Interesting article In today's Parade Magazine on the troubled NBA.

[fansinceday1]

http://www.parade.com/news/2010/06/06-6-ways-to-fix-the-nba.html

I'd like to hear if many here think as this article does on the state of the NBA?
I don't think rules such as a minimum age for rookies or team contraction will happen. I think things will get much worse for the NBA before they get better.

 

[Emma]

I am for axing up to 12 games from the schedule, against age limits, against shortening the shot clock, against a four point play, and possibly for increasing the amount of fouls a player is allowed to commit (maybe getting a one foul renewal every overtime).

The new CBA is gonna be very interesting.

 

[William Blake]

Terrible article. Introduce four point plays, shot clock and foul out modification and you can take away the 'B' from NBA since it wouldn't be basketball anymore. Those things will also lead to an even more loose defense in the regular season, making games less interesting.

I would be fine with a shorter schedule though.

 

[fansinceday1]

I like that at least people are thinking about ways to better the game. The conversation has to start somewhere.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

There are some poor, poor suggestions in that article.

We all know the contract situation is going to have to change, and that's the biggest issue that's going to face the owners and players when negotiating the new CBA. Shorter contracts, non-guaranteed stuff...not really breaking any ground there.

I could be convinced to get behind a reduction of the season to 70 games (and possibly reducing or eliminating regular-season interaction between the conferences in order to reduce travel) and making the first round of the playoffs 5 games.

And as ryanandty said above, maybe one extra foul per overtime period, which would allow teams to reintroduce their stars/replenish the ranks.

But pretty much every other suggestion was either not useful or downright bad. You've got superagent David Falk calling for greater contract disparity between stars and roleplayers. (Am I allowed to question his sincerity there?) You've got calls for contraction. And you've got the pig-idiot suggestion that the league should “Change every rule in the sport so that the New York team is good”. Um, no. Thanks, Parade, for offering stupid suggestions to "fix" a "problem" that is probably far more deeply rooted in the bad economy than the state of NBA basketball.

 

[drboiffard]

Some ideas as the 4 point shot are completely insane, but I do agree there are a lot of meaninngless matches, and this is caused because there are a lot of games (and failing as well as wining is statistically less important) and also because some abroad tours are crazy, both physically and mentally, for most teams. It's all for the spectacle, and not for the competition. So you have all the attention on play-off level teams and low table teams are boring to see during years...

I think more competition, I mean, more life or death matches translates always translate into more concentration and higher level. I think some kind of parallel championship with live or death matches since the begining, as our soccer King's cup, should add more meaningful games to the schedule. Low budget teams usually make the surprise in these kind of competitions, and only the one who rest are affected by some extra games (in 3rd round you have only 1/4 teams playing).

The problem (or the cool thing) is you some power of 2 number of teams, so if you extend to 32 (or 64) you can add some top NCAA teams, the Harlem Globetrotters, Euroleague teams or whatever. Specially if we are serious and think of NCAA teams, it would be the perfect compliment to the age limit raise, as this competition would allow to see every year how young stars can do without waiting them to come to the NBA more matured and experienced.


And for the regular season, a shorter schedule would be very very fine. 82 games is insane. How it would be at european style? One game at home, one game away with every other team makes 58 games I think, that's around 2 games a week, which is fine to fill all the days of the week with matches... If you blow up the conferences and the east/west level difference, you also make a more interesting and open competition, IMO

 

[kennadog]

Well, with the CBA negotiations coming up, that's a time when major changes could be made. Let's hope players are smart enough to realize they need to make some concessions for the survival of the league. I didn't like most of the suggestions in the article, but a shortened schedule would be beneficial, I think.

I like the one extra foul per OT periods, though.

 

[Bricklayer]

The suggestions in there are mostly just foolishness. And as an aside the NBA will never axe games from their schedