Long - but a good read and I agree... How much better would players like Nachbar, Langhi, Collier be if they played every day? Maybe not much but I would say they would be better than just scrimmaging. They would have to relearn a system vs baseball is pretty much systemless, but I think this would help the young drafts, late drafts and non-drafts. And smaller towns would get a little taste of the NBA and might create more interest in the $upporting the NBA. <b>Lack of a true minor league is a major problem</b> By Sean Deveney - It is time for the NBA to stop kidding itself. Its brainchild, the National Basketball Developmental League, simply is not working, which would not be headline material, except that the situation is killing the NBA. As a new batch of teens enters the league after the draft, the NBA is pondering an age minimum of 20 years. That's an oversimplified approach, designed to be union-friendly and relive the days when college basketball was the NBA's developmental league. What the NBA needs, badly, is not an arbitrary age limit but its own minor league system. On June 11, two months after coaching the Mobile Revelers to the NBDL championship, Sam Vincent was out of a job. The Mobile franchise folded, and the Greenville team was put on a one-year hiatus. That leaves the league with six active franchises, only six opportunities for promising coaches such as Vincent and limited opportunities for the league to develop future NBA referees. Phil Evans, president of the NBDL, says he believes the league is strong in the remaining six markets -- all in the Southeast -- and that the NBDL will look to expand, possibly into the Midwest and Northeast. I hope it doesn't, because I hope the NBA sets up a more effective minor league. Until it does, players and fans will lose out. Teams these days are in a nasty cycle of drafting ever-younger players, and they are forced to get those players on the floor before they're ready. When you have a maximum of 15 roster spots, young, inexperienced players naturally will bump veteran players out of the league. "It affects the play of NBA teams," Vincent says. "All the fundamentals that should be taught, that should be a solid part of your game by the time you get into the NBA, you don't have anywhere to teach those now. Unless you have a strong developmental league situation, it's going to dilute the game. It already is." There are two main concerns: the players union and finances. The union loathes the idea of a coach manipulating players by sending them to the minors. I talked to five player agents about the possibility of a minor league, and all had reservations. Keith Kreiter, who represents 18-year-old Maciej Lampe, says, "As a fan, and as someone who watches the sport, yes, it needs a minor league. And even for someone like Maciej, he could benefit from being in the minors. But there is also something to be said for being in the NBA locker room, the road trips, the teammates. That's important, too." Of course, the union is protecting players by opposing a minor league, but what about older, veteran players who lose roster spots to teenage draftees? A minor league would create room for them, too. Paying for a minor league is another problem, but Jay Frye, a co-owner of the CBA's Fort Wayne franchise for eight years before the league was taken over by Isiah Thomas in 1999, says it could be done with increased local ownership. It's the kind of system the CBA owners thought they were getting when Thomas arrived. Instead, the league folded less than two years later. Thomas said he could use his connections to smooth the way to a true minor league. Instead, he drove the whole thing into the ground, forcing the NBA to rush the inauguration of the NBDL. When the NBDL started, Frye says he warned its founders that the league could not be successful without local owners. Instead, the NBA owns the NBDL, although, as Evans points out, the league is trying to increase local ownership. "The CBA lasted more than 50 years because of local ownership," Frye says. "That changed when Isiah came aboard. When it was done by local people, who have ties to the community and were willing to accept a bit of a loss, that was OK." The way to solve the problem is to have a minor league that consists of 30 teams, each located within 50 miles of the NBA team to which it is affiliated, each locally owned. Limit the amount of time a drafted player can spend in the minors (one season, or one season plus 60 days) to appease the union. No one can be given a mandatory assignment to the minors after, say, his third year in the league. In this model, young guys can cut their teeth close enough to the NBA club to occasionally practice with the team. Fans outside the city would be able to watch the prospects play as a low-cost alternative to an NBA game. There certainly would be a television market for such a league, helping to defray costs. "If the Miami Heat had a developmental team in Fort Lauderdale, and you had draft picks playing there, players coming off of injuries rehabbing there, don't you think you would develop some fans?" Vincent says. "Not just for the minor league team, but for the Heat, too. It seems so obvious that the league needs something like this."
Sean hit right on the money with that one. In my old hometown, Mobile, you can follow the Padres players who come through there all the way to the Show. This would give pro teams a fan base they might otherwise not have, since they'd have a personal stake in the team. I still say with the union being so intractably opposed to such a move, it would never happen, but it would improve the now-banal quality of play.
I saw you Baybears last Saturday night - pretty good team. Your right, it is fun watching the "little guys grow up".
