The Legacy of today's Free Agency system. Is it good for the NBA?

LOL - Kevin Durant toiled in OKC for 9 years, even after the franchise itself decided to relocate. Now he's on his second team.

LeBron has played on 2 teams in thirteen years.

OMG - the lack of continuity! Makes it so hard to keep track! NBA being ruined! Rivalries ruined.

 

Most of the voting members of the players union are non-max guys though - they vote their own interests, which is to screw the bottom guys who have zero votes (rookies) and hte top guys of whom there are too few to make a difference.

The owners love this as well - underpaying superstars and rookies is almost a big a sweetheart deal for them as publicly financed arenas.

 

The NBPA will never vote for it even with the stars governing it now.
Also what will happen then? The big markets teams have much larger pockets. Lakers Clippers Knicks Bulls etc will start throwing much more millions at stars, getting them all there and then filling their bench with scrubs. While smaller market teams, or poorer owners won't be able to compete.

 

What bothers me is that the increased revenue will not subsidize the fans tickets, parking, concessions, or merchandise. The owners, players, and top-tier teams are the only people who benefit from increase salary cap.

It doesn't even help the lower-tier teams of the league. Just look at the GSW; they had enough space to sign Kevin Durant, after already re-signing Thompson and Green. Franchise players are not going to sign to bottom feeders if they can both get paid and go to championship contending teams. Also, if teams have to use 90% of their cap space, then teams like the knicks and lakers are force to overspend on role players, thus forcing them into further mediocrity; leaving they're only chance to succeed, through the draft.

Salaries will eventually even out, but I expect this will take 3-4 years. It won't surprise me if Cleveland, Clippers, Warriors, or Spurs are the only championship contending teams for the next few years.

 

But I don't think the latter is a problem. Even Lebron James with a bunch of scrubs can't win a title. And even if they have the money, they wouldn't have the cap room for multiple of those big stars. The luxury tax is effective in that - we already see it now with big market teams trying to avoid that at all costs. So big market teams can do it with one superstar, but it wouldn't work out in their favor in terms of winning titles. You'd have teams similar to the 90's, often with one superstar or maybe two if you're really lucky.

That said, I agree it's unlikely to happen due to the issues you and Sam mention. I think the max contract is bad for the NBA though.

 

How is it bad? The owners make donkey dollars alot more than this behind the scenes but when players go get theirs its bad for the nba?

Just stop with the nonsense, understand the money the owners and the league as a whole make, obviously they are making a kings ransom annually if the players are able to get this amount.

Get some persoective before you wrongly charge these players, they should get the lions share of the profits because the owners dont deserve to oimp these players like this.

 

Pretty much how I feel. People are freaking out over this simply because a player signed a max contract with another team. This opportunity was created because of a very strange circumstance of the cap exploding and it could happen again next year as well. If the owners would have got their way and had cap smoothing then this situation would not have happened either. Nothing is wrong with free agency or the salary cap system. I think both are pretty good as they stand.

 

It needs an overhaul, that's for damn sure. This has actually been a great off-season with some players staying and enough leaving too. Max salaries are a big problem, as now you can have several max guys on one team. Players make crazy amounts, but a guy like Durant or Harden should maybe even make 40% of the team's budget. The NBA has been making steps towards parity though, but the players decide. In the end it's an entertainment business too.

People watching football in Europe and the Champions League have it bad, because teams and players are literally bought and assembled leaving no chance to teams with less to spend. Why do you think big city teams with the richest owners like Real Madrid keep winning? Paying $10s of millions for a player and he doesn't even see that much of it. At least in the NBA players actually get the money and there's a trading system and salary cap, that while far from perfect, is a damn good system.

We have had plenty of different champions the last 20 years (Pistons, Mavs, Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, Heat, Warriors & Cavs). That's 8 out of 30. I don't think there's many leagues out there where this many different teams have won it all. Sure, the NBA is top heavy, but it's always been like that. These teams do change though so that's reason to stay optimistic. The Thunder are for example not screwed necessarily, if they play their cards right.

With regards to Durant, he didn't do anything wrong and from an entertainment standpoint it's great. From a competitive stand point, it's bad because he chose the easy way out and made one contender stronger while dropping another from the list. It actually makes it easier to have one great team, everybody wants to beat them even worse now and it could lead to teams rebuilding since they do not stand a chance the next few years.

It will never be a perfect system where everybody's happy, but players having more control is a good thing, but you need to give all team's a better chance to sign a star. Getting rid of max contracts is one way. I don't think home teams need more advantage though. Durant gave OKC everything he had and they had their chance to win a title. That organisation showed that you can build a team through the draft, if you are smart about it. Even now with Durant gone, they will a damn good team. Get something for Westbrook and they will stay competitive.

Any player would want to join a team in a great city, an organisation with a sound structure, a philosophy to win that makes you feel at home. Teams in cities with big markets, good climate, rich basketball / sports history and people in the organisation who know what it takes to win will always have the advantage. It will never be even, so just enjoy the process and let's hope the next CBA will give all 30 teams a better chance to sign a star player / keep their foundational player and be competitive.

 

The big picture. I say yes.

