One early takeaway from this article if I'm a player: I don't want to be the #2 pick! Save me for #3, please! (Haha)
Your article reflects the complexities of cap rules and collective bargaining, Austin. This is why clubs need their legal and accounting department right outside the GM's door.
And those on the set with Windy were totally lost by what he was saying. Which proves my point above....
This is the odd thing about the NBA. Because the end of season has very little randomness in it, there is no inherent value in making the playoffs. In something like hockey or football, a team can always catch a lucky bounce and make it through one round, and generally from an ownership perspective, two rounds' worth of playoff money is enough to take the plunge on actually trying to win.
In the NBA, this is not the same. Since individual scoring event sample size is so high, even in a seven game playoff round, there is very little randomness. The teams at the bottom end of the conference have no real shot at winning a playoff round, which means there will not be two rounds' worth of playoff money even if they make it, which makes it pointless to make it in the first place.
I feel like a real reward for making the playoffs would help to curtail some of the 'half the league is tanking' problem. I don't know what that reward could be, but there could be something. A different way to fix this particular issue may be to make the draft lottery entirely flat, incentivizing a race to the middle instead of a race to the bottom. You could even let some playoff teams (say 15-18) into the lottery to turn making the playoffs into a slightly smaller punishment.
If we're going to ask teams not to tank so much, we have to do a better job shifting incentives to get them not to do it. I don't think the NBA has really even tried to reduce the tanking issue. They've taken some half-hearted, disingenuous steps, but nothing as radical as is necessary for such an egregious problem as tanking in the NBA has become. I believe more needs to be done than is being done to disincentivize losing.
IMO, the new luxury tax rules were to create more parity at the top rather than to prevent tanking at the bottom.
As far as the value of picks, the top picks will always be more valuable than those in the middle or bottom of the draft. I think the way to fix the tanking problem is to find a way to incentivize winning now as much as teams value to possibility of winning in the future. As far as how to do it, that’s above my pay grade haha.
Agree with this take. I think a flat draft lottery would do wonders, but I don’t think the small market owners would ever agree to it because they already feel at a disadvantage in free agency. A flat lottery would just make it that much harder because there wouldn’t be any predictable way to get better. Definitely needs to be change though.
Do you think the new luxury tax will help this at all? I mean, it has to at least make it slightly harder for the big market teams to sign new guys right? If it doesn't, it was a colossal failure of a rule change.
The biggest stars never get to free agency anyway. They're always traded and extended before it can ever get to that point, so the game becomes acquiring one of those star players, and the best way to do that is to get your hands on as many draft picks as possible. That will never change. I just want to lessen the value of those draft picks being as bad as possible. I don't know if an entirely flat lottery would be the solution, but that's the problem I think we're driving at here.
Acquiring more draft picks will always be the key to success in a league where star players don't ever reach FA status. This is why they're all any team ever wants in a trade in either the NBA or NFL. What needs to be done is to somehow flatten the value of a top draft pick compared to one in the middle. Bad teams will never be at the bottom of a round anyway, so don't worry about that, but how can we more closely equate the values of top five and mid-round draft picks?
Sam Presti essentially turning Serge Ibaka into the wealth of draft picks and young talent we see today is still one of the most impressive things I've seen in sport. It definitely helps when rebuilding to have a gm who looks more into the future than the present, like Danny Ainge and Sam Presti.
One early takeaway from this article if I'm a player: I don't want to be the #2 pick! Save me for #3, please! (Haha)
Your article reflects the complexities of cap rules and collective bargaining, Austin. This is why clubs need their legal and accounting department right outside the GM's door.
And those on the set with Windy were totally lost by what he was saying. Which proves my point above....
Great post Austin! This was so insightful!
Thanks, appreciate it!
I watched Ainge build Boston and he will do it again in UT. There is some skill involved… I hope my Trailblazer’s figure it out!!
Right there with you about the Blazers!
This is the odd thing about the NBA. Because the end of season has very little randomness in it, there is no inherent value in making the playoffs. In something like hockey or football, a team can always catch a lucky bounce and make it through one round, and generally from an ownership perspective, two rounds' worth of playoff money is enough to take the plunge on actually trying to win.
In the NBA, this is not the same. Since individual scoring event sample size is so high, even in a seven game playoff round, there is very little randomness. The teams at the bottom end of the conference have no real shot at winning a playoff round, which means there will not be two rounds' worth of playoff money even if they make it, which makes it pointless to make it in the first place.
I feel like a real reward for making the playoffs would help to curtail some of the 'half the league is tanking' problem. I don't know what that reward could be, but there could be something. A different way to fix this particular issue may be to make the draft lottery entirely flat, incentivizing a race to the middle instead of a race to the bottom. You could even let some playoff teams (say 15-18) into the lottery to turn making the playoffs into a slightly smaller punishment.
If we're going to ask teams not to tank so much, we have to do a better job shifting incentives to get them not to do it. I don't think the NBA has really even tried to reduce the tanking issue. They've taken some half-hearted, disingenuous steps, but nothing as radical as is necessary for such an egregious problem as tanking in the NBA has become. I believe more needs to be done than is being done to disincentivize losing.
IMO, the new luxury tax rules were to create more parity at the top rather than to prevent tanking at the bottom.
As far as the value of picks, the top picks will always be more valuable than those in the middle or bottom of the draft. I think the way to fix the tanking problem is to find a way to incentivize winning now as much as teams value to possibility of winning in the future. As far as how to do it, that’s above my pay grade haha.
Agree with this take. I think a flat draft lottery would do wonders, but I don’t think the small market owners would ever agree to it because they already feel at a disadvantage in free agency. A flat lottery would just make it that much harder because there wouldn’t be any predictable way to get better. Definitely needs to be change though.
Do you think the new luxury tax will help this at all? I mean, it has to at least make it slightly harder for the big market teams to sign new guys right? If it doesn't, it was a colossal failure of a rule change.
The biggest stars never get to free agency anyway. They're always traded and extended before it can ever get to that point, so the game becomes acquiring one of those star players, and the best way to do that is to get your hands on as many draft picks as possible. That will never change. I just want to lessen the value of those draft picks being as bad as possible. I don't know if an entirely flat lottery would be the solution, but that's the problem I think we're driving at here.
Acquiring more draft picks will always be the key to success in a league where star players don't ever reach FA status. This is why they're all any team ever wants in a trade in either the NBA or NFL. What needs to be done is to somehow flatten the value of a top draft pick compared to one in the middle. Bad teams will never be at the bottom of a round anyway, so don't worry about that, but how can we more closely equate the values of top five and mid-round draft picks?
Sam Presti essentially turning Serge Ibaka into the wealth of draft picks and young talent we see today is still one of the most impressive things I've seen in sport. It definitely helps when rebuilding to have a gm who looks more into the future than the present, like Danny Ainge and Sam Presti.
Great point. Presti thrives in building rosters. He may enjoy it more than winning haha
Probably, it's essentially a chance for him to show how much better he is at scamming opposing gms & drafting successfully than anyone else 😂