I have 2 proposals based on cap room or payroll. 1. Draft order determined by cap room The draft itself would be the same as it's always been, however eliminate the lottery and have draft order based on cap room or smallest payroll. 1st pick goes to team with smallest payroll; 30th pick gos to team with largest payroll, etc. Salaries are on the same rookie scale. 2. Rookies enter a tiered "Rookie FA market". Tiers based on team payroll. There could be 5 tiers. Each tier has 6 teams. Tier 1 will include the bottom 6 teams in payroll. Those 6 teams are the first to go to Rookie FA and have an FA cap of $6M. What would previously been a #1 pick would most likely get a $6M contract unless it was an incredibly weak rookie class. THis givs the rookie more power to pick between 6 teams, especially if all 6 were to offer $6M. Tier 2 would have teams 7 - 12 in payroll compete for remaining rookies. FA cap would be $4M. The tiers keep going until you get to teams 25-30 (most likely the strong contenders or just very badly managed teams). FA cap would be $1M. 2 round takes places like a traditional draft based on standings. In terms of trades, a team could trade their tier position in future drafts. Why this would work In almost every situation, it is either the successful elite contenders, or not-so successful, but still large market teams who have the largest payrolls. This system can still help struggling teams, as long as they're smart in managing the franchise. In the same time losing regular season games has no bearing to the draft order. Another great things about both these systems are it encourages great management. GM's like Morey and Hinkie would highly excel. Moneyball style management could build contenders who still have mid-round/mid-tier picks every season. This would also discourage large market teams to continue continue overpaying players (Knicks lol). Any negatives to it? I could imagine that tanking is still slightly possible as teams can completely clear their rosters and sign D-Leaguers just to have the smallest payrolls, however this would be uncommon. This could also be remedied by putting stricter rules on minimum roster spots and caps on the amount of signings that can be in one season or off-season. Also, salary dumps become very rare. Maybe this is a good thing, however this also locks in teams with bad contracts with no way out. Maybe a contender could take a large contract since they don't care about the draft. But that's about it.
Good, because what Sam Hinki is doing is a complete joke. There should be a tribunal that has the power to vote and Veto this BS.
i have no problem with teams rebuilding, it is amazing how we get stuck in to the bottom teams, when the problem really is at the top where teams can go over the cap and load up with stars, the stars should be spread more around the league to make it better.
It's pretty sad. It's not rebuilding, it is sucking on purpose. No fan should EVER go into a season and think "It's better if my team loses than win." what other sport has that problem? Every year there is a team where it's fans are actively hoping for that team to lose. Bucks and 6er fans this year...and even Laker fans have resorted to "Yay! We Suck!" mentality for this season. Simple, keep the top 4 of each conference out of the EQUAL opportunity lottery...and that is no more. Now losing is just losing and winning is winning. Now fans will actually be happy that their team is the 8th seed...now being the 8th seed is a great thing and now teams will actually make moves to always improve their team. We don't even have teams that are loading up on stars, the cap is stricter now and besides...loading up on stars isn't a guaranteed way to success. Why we want to eliminate tanking is for the fans. So that GMs will have to go into every season with the thought of "How can we win more games this year?" and not what they do now.
To expand on this idea... Charlotte signing Jefferson was seen as a bad move. Simply because Jefferson is a good player...good enough to take a team out of the bottom 10 of the conference into the top 10 of the conference. So Charlotte actually making a move to make their team marginally better is seen as a horrible move because now they won't be bad enough to draft a future superstar. Under the simple rules of extending the lottery to 22 teams and giving each of those 22 teams equal chance at every pick then that move is actually a okay move (depending on if you think he's worth that contract...) and the bobcats fighting for a 6-8 seed is just fine. They can get some playoff experience which is really really underrated these days AND on top of that can still get a chance at a great pick to help build their team into a contender. Now adding good solid players to young rebuilding teams to add a few more wins is not a bad thing and it makes the league a lot more competitivve I think. Also...the draft lottery would be much watch TV as Silver spins the lottery thingy and counts down the 22 draft picks. Talk about tension. And of course the top 4 teams from West and East are not going to tank. They will be fighting for HCA and will be too good to tank besides.
You actually listed 2 problems. Draft and salary cap. To have an ideal solution to the draft, the NBA needs to fix the salary cap problem where small market teams have no chance. The NFL has a hard cap. Giving a chance to small market teams. Therefore, they can implement the rotating draft system.
With the Lebron culture, even when small teams have the cap space stars want out as soon as something doesn't go their way. Eg-Kyrie Irving. It's a no win situation for them so that is why I thought the problems were similar. Atleast if they get a star rookie on a cheap 4 yr contract they can build a relationship and have a shot at putting in some pieces. That's how OKC started
I would support this if the NBA contracts to 24 teams. Otherwise the so called income gap could become worse than ever. The situation becomes hopeless for teams like Milwaukee, Charlotte, Memphis. If they can't get a top talent through the draft as there are less chances for them to do so this way, they can never strengthen their team. Exciting players do not go to these cities willingly. Charlotte signing Jefferson can be seen as a good move because A/ The minimum cap needs to be met, regardless B/ Adding a Parker or Wiggings next to him gives them potential to be relevant Your scenario is not fair play-ish in a 30 team league.
Just change the existing lottery system to reward winning more. It should be a curve which peaks around .500, with only the playoff teams who have home court advantage left out completely. So for example the lottery odds might be something like this: Worst team: 5% ... 16th best team: 20% 15th best team: 25% 14th best team: 15% ... Best team: 0% So if you're really bad, you have a shot at winning the lottery, but not a very good one... the best way to win the lottery is to struggle your way up to .500 but not quite be a playoff contender. That way you reward good GMing, coaching, teams trying hard, etc. This would also create more stability in the league. Teams would make fewer midseason trades for fear of harming their W/L records.
Is the league fair now? Right now they are tanking only to groom these players to run off to bigger markets any ways? Also, I'm not for cutting down the league, that really does nothing. I don't know why people think that would make the league better, there will still be 2-4 Elite teams that have a real shot at winning and the rest are either kinda contenders...or just playoff/regular season fodder. The equal lotto proposal actually helps these teams like Milwaukee, now they have NO excuse to put a sorry product on the court. That's what hurts these teams the most...they have a excuse to tank and fans are fine with it.
Also I remember hearing on Mike and Mike how Cleveland just can't win and they should move the team because everyone wants to leave. No. Cleveland is a example of a team that it doesn't matter. They got lucky with Lebron...if Lebron wasn't from Cleveland they'd probably would have picked Darko knowing their history. Irving will likely bolt, but it has nothing to do with Cleveland...more to do that they have done a horrible job drafting around him...Give Presti those picks and he would have likely picked them right. So they picked Dion Waiters...who was at the time considered a reach any ways. They could have drafted Harrison Barnes or Drummond. Think about Irving and Drummond? What team WOUDLN'T want to build a franchise around those two guys? Lets leave Bennett out of this..it is early...but he's been terrible...Cleveland has had as many top 5 picks...if not more than any other team. They sjust screw it up nearly every time unless the #1 pick is so obvious like Irving or Lebron.
just use the chart that gives each teams their rotating picks... and implement a HARD CAP and ELIMINATE MAX CONTRACTS to give small market teams a shot at the superstars... works for the NFL and they have parity...
Small market teams getting a shot at superstars is not the problem. Plenty of small markets do just well. In fact...OKC...SAS...Portland..top 3 teams in the west...Indiana a medium market... That's not the issue...the issue is bad teams being rewarded greatly for being bad...
The colts did not tank. They did not have Peyton Manning for the entire year because he was having surgery on his neck. If Manning played he would have likely again won the AFCS and some other team would have drafted Luck. NFL teams do not tank.
As long as there are incentives in losing you will not be able to avoid tanking. Worst part is, the bad teams that keep tanking, continue to suffer as their GMs are poor evaluation of talents.
As fans, all we ever ask of the team is for them to put forth they're best effort...win or lose. We should expect that from the organization too. And I don't believe you can curve tanking as long as there is an incentive to (draft). In the end, sports have no place for a loser mentality.
