I can't resist posting on this topic, ever. Will never happen, but here's what my to-do list would be: Contracts: First round rookie deals stay as is, they're the best in pro sports. Second round deals become 3 year deals, with the second and third years as team options. New max contract starting salaries restricted to be no more than 1/4 of the current salary cap. New max contracts extended to be 6 years and 6% raises if staying with team, 4 yrs/4% if signing with new team. MLE available only every other year and cut back to 4 years max, LLE available each year. Lemon Law: all 3+ year contracts have a buyout after the first year equal to 25% of the remaining value, and after the second year equal to 30% of the remaining value. Lemon Law buyouts will remain on the team's cap for one additional season, and players can not resign with the team during that time. Injured players can not be bought out. Close the S&T loophole. Done, finished, gone. If a player leaves as an unrestricted free agent, he leaves money and years on the table and his team loses him for nothing. Period. Close the trade-waive-resign loophole. Players traded by a team and then waived can return to their old team (immediately, no more 3 week wait), but are ineligible for the playoffs. Draft Work with the NCAA and establish a new agreement - a player accepting a scholarship is ineligible for the NBA Draft for 3 years. The one-year out of high school requirement remains. One and done prospects can decline a scholarship to play in college or can play in Europe or the NBDL. Simultaneously pump life into the NBDL by granting each team one or two salary exceptions each year - single year, non-guaranteed contracts equal to 1/2 the current NBA rookie minimum salary (this year that would be ~ $234k). No high end prospect will sniff the NBDL's $25k salary, especially when shady boosters at USC hand over cars worth twice that without blinking. If a guy is good enough, there's no good reason they can't be paid for playing, especially with the way the NCAA happily swims in the money they generate. A college education shouldn't be a prerequisite for the draft, and one and dones make the student athlete atmosphere a total sham. Pay them a fair wage, give them proper NBA prep, quadruple interest (and box office) in the NBDL. I'd love the thought of relegation....but the gap between the league and DL is great that you just couldn't even think about it. Playoffs, lottery, and tanking: Top 14 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Fan bases no longer burnout from being out of it in March. Worst team in each conference misses the playoffs and is ineligible for the #1 or #2 pick. There is serious disincentive for tanking, there is major incentive to not be the bottom of your conference. Combined, meaningless games are all but wiped out. Lightning First Round: Regular season to end on a Monday, Lightning Rd 1 takes place on Wed: Top 6 teams in each conference have a bye, seeds 7-14 have single elimination matches. Lightning Second Round: Takes place on Friday: Winners from Wed have single elimination matches. Winners are reseeded (7 or 8) for the remaining rounds. Best of 5 Third Round: Starts on Saturday/Sunday, seeds 1-8 in each conference. Best of 7 Conference Semifinals Best of 7 Conference Finals Best of 7 NBA Finals Adds the excitement of single elimination games, while still rewarding top seeds. Replaces the mind-numbing current best of 7, 18 day first round with three rounds in the same amount of time.
as Morey says, no CBA rules other than a hard cap, rewards the smart and prepared, punishes the stupid
I don't think your proposal would get rid of tanking. First off, why do you even want a long regular season when it only eliminates two teams out of 30? While the lower teams might want to be careful not falling to last, the vast majority of teams in the middle simply have no incentive to be too competitive because the middle seed positions means very little. And it is not too hard to tank to be the third last. Also, punishment by draft picks isn't that much of a deterrent. The bad owners don't care about winning anyway. You need to hit them with financial, not talent, setback. You either demote the worst two teams to the DLeague or make them ineligible for TV money and/or lux tax. That would weed out the bad owners/managements.