I honestly don't consider Warriors a "small market team", as they are part of a big Metro area overall, and San Francisco is a world class city. A ton of people would love to live there. And Oakland is rapidly gentrifying.

But this gives teams a chance. The Spurs were the only consistent small market team to compete, and Cleveland is the definition of one.

I, like most red blooded Rockets fans, hate the Lakers. Seeing teams other than the Celtics, Lakers, or Heat go the finals is a good thing overall.

The bitter taste of Durant is that the Warriors were probably going to get there anyway without him.

 

I see what you mean now. So no free market but keep the soft cap.

We are talking about paritynot the amount of $. The $ is because of the profit of the league the streaming services jersey sales and the international audience. Ofc the players deserve to get it. But if there's no parity in the league then I don't see why it should be profitable if you already know the winner for the next half decade before even the season has started. Why watch? Except ofc you are a bandwagoner.
We may not have had a lot of parity until now but at least the illusion of one existed. There was at least 2-3 contenders. Now I only see ONE for now and the next 3 years.

In european football you have 4 different tournaments your team can play AND fight against relegation if it's not a contender]. Even if there's not much parity at least there are things to keep it interesting. Will your team qualify for the CL or the Europa League? Will it win the cup where upsets happen all the time? Will it be relegated to the second category?

In European bball as well same things. Euroleague, Eurocup , National Cup, National Championship , falling to second category. Now even another competition was added.

 

The NBA is becoming like MLB in so many ways.

 

How many NBA teams has a realistic chance to contend year in year out?

It is really not about who wins the championship but who is trying to (or could) beat who. Without the fixture of franchise players on each team, that kind of things get diluted.

Wouldn't it a lot more fun to see Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl playing for the Colts rather than for the Broncos?

Anyway, it's a matter of preference at the end of the day. Everybody has a different view on what kind of competition environment is more fun to watch.

 

I think the nba should merge into like 20 teams so we can have more stacked rosters and less teams like the 76s who are basically like black holes for careers

 

Definitely too many teams.

 

GS built their team the right way through the draft, and by putting together a great roster they were able to attract the best player.

Super teams are great for the league. It just sucks our owner won't let us start from the ground up.

 

Definitely too few teams.

The league could easily support another 5-10 teams and still have most of those teams be more than good enough.

The talent pool of NBA Quality players aged 18-40 worldwide is probably at least twice as big as it was in the 80's and 90's, if not more - and it's only going to increase as the financial rewards of playing in the NBA are stratospherical compared to other sports & leagues.

 

Yeah, it's actually not that bad:

9 teams - Rockets, Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, Pistons, Heat, Celtics, Mavs, and Warriors.

12 teams - Cowboys (Dynasty), Packers (Favre), Broncos (Elway & Davis - underrated defense and later with a broken down Peyton and great defense), Rams (The Greatest Show on Turf), Ravens (All World defense), Patriots (Belichick &Brady), Bucs (Another all time great defense), Steelers (Great defense and Big Ben), Colts (Manning), Giants (Manning & Coughlin), Saints (Brees), Seahawks (Great defense, Carroll with a young Russell Wilson).


11 teams - Braves, Yankees, Marlins (played Yankees), Diamondbacks (played Yankees), Angels, Red Sox, White Sox, Cardinals, Phillies, Giants, and Royals.

10 teams - Red Wings, Avalanche, Stars, Penguins, Bruins, Kings, Blackhawks, Lighting, Hurricanes, and Ducks.


The Have nots aren't exactly killing it in the NFL and MLB, either. The best franchises are still going to win the championships at the end of the day.

 

before durant signed we saw no mention this topic. Players all signing where they want is now suddenly a problem. Durant didnt even get full max and he is just a man like every other guy

 

For a championship: 3-5. Five, I'm being liberal.
Going deep into playoffs: 4-8.

NFL
For a Super Bowl(in given year): 4-8 (mainly teams with good to great QBs) -- The Pats have had gridlock on the AFC, unless they are beaten by the Ravens, Steelers, or a Manning-lead team. Throw in the Chargers in an odd year. Strangely, no other teams have rose out of the AFC in the last 12 years.

Going deep into playoffs: 6-10 -- You are right, the NFL has had lesser teams do slightly better in the playoffs.

The average team 8-8; 41-41; 81-81 with a middle of the road franchise is not supposed to beat the team with star players and A+ organization.

MLB
For

I agree, but everything is about championships at the end of the day. A championship can have lasting impact on a team for decades. Merely competing is that...competing.

Sure, but the Colts made the decision to go with the younger QB who was the consensus #1 draft pick. The Broncos, the steady, above-average NFL franchise decided to gamble on Peyton. *cough* not the Texans*cough* I'm not saying it was good or great management decision, there was degree of luck involved (Manning staying healthy long, enough). But for some odd reason, the really good franchise tend to be lucky as well. But with that luck comes the stability of the rest of the team and the surrounding sum of parts. Teams, like the Patriots, Spurs, Lakers (historically), Ravens, or Yankees could afford to lose a superstar and remain competitive. The thing with bad franchises is that they cannot sustain "true" success without a superstar.

True.

 

Ok you gotta explain this one