During the meeting, owners made it clear that their focus was to increase profits rather than cut losses. They also expressed that changes need to be made in order to increase parity and level the playing field across the league. Issues such as contraction or implementing a franchise tag were not the focus of the meeting. Both sides were more engaged than in previous meetings and sources said that Mark Cuban led the way as the owner most active in talks. While there wasn't much negotiating during the meeting and very little progress was made, one intriguing concept was proposed by the players. Rather than changing the salary structure to level the playing field for small market teams, an alternative was proposed that would involve making drastic changes to the draft process. The union made the argument that the quickest way to turn around "crummy" teams is through the draft. Because first-round picks have become so valuable in today's NBA and many teams have had success building a roster with this model, the union feels that the best way to increase parity is to focus the draft around the underachieving teams. The fourteen non-playoff teams that make up the lottery would not only receive the first fourteen picks, but the next fourteen as well. The team that wins the lottery would receive the first overall pick as well as the fifteenth overall pick. The second team on the clock would also own the sixteenth pick, the third picking team would also own the seventeenth pick and so on. Each team would receive two first-round selections so that the top twenty-eight players go to the teams that are struggling and the playoff teams that need the least help receive second-round talent. Those playoff teams would follow the same structure in the second round with two late picks each. The union is willing to lower the number to the eight worst teams, but they feel this is a much better way for the league to level the playing field. http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=18825
Interesting concept, but it would need some serious tweaking to take into consideration talent differences between conferences and to avoid marginal teams tanking to avoid making the playoffs if they know that they've got no shot at winning a series.
It's interesting but I don't see how it even comes close to addressing what the owners want to accomplish during these negotiations. The Owners focus this year is all about the money, parity isn't a concern.
I like the idea as well, but I would give the 14th team, the 15th pick, and the 13th given the 16th, et cetera, so that the 1st pick gets the 28th. Maybe I've been playing too much settlers of catan...
Yeah I didn't see anything like this coming, I assumed it would all be about money. Parity is a concern of mine, though.
Yeah, that would make a little more sense than the winner of the lottery selecting 1st and 15th. That is some too much in a deep draft and with some luck. I still don't like the whole idea though, I think fringe playoff teams (say a Charlotte) would have too much incentive to tank.
lame idea. i love the draft and if we weren't getting a first round pick, i'd skip it. Also teams will end up with a glut of players that are all pretty average. most of the difference makers are in the lottery.
I don't really love the draft when the team isn't picking high in the lottery. "First rounder" is a bit of a misnomer. The basketball draft is basically a condensed version of other sports' drafts. A late first round pick in the NBA is more along the lines of a third- or fourth-round pick in the NFL draft, IMO. While those picks are far from valueless, they're not thrilling and start to get into the area of the draft where there are a lot of similarly so-so talents and it's hard to have a strong opinion on whom to take. Not having that would not be tragedy, IMO. Of course, for major draftniks, I can see every pick being exciting and fun for them. The NFL and even MLB have fans who follow prospects down to the fringe draft prospects. I understand that, even if it's not me. For my part, I don't think this is a bad idea for giving teams a quicker route to rebuilding their talent base.
Parity is something fans care about, maybe some owners, but it is of zero concern to Stern and most owners.
BTW, just as a wild thought, how about this: hold the current draft, but limit it to college kids. Then hold a second draft for the NBA rights to players already under contract in Europe. As for tanking, try this: teams that reach a certain thresh-hold for wins, are immune from paying the luxury tax. Teams that reach a certain thresh-hold for losses are ineligible to collect money from the league for being under the tax.
This would basically negate the point of the luxury tax as a parity mechanic. It would hurt teams that spend a lot badly, but those aren't the teams that the luxury tax was put in for. It was to prevent certain teams from spending way more than others to contend every year. Of course, if the NBA institutes a hard cap, then the luxury tax becomes irrelevant.
I once heard an idea of having draft order determined by an average of the teams previous 4 season records. I really like that idea, I think it would eliminate most tanking and give high picks to the truly deserving teams instead of a team like San Antonio getting Duncan after a single fluke poor season. The multiple draft picks for lotto teams is a neat idea. So instead of Portland getting the 14th and 28th pick if they just missed the playoffs they would get only the 30th pick? I'd still always want us to make the playoffs so I don't see that causing much tanking.
That's a pretty excellent idea, IMO. Pretty hard for a team to decide to tank for years, considering you'd have to be targeting a prospect four years out. Doesn't seem too likely.
Well said. It's one of the all-around dumbest suggestions I've ever heard. Sounds like a smokescreen to get the owners and media distracted. Hell, the whole contractation disagreement is about whether there's enough talent to go around, and now they want to go and spread the incoming talent even thinner across half the league? Dumb.
I disagree. As long as the L*kers, Celtics, Bulls and Knicks are all each winning 60 games, Stern is thrilled. That's parity in his mind.
not only will this not solve the problem, but it is very unfair to teams just out of the lottery and would absolutely promote tanking + there is no fair way to adjust for highly variable imbalance between conferences. seems more like a distractional ploy by the players than a serious proposal. the perennially bad teams are where they are because of poor management decisions, poor scouting, and/or limited budget for FAs, not because they haven't had enough high draft picks. look at the T-wolves.