Thanks for the counter-argument Tough to say without a real world example to point, but I think it'd do a fantastic job. Today, 5-8 teams will be pretty much out of it by the end of February, eye 1-2 upcoming prospects, and systematically shut guys down with sham injuries. It sucks for the fans, it lowers the quality of games, and even sucks the pride out of the locker rooms. As I see it, my system makes it a huge stigma to miss the playoffs, moving in the same direction as relegation. Today teams like the Clippers and Pacers get lost in the mediocrity limbo. This highlights and embarrasses the 2 bottom teams. Fanbases would riot if they continuously miss the playoffs and management would be under serious fire. And knowing that finishing last in your conference eliminates you from the top 2 picks, cuts you out of some playoff money, and embarrasses your team....you'd have to think the organizations would be motivated to stay out of last. That alone fixes issues like Miami's appalling spring from two years ago. I don't want a long regular season. I'd love to see it chopped down to 60 games. But never in a million years would that happen. Owners aren't handing over a quarter of their revenue. But to counter the idea that this would make the regular season meaningless, I'd argue that the two lightning rounds protects and rewards the top 6 seeds and makes it much tougher for the rest to advance, even the 7 or 8 seeds. In my opinion, it's easier in today's NBA for a team to get hot, sneak in as a #8 seed and shock the #1 seed than it would be in mine. I'll concede the point that higher ranked teams may be more inclined to rest their stars, like LeBron did last year. That's almost as bad a problem as tanking. But, I'd argue that seeding is still pretty important. Homecourt will be just as important as it is today (top 4), as will avoiding the top seed (seeds 2/3 vs 4/5). Get in the top 6 of your conference and you skip the lightning round. No risk of a sudden single elimination game (and no risk of a top seed going out immediately). Not only do they skip it, but now the top two seeds of each conference get to play a best of 5 against a worn out team that had to go all out in two straight elimination games while you were resting for 5 days. That's a serious reward for being in the top 2 of your conference. Finish at least as a 7 or 8 seed and you have homecourt for the two lightning round games. No travel that week, which can be huge. Finish as a 9 or 10 seed and you have homecourt for the first of the two games. Again, you don't want to face the prospect of traveling to 3 different cities in 5 days in a do-or-die playoff atmosphere. Teams in the 7-14 seeds all want to get a chance to shock the world. I can't see the players being okay with tanking, but that's my perception. It's harder when you've got the single team out of the playoffs nipping at your heels to swap places. Again, no one would want to be the lone Conference team sitting out. You'd have to be monumentally terrible to give up hope at being the #14 team in a 15-team conference. Quality of play and urgency gets a push from the back end, as opposed to today's black hole of tanking. The gap between the worst team in the league and the NBDL is so gigantic relegation wouldn't work. Besides, the owners would never, ever, ever approve it. Cutting them out of the top 2 picks (removing incentive), cutting them out of playoff money (financial disincentive), and placing a hideous stigma of being one of only 2 non-playoff teams should be an effective deterrent - at worst it'll be much more of one than you have today.
Interesting. I wonder if the small town markets are hungry enough to eat up a product like the NBDL even with high potential rookies playing. They know they're just there on a temporary loan. With Football League Championship teams you have a long history of tradition and father son bonding at the football game, similar to the Premiership. It's not so much about the players, but the spirit and unity at the ground. What would the target demographic of season ticket holders be? I would love to add franchises in London and Paris and fold Memphis + Milwaukee. Concorde flights to London and Paris from New York are under 4 hours. EC teams would have to fly to New York first but I think there's a lot of money to made with basketball in Europe. It can be marketed as glamorous, whereas the MLB and NFL don't have similar appeal.
I was under the impression that they were about to start up again... in time for the London Olympics (2012)?
Try to find a way to balance the teams, and keep them balanced. A hard cap Shorten the season by at least 20 games Add a ref on the side who simultaneously watches every play to ensure accuracy. Hire david stern as my pool boy those are some things off the top of my head, it's really hard to objectively think of things to change, they all have consequences. i want to see the league expand, but realistically we can't be playing games in china/europe all the time, it is just too exhausting with travel (so until teleportation is available it's no bueno). all the rules about getting off the bench, suspensions, fines and such, some need to be changed, but for the most part they have tamed the league from it's previous "ghetto" image. the main thing i would like to see happen, shorten the regular season, and have some kind of playoffs for the 8th spot, like a wild card.
