03-31-2021, 08:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-31-2021, 08:41 PM by HanspardShowerVoice.)
(03-31-2021, 06:15 PM)cow Wrote: It just turns a hopeless situation for fans into...what is worse than hopeless? Also, if I'm a team in the 7-10 spot right now, maybe I think about tanking the rest of the season for draft position which again has a negative impact on the fans.
The modern NBA Athlete is just built different than those in the past. With how early scouting works these days and AAU ball, everyone seems to know each other and are at the very least friendly, which makes it hard to rivals anymore. And I can completely understand wanting to work with your friends (it's what I did when I started my company) but I'm not in a field that is a spectator sport.
And with the modern NBA Athlete being so much more skilled on average, came a new era of basketball which is honestly not a lot of fun to watch especially if you aren't invested in a team or a more casual viewer Watching GSW throw up threes was fun because you had two-to-three of the best shooters to ever lace them up playing in that offense. It's less fun to watch when a team that wins 15 games a year utilizes the same tactics.
I'm not sure how you stop superstar teams and if you have those, talent in the buyout market is always going to gravitate to the chance at a ring to close out a career or rehab a career to help bolster their next potential contract. Maybe you could have a rule that only allows one buyout waiver claim every so many years.
To prevent super teams, maybe you allow one player to take up half of the salary cap and no other player on the team can make more than 50% of that contract number. So for the Mavs and using fictional numbers:
-20XX CAP is 120M
-Luka is 60M
-KP is 30M at most.
*shrug*
I agree with a lot of what you point out here. I think sometimes the science of the analytics eclipses the art. This has happened to baseball, where the most efficient way to win baseball games (lots of pitching changes, large defensive shifts, very little tactical baserunning) is also a very unappealing entertaining product at an aethetic level. Like are we ever going to see a signature move around a mid range 2 point shot like Dirk's 1 legged fall away or Hakeem's Dream Shake, or are the modern versions of young Dirk and Hakeem going to be coached out of developing those moves to just focus on 3 point shooting and rim diving?
I think as far as keeping players from just creating mercenary super star teams in the NY/LA markets the league is just going to have to change up the incentive structures and allow small market teams to overpay to retain their homegrown talent without it being punitive on the cap. Like if you are Minnesota and you draft and develop Andrew Wiggins and have to offer him a max extension at the first available moment to make him happy and keep him in the franchise it shouldn't just absolutely kill you against the cap if he never reaches the next level. Small market teams now have no path other than to try to load up on multiple high draft picks and try to "grow their own food", but a lot of times these home grown talents are punitive from a salary cap standpoint by the time they get to their 2nd or 3rd contracts.