I really thought we had that series in the bag... I can only imagine being a Warriors fan or a Bobcats fan
Excellent article. Very well-thought out. Not that I agree with everything in it, but I think he pinpointed a major issue: franchises needs to stop torturing their fans with the idiotic moves and tanking and such things. This is not healthy for the business.
WOW, I though the biggest problem in the NBA were the refs, but its the owners. Have the Rockets started doing advertisements like this yet????
I'm down for the Entertaining as Hell tournament - but obviously only the top 12 teams by record - not the top 6 teams per conference. The discount plan sounds good too.
i'd also like to add. if they aren't going to shorten the regular season. (which they never will but should) SHORTEN PLAYOFFS. no reason playoffs should last a month and a half. it's ridiculous.
Love him or hate him, at least Simmons writes about stuff other sports writers would never care to touch. I would say that while absolutely HATE Stern's guts, I don't think he should shoulder too much of the blame. Sports franchises are a bit different from normal "businesses" in that they're considered more of a entertainment purchase than a true business one. The reason why teams spend crazy money stupidly is because the people running these teams are idiots. And owners let them! Look at how Dolan managed to run the Knicks into the ground by letting his GMs spend like crazy for overpaid scrubs. I LOVE the idea of penalizing teams for non-success. But it will never come to fruition. I do think a hard cap(and hopefully a hard floor) could help things out. Or they can make it so that the revenue sharing is weighted based on performance. This way, the Clippers and the Grizzlies would get its shares cut because they don't appear on national TV nor get fans to buy their products.
The only problem with changing the lottery is that the bad teams will stay bad. Look at Cleveland before Lebron. If they didn't get the number one pick by being the worst team, they would still be in the same situation (although, I suppose that draft did bring in several border line franchise players). If you make it an equal opportunity, there is actually more incentive to miss the playoffs by a couple games so that you have a chance to get the number one pick. I say, keep the odds for getting the first pick at about what they are now, but make every spot up for grabs. So once the first pick has been picked up, the second, third, fourth and so are are still based on those same relative odds for each team. So bad teams still have a chance to get a high pick, but it also means they may slide down to the bottom of the draft as well. Or another way is to make the middle of the pack of non-playoff teams have the highest chance at winning the lottery. Or maybe use team's attendance figures to decide the number one pick - to help bring in ticket sales for the next year (increasing revenue for the NBA), or number of top plays of the week from each respective team (okay, that one might be a stretch). But I do agree with the guy that something needs to be done with the lottery structure as it stands now. One last thought. Maybe have the lottery at a random point during the season. This way no team has any idea as to when they may be chosen for a chance at the lottery, so no reason to tank at the end of a season. It would also reward a team that struggled but was able to make it out at the end of the season for a spot.
Suppose a terrible team had to slash its season ticket prices by 50% due to a long run of not making a playoffs. If the team finally made the playoffs, the marketing department would have a tough time saying "ticket prices will double next season!" Also, the requirement to slash ticket prices after string of bad seasons is proposed to be a deterrent to tanking a season & giving away your overpriced veterans. If I'm an owner and my team is probably going to have to cut season ticket costs, I'm going to take a proactive approach on cutting costs (read: payroll) for next year. If I'm expecting 10% less revenue the next season, the first thing I'm going to do is trade away my overpriced veterans any way I can, even at the expense of getting wins for the rest of the season.
Love the article. Simmons is a great writer.. except his foot notes (if any has read his book, should know what i mean!)
Great article as always by Bill Simmons. Stern....it is time for him to step down as commish. He's run out of ideas and the current way just is not working. Guess what...more guys will be overpaid this summer, when teams CAN'T get Bosh,Wade, or Lebron...they'll throw money at the next best guy, even though he's not nearly as good to sell to their fans. No more guaranteed contracts like the NFL. It's not the teams fault that they over pay these guys...A lot of these guys they 'overpay' hit the FA with great stats and performances. Look at Lee's stats, you think some teams are not going to get into a bidding war for him? He could end up getting really close to a max contract. In the NFL you'd just cut the guy, he's not worth this money any more...and move on. Shorter contracts would work though, but it does not stop teams from tanking trying to get the #1 pick or shaving off cap space for the next big FA. I'd have no problem if you just remove the cap really. I know it is a alien idea to most of us here, but baseball does just fine without it, so does professional soccer. At least then the Knicks wouldn't throw multiple seasons down the drain for Lebron, they could just cut the guys they don't want or trade them, and offer a contract to Lebron. And that crap that the MLB has no parity, the NBA has LESS parity out of the NFL and MLB. You pretty much know there are about 5 teams that could win the chip, the other teams basically have no shot at it
what do you guys think of a shared revenue system in which players aren't signed to a certain deal, but a percentage of revenue, this makes sense especially because the big name players will keep their big deals since they ultimately do bring in the seats and team deals, and most of all it keeps people working for contracts to think about winning and the team first, if the team does well, they keep playing in playoffs, more games ,more revenue, the more they get it, and when owners lose because of players sitting out, demanding trades, or just playing selfish and bad basketball, they lose money, they lose games, and they take the price as well, this would be incentive for any players to do what at all cost to get the team and ownership on the same page as joint partners of the league, does this make sense?
The best solution to stop teams from relying on the "illusion of regret" imo, is to just scrap the whole draft system. Make every rookie a free agent with no rookie scale contract limitations (contract restrictions for vets and rookies will be the same). Put in place a hard cap, eliminate all other caps and exceptions. Only rules will be a hard cap (around at or slightly lower than current method for calculating luxury tax levels), and max length (3-4 yrs) on player contracts (no max$ limit on contracts). The only restriction on trades will be that all teams involved in a trade must remain under the hard cap. Every team has a chance of grabbing the next Lebron as long as they managed their cap well. Teams should not be rewarded in any way for tanking. There will still be teams that want to make trades to clear cap space for next season's rookies/FAs, but (1) it will be harder to find teams willing to take on bad contracts as the good teams are not limited by the current low salary cap. A team like Houston was willing to take on Jeffries because it is currently very hard to field a competitive team while making enough space to get under the salary cap to be a FA player anyway. With only a high hard cap, Houston would've been a lot less willing to take on salary as it would've had a chance to be a FA player as well. (2) Even a team that managed to trade talent to clear cap space for the next season would still be trying to win with what they have. If Utah didn't have NY's No.1 pick, NY probably wouldn't even be trying right now. They'd probably just buy tmac out, save some money and pile on the losses. The European soccer system has no draft and no cap, and has the opposite pros/cons. The good is that teams at the bottom of the league fight tooth and nail every game to avoid relegation to the lower leagues and there is no incentive to tank because there is no draft, the bad is that the big and rich clubs dominate and the smaller teams have almost no chance of winning. With a hard cap though, the NBA would not have the same imbalance problem, while the scrapping of the draft would create more competition between the bottom feeders. With no max $ limit on player contracts, it would also be hard for one team to hoard all of the best stars, as a guy like Lebron could cost a team half of their cap space.