Your wittiness is second to none, sir. You "...fill me with hope...and some other emotions that are weird and deeply confusing."
@emjohn: I like the thoughts put into your post. While this may be futile exercise in application, it is intriguing none-the-less. Some thoughts and questions as you broke them down in their respective categories. Contracts: Do you mean 2nd rounders get a guaranteed contracts as well? If that were the case, wouldn't teams would be strapped with a majority of players that don't deserve a contract as well? Most 2nd rounders don't prove be fruitful. Lemon Law - I like the idea of the BOs but what if the player were injured and was unable to play again? I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of LJ after he was unable to play for NY and basically refused a BO and demanded his full salary as compensation if i remember right. I think those players unable to make a comeback should have a BO clause lest they hold a team's salary cap hostage for extended amounts of time. The rest of the points are pretty spot on. Draft: I'm liking your 3rd point in particular but i haven't given the draft considerations much though. Possibly more to follow if/when i come up with something clever to ask or add. Relegation in theory sounds good but i don't see either side agreeing to this by a long shot even though some teams definitely deserve it. Playoffs, Lottery, Tanking: Wow, i woudn't have remotely though of all those points but i follow your thoughts on the subject especially after your rebuttal. I'd like to add that there should be some kind of correlating financial penalty to teams that tank or are chronically horrible. The Clips in particular is the team that i have in mind. They've been atrocious to say the least with the inablity or unwillingess to sustain a progressively competitive team. The Clips have been financially sound from a business perspective but have been horrible as a franchise for the sport despite their built in advantage of location and market size. The Warriors under the Cohan also comes to mind but he has since sold the the franchise but unfortunately not to Larry Ellison. The new owners are still an unknown quantity as far as i know. Perhaps some sort of change to management as a open option for teams that have which effectively sells franchise to new potential buyers after being a failed operation in terms of success. I'm thinking a something like a management assessment after every 6 years with some baseline achievement scale. Something similar to player incentive salary but on the management level. Those who fail the assessment would then be subjected to being bought out given there's a prospective buyer looking to purchase a franchise. Team's value will also be assessed as to keep their worth honest to possible buyers. Limit the amount of lottery picks available to the bottom 3 teams of each conference after each season wherein the franchise progressively losses top draft rights. Something along the lines of no #1 draft rights on the 2nd losing season, no top 5 after the 3, no top 10 after a 4th with this being the cap. This prevents terrible teams from loading up on talents to fill their seats year after year because of promising prospects to chronically bad teams. This also ensures that the teams honestly pushing to progress in terms of wins gets the better chances at picks and gives the middling teams a shot at making a serious jump rather than being stuck in limbo like so many teams do. Bottom teams are also forced make the push to get better. They gain their rights back after they make the playoffs in the same scalar fashion. Meaning, they can't make the playoffs for 1 year then start sucking again. They have to claw back in the same amount of seasons they sucked in. This gives each franchise the incentive to consider their talent choices along with a push for the development of their talents for the long term rather than farming them then trading them soon after or right before the rookie contracts expire. The biggest problem i see with this is that teams want a whipping boy for easy wins which makes them reluctant to oust a crappy team.
