What can the league realistically do? (1 Viewer)

[BlayZa]

its fairly obvious we need to adopt the nab 2k player rating metric and cap a team based off that.

and/or make a dick move tax -that incurs a 300% total contract premium paid out to all lottery teams.

also, fucking them up next year will only add to lebrons legacy.

 

[Denny Crane]

One thing I find interesting is what fan-inspired "conventional wisdom" would be, about what pro atheletes should and shouldn't do, if true free agency had been the rule in major pro sports from the early days. I suspect we'd have seen a lot more players choose to play with other stars they like, in baseball, basketball and football. It's not terribly meaningful to say that, "Magic Johnson would never have done this," or "Oscar Robertson would never have done this," since they didn't have the control that players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant have, so we have no idea what they would or wouldn't have done (and Magic wouldn't have mostly because he was on a great team pretty much from the start, but that's neither here nor there).

For example, in an alternate universe where the Bulls never quite get over the hump and the current incarnation of free agency existed in the 1990s, I could very easily see Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley choosing to get together on the same team. Neither would have considered it "ball-less desire to take the easy way out" and more "taking control of their own destinies because they could."

The rockets with Clyde, Pippen, and Hakeem were kind of a super team. I think it was Pippen's agent that put together the deal to send him there.

 

[Natebishop3]

The rockets with Clyde, Pippen, and Hakeem were kind of a super team. I think it was Pippen's agent that put together the deal to send him there.

It was Barkley with pippen and Hakeem. Not Clyde.

 

[Denny Crane]

It was Barkley with pippen and Hakeem. Not Clyde.

OK. Drexler was with Barkley and Hakeem the year before Pippen went to Houston.

The point being there were super teams back then, too.

 

[Natebishop3]

OK. Drexler was with Barkley and Hakeem the year before Pippen went to Houston.

The point being there were super teams back then, too.

*Geriatric super teams

 

[dviss1]

I dont see the big deal. it is what it is. injuries can happen to so their lock on the finals is nowhere near 100%

LeBron (and I'm really not sure why some in here hate him so much because he's the real people's champ) is gonna pound GSW's SHIT next season.

 

[Denny Crane]

*Geriatric super teams

Barkely, Drexler, Hakeem won 57 games in 96-97. The geriatric Barkley (age 33) put up 19.2/13.5/4.7/1.3 for that 57 win team.

Drexler and Hakeem won a championship 2 years before that.

 

[WarriorFan]

I heard somewhere, I think it was on Zack Lowe's podcast that while the league suggested smoothing the cap increases (still giving the players all the money they are owed as a % of BRI), the players union said no becuase their rationale is that in the 3 or 4 years of huge salary cap jumps so many players will cycle through free agency that just about everyone will get a piece of the pie without having to smooth it out. They knew this would be an issue but figured it will work itself out in a couple years.

And FWIW, I have much more of a problem with these mediocre guys getting 20+M than I do with superstars signing into cap space. It's contracts like Parsons and Barnes that will hurt the NBA, not Durant.

 

[illmatic99]

And FWIW, I have much more of a problem with these mediocre guys getting 20+M than I do with superstars signing into cap space. It's contracts like Parsons and Barnes that will hurt the NBA, not Durant.

Figures that a GS fan would say that.

The only issue here is a single team having 4 of the top 15 players in the league. What parity? The jump in the cap was the most DIRECT reason to allow for this to happen.

The only way to reinforce this is to enforce a hard cap, and then get rid of max contracts. The lack of max deals will normalize everything and the top players will get their massive contracts and, the hard cap will disallow superteams.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Moses Malone was a superstar in Houston, lost to Boston in the finals in '81, then won his 2nd MVP in '82. That offseason, he joined Erving and the 76ers, who had just lost in the finals, won another MVP, his only championship, and finals MVP to boot.

Does anyone detract from Moses Malone's legacy for leaving in free agency to become the best player on a ready-made championship team?

 

[Denny Crane]

The whole point of Free Agency is that the players get to choose where they get to go, assuming the team wants them and they can agree on a price.

The teams have a lot of leverage and ability to way underpay the players for about 5 years, and can match to keep the players against their will.

It's good that the players want to win.

LeBron was able to go to Miami and win championships then go back to Cleveland and win another. If it weren't for the CBA, he might never have left. His leaving gave the Cavs the chance to build a quality supporting cast.

And the 73 win team didn't win the championship. The Cavs are still the team to beat.

 

[WarriorFan]

Figures that a GS fan would say that.

The only issue here is a single team having 4 of the top 15 players in the league. What parity? The jump in the cap was the most DIRECT reason to allow for this to happen.

The only way to reinforce this is to enforce a hard cap, and then get rid of max contracts. The lack of max deals will normalize everything and the top players will get their massive contracts and, the hard cap will disallow superteams.

Why is having 4 of the top 15 players a problem? Especially when they drafted 3 of them. Seems like that is a pretty good front office. Who says parity is great, or that the league is even less fairly balanced than it was in prior decades. There have always been dominant teams that spanned multiple seasons and I've always preferred to watch them rather than some average team. Even if you are just watching because you want them to lose, it's more fun IMO.

