I haven't seen this mentioned yet...but I haven't really been following this fake drama too closely. Why hasn't anyone noted that LeBron was FIVE YEARS OLD when the 80s ended. What the hell does he know about the NBA in the 80s? I very seriously doubt that he's gone back and watched a lot of game film from the archives.
This is the dumbest non-story story in recent memory. LeBron has: 1. No power to contract teams. Unless you think LeBron is some type of demi-god that can influence the shift of billions of dollars on a whim. 2. No motivation to get rid of crappy teams. Why? So teams will even out with the Heat's talent? Makes no sense. Such a weird thing that it's still getting over 1,000 comments within hours on ESPN's website. It has nothing to do with negotiations, the league wasn't even looking to contract teams in the first place!
Why's that? I'm not paid to pay pro basketball and I've still sought out all the classic basketball footage that I can get.
While it's nice to speculate on teams to contract, what is the basis for people's reasoning? Attendance? Market size? Something else? Most likely, contraction won't happen unless it's an untenable, one-of-a-kind situation. The easy one thrown out is New Orleans, but the league seems more determined to keep a team there on a political basis than an economic basis, and with the league owning them now, that seems more of a certainty (i.e. not selling to anyone unless they guarantee keeping the team there). Memphis still has a relatively brand-new building built for the league. Which brings up another issue...it was mentioned by trugoy that the league would pay a ton of money to buy the owners out, but what about the amount of money paid to these cities and governments for breaking the leases on these sparking new buildings? Just for the Charlotte Bobcats (whose penalties for breaking their arena lease amount to the capital cost of the building) you could be talking $200 million to the city of Charlotte. Add in the $250MM that Jordan paid and now it's $450 million-plus for that team to shut down. Memphis would likely be the same. Other teams in leased buildings would be the same. The league pushed these cities to build new buildings, rent them to the teams, and allow the teams to operate them. This would have to be included in any contraction discussion.