Well college was sort of a minor league before. Hell, some players are even being paid. A real minor league though would kill college ball though. Would the minor league be like the NBDL filled with marginal prospects, scrubs, and wannabees? Or would it be like MLB where top prospects from each class often go straight from HS to the minors? Also players can be drafted, have their rights held and decide between NCAA vs. minor league. With the NCAA you get an education and can develop, but the NCAA has several major flaws. First of all, at least legally the players don't have any money. The schools make tons of money off of them, but many don't get anything in return other than an education. No offense, but most of them aren't there for the education. How many of the sociology, communications, and letters & sciences or whatever degrees do you really think are nothing more than an easy major to keep players eligible. Also, it's not like graduation rates are that high anyways. So the only advantages going to college has are fame, the college experience, and coaching. Those are pretty nice benefits, but sometimes money can me needed more than that. In regards to coaching, the NCAA is r****ded and has all these limits on practice times, contact with coaches, etc. It's ridiculous. No wonder Euros who get so much more experience and practice are being drafted. Minor leagues improve the quality of the NBA as players aren't being developed. The minor league should get players to near finished products. There is also an opportunity for more players to be able to play in America. The huge problem is that the minor leagues in America aren't very financially successful, and those in Europe can usually pay much more. So unless $ is pumped into minor leagues to properly promote the league and place teams in the right locations, it's going to be very hard to establish correctly.
A lot of h.s. players go straight to the MLB draft and on to the minors, but there is still NCAA baseball and it is a thriving enterprise. Basketball would be no different. In fact, the play would probably be better and there would be more real student-athletes rather than people brought in simply to play basketball who have to go to school to do it. In fact, the MLB draft saw more college players picked than ever before.
Uh, there has to be a market for minor league basketball to begin with. Let's see... CBA folded. NBDL lost 2 teams... Good luck on creating a minor-league basketball league that can survive more than 2 years.
If the Minor League is like baseball, where each NBA team has an affiliate, it probably wouldn't do too bad. Stars would play once in a while on rehab assignments, which would really draw in the fans.
If MLB had no Minor League. .. does Rice Still win the Championship? Is the championship any less exciting because teams like Rice have a shot? I don't think so . . .College ball would change. . but not die Rocket River right now. . . college ball is as different from the NBA as the WNBA is from the NBA
There is a market for minor league basketball. The CBA existed for decades. The only, I'll repeat ONLY, reason it folded was because they let Isiah Thomas take it over and he ran it into the ground because of his ego and stupidity.
Exactly - I go to minor league baseball games because they have players in rehab or players that will one day make the big show. It is fun watch to Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns grow. CBA and NBDL has scrubs with little chance of being a player. I think it would thrive, make the NBA more marketable to smaller markets and help the NBA teams become more pollished.
Almost all major leaguer's played in the minors for a time. Even Arod played in the minors. I think only Griffey skipped.
Quite a few folks never did time in the minors.... Let me see if I remember correctly. They include: Pitchers Catfish Hunter, Sandy Koufax, Ted Lyons, Bob Feller, Eddie Plank and Walter Johnson Shortstops Ernie Banks and Bobby Wallace outfielder Mel Ott and Dave Winfield. Thank you Baseball Almanac !!!
Am I the only one that notices that European players get better only when they play Americans. That's pretty much all you need to know. The NBA is superior. The skill level here is greater than anywhere in the world. Everybody seems to think that the Europeans have more skills. At what I ask you? Why is it that most of our kids jump higher, play better defense, and are more physical. It's because you need those skills at the highest level of basketball. The skills the European players are learning are nice for European basketall. They are nice for a lower level of play. But in the NBA we know what you are going to do before you do it. Those skills are rendered useless. Even if you fake me out I'm still going to block your shot because I'm seven feet. Or the next six footer is going to block you because he can jump to seven feet. A shot in the nba lane requires that I know how to bend between three people. That's not a skill you going to get taught. You have to learn that on the playground. You don't go to a fishing derby with football skills. That's what Euro players are doing. Different games require different muscle sets. The highest level of basketball is a different game than the lowest level. I think that's what people are failing to understand. And some of you may say the NBA is not the highest level of basketball anymore. I say please. Euro's come here to play. They get better here. They thrive here when they learn our game. It's not the other way around. and yes, I know, American got whooped at the last international game. They sure did. And you can't throw that away. But everbody loses. That's hunger. The eye of a Tiger. It's not the norm. A complacent champion. Not the norm. They awakened a sleeping Giant. Big mistake.
I don't think this is worth talking about. The pros simply are not going to start a minor league system. You can fix this through the Collective Bargaining Agreement, imo. Right now, everyone drafted is on one Rookie Pay Scale that is for 3yrs with a 4 team option. That doesn't work for high school prospects because the draft investment is too much and not enough yrs to protect them while they mature, especially the big man. Here's what you can do: 1. Players who haven't played a year of college, or International players <21yrs old fall under a significantly different Rookie Pay Scale and get longer contracts...5yr with 6th team option. Let's call this the Prospect Pay Scale. 2. Players who go to college are not eligible for the draft for 2yrs. <b>this is Major League Baseball's rule.</b> What this does: You have to choose between: (1) the Prospect Pay Scale for longer and less pay; (2) going pro in another league until your age 21 birth *year*; or (3) you have to play at least 2 yrs of college. Note that guys like Lebron will still go to the NBA for all the endorsement money, but their teams will get to hold them longer. Those who choose #2 will probably go play in Europe for more money than the Prospect Pay Scale, and that would be good for the league. Those who choose #3 will help the NCAA get better.