Call me a purist but I loved the fact that the warriors didn't (until now) go the superteam, free agent and forced trade route. They were homegrown. A championship now is cheapened and won't mean nearly as much as last year's. There is no way that this team can live up the the expectations and, while I'll take durant, I don't think they needed him.

Your solution of no max and a hard cap wouldn't stop players from taking less money to win. And may even make this whole thing worse if teams were forced to let their players go because there is no way they can be re-signed under the hard cap. The system as it is designed now gives teams a better chance to keep their guys becuase they can offer the most money, but you can't fault the player for not taking it.

Do you really it is a bigger problem that Durant took a smaller max contract and went to the best team than the fact that Harrison Barnes is making almost the same amount of money as him? I don't and I can't think of a way to stop dumbass owners from giving away so much money to fringe starters so that they can't afford the stars. maybe sticking with a soft cap but doing away with the max contract?

 

[PtldPlatypus]

I don't and I can't think of a way to stop dumbass owners from giving away so much money to fringe starters so that they can't afford the stars. maybe sticking with a soft cap but doing away with the max contract?

I'd be in favor of that, with a further addition of a luxury tax exemption for any salary over $20M/year paid to a player by the team who drafted him.

 

[Minstrel]

The league was incredibly popular in the 1980s and 1990s, a period that featured superteams like the Showtime Lakers, Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls (and a whole, whole bunch of teams with no shot to win a title). Many fans love elite, rockstar teams, especially if they're exciting to watch. To me, the 1980s underscored the fact that "parity" is not, in fact, what powers league popularity. One important point to realize is that the vast majority of fandom is not partisan hardcore fans. That is, hardcore Trail Blazers fans or hardcore Jazz fans, etc. The vast majority of fandom are casual fans who view basketball, and sports, as light entertainment akin to watching movies and might have a light connection with a team just because that's fun and they can banter with other fans. They don't live or die with their team and they don't bemoan parity or "which athletes have the balls to either drag the team they were drafted by to a title or commit ritual suicide." Basketball isn't that serious for most fans; it's not a morality play.

Internet forums, especially team forums, are communities for hardcore fans, by and large. The narratives here and in other online communities, like Clutchfans or whatever, are not the narratives going through the heads of most fans, who don't care enough to talk ball online.

I think the league would like more parity to better ensure that more stadiums get filled, because without full stadiums, you may lose some teams and thus some merchandising in some cities. But in terms of popularity from the TV-watching set, I don't think parity or superteams matter.

 

[WarriorFan]

I'd also like to find a way to stop leeches like David West from taking the minimum to ride the coat tails of a great team. Maybe a maximum % pay decrease and if the can't get that from some team then they go through some type of waiver process. It would be harder to build a super team if you knew you couldn't grab 5 quality players at a million or 2 each.

 

[Schilly]

Make "salary" slots each roster position being a dedicated max percentage of the cap. Maybe give each team 2 max salary slots (30% each) 1 20% , 1 X 18% and so on and so forth to add up to 100%. Teams can designate a player as a 30% player but pay less if they want to. Then as part of the moratorium teams can redesignate a players slot position within the financials and declare they have these slots available for free Agents.

 

[Minstrel]

Make "salary" slots each roster position being a dedicated max percentage of the cap. Maybe give each team 2 max salary slots (30% each) 1 20% , 1 X 18% and so on and so forth to add up to 100%. Teams can designate a player as a 30% player but pay less if they want to. Then as part of the moratorium teams can redesignate a players slot position within the financials and declare they have these slots available for free Agents.

So if you draft four great players, you're just out of luck? That seems to punish drafting success. It also really restricts creativity in building a team. You can no longer choose a stars-and-scrubs approach or a no-stars-all-good-players approach or really anything except a "two stars, a very good player, a good player, an average player, a below average player, a bad player, etc."

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Make "salary" slots each roster position being a dedicated max percentage of the cap. Maybe give each team 2 max salary slots (30% each) 1 20% , 1 X 18% and so on and so forth to add up to 100%. Teams can designate a player as a 30% player but pay less if they want to. Then as part of the moratorium teams can redesignate a players slot position within the financials and declare they have these slots available for free Agents.

Union would never go for that, because it would essentially be a hard cap, which they're vehemently against.

 

[Schilly]

Just saying that's a way of providing more parity which it seems is what people want.

 

[Minstrel]

Honestly, I don't want parity (maybe I'm just a casual at heart!). If Oden and Roy hadn't suffered career-ending injuries (essentially), I would have wanted the Blazers to be able to build a superteam with Oden/Roy/Aldridge/Batum. It's not fun to lose your championship shot to a superteam obstacle (of course, it's not fun to lose your championship shot to any kind of team), but dominance and sustained runs of success are what legends are made of. The original Warriors championship team is barely remembered. The Blazers championship team is barely remembered (outside of this fanbase and a few history diehards). If the Warriors run off a series of titles, they'll be remembered forever. If the Blazers had had a dynasty or mini-dynasty with that aforementioned core, it would have been remembered forever.

 

[riverman]

I think it's fine...and it's been that way forever. Not only basketball..English Premier League Soccer...Manchester United and Arsenal had fans all over the world....that lasted a long time. The point is to use youth and development to be great when they start fading. It's incentive if a young team embraces the challenge. Nobody knew who Hassan Whiteside was or CJ McCollum just a short time ago

 

[Schilly]

Aldridge spot on IMO