No. Just that they be extend-able out to 3 years. Knock down the Early Bird Arenas rule nonsense when a 2nd Rounder like Carl Landry signs for one or two years, comes up big, and it becomes problematic for a team to sign him. It shouldn't be tougher on a team to hold onto a 2nd rounder than a 1st rounder, and it also isn't really just for a 2nd rounder to hit a big pay day when a star 1st rounder in his same rookie class is not even halfway through his deal. As stated, injured players can not be bought out. And teams aren't too upset when a big money guy has a major injury since insurance pays out 80%. Agreed - We may love the idea of punishing losers like the Wolves as fans....but the owners would never agree to it. Especially when we're talking about sending teams to the NBDL of all places. NBDL squads would have a tough time facing many of the top collegiate programs. Having multimillionaires playing guys making minimum wage salaries is just a bad idea. What WOULD possibly work? Break off 10 teams. NBA-Premier features the 20 top teams (4 divisions of 5, 2 Conferences), NBA-2 features ten (2 divisions of 5, resorted each year). Worst team from each division goes down each year, top 4 teams from NBA-2 go up each year. The realist in me has to bring up that this is a business. As fans, we only care about winning. But the league itself has to be profitable. Stern rightfully would rather an owner that keeps the doors open than a financially reckless enthusiast spending his team into deep debt that the league has to cover. A third of the teams in this league are sinking into financial despair (Hornets, Grizzlies, Wolves, Bucks, etc). The Clippers may annoy us and inspire plenty of barbs from SI, but they are a steady operation that's at least made moves here and there. This is a nice thought from our perspective, but from a business one, it's suicidal thinking to ask for that much instability. The number of buyers out there are limited, the number of those buyers that would be committed sports owners are even less.
I think the problem is not just money but cap space. An injured player with a large contract make it impossible for the team to replace him with other talents. I think the D-league idea was just for convenience. The levels are obviously too far apart. If you really go the relegation route, of course you have to make the lower league better. Breaking the current league into two is a viable idea.
I see. That makes sense as well. This effectively doesn't punish the team that happens to picks gems deep into the draft. This can possibly extend this to the undrafted rookies as well. Right, i completely forgot about the insurance. That being said, i'll go back to the NYK as a theoretical. Amare is reported to be uninsurable, or at least doubtful, because of his pre-existing conditions (i'll try and look for a link for this). Given this is true, if he injures either his eye or the particular knee in question, there would be no insurance to cover a career ending injury which would leave a struggling knicks in the hole. Bringing it closer to home, if this can apply to Amare, why not Yao too? What if the incoming season proves to be a healthy one for Yao and we decide to resign him for whatever the new CBA will permit and he goes down before his contracts up? I still think that there should be some provision made for this. Enough said here although we both agree that this is too far out to even consider. Perhaps my solution is too harsh but the league has to agree on any potential franchise purchase. This can serve as a safeguard to prevent just anyone with $$$ from purchasing a team. They have to have some sort of prerequisite prior to purchasing a team. And, as you mentioned, there are very few people that can afford a franchise. I say just leave the potential to be bought out if they're just not competitive enough. The rest of the teams are the ones who ultimately pay for deprived talent especially the mid pack teams. Think of the rockets last year. I felt that if we had lost Yao for whatever reason, we'd be stuck in limbo. It's the primary reason why teams may feel the need to tank a season or seasons because they just can't compete against the best teams. Too good to suck and not good enough to win it all. It punishes the teams that may have been unlucky with their key player/s and rewards the teams that choose tank or just don't care as much about winning. Again, i'm going back to the Clips on this. They've made something like 3-4 playoff appearances in their 40th year as a franchise and they've sucked countless lottery picks to the detriment of other teams. This i feel, is even more imperative now since we may be seeing the a new trend in young guns banding together forming super teams. The crappy teams are effectively just becoming place holders till their contract comes up.
Quote from ESPN to add to my previous post: "According to the Knicks, the insurance policy from Stoudemire's contract with the Suns is still in place, but it excludes his surgically repaired left knee. The Knicks have begun working to secure insurance on his new deal, but that hasn't been completed." This arose when his name was brought up for consideration for the current US team sent to compete at the current FIBA which made NYK able to exclude him from International competition. Full Article from ESPN
What do you mean by this?? Coaches in soccer still gives some strategy during games. or do you mean time outs? when the players go to the bench, and the coach gives different plays?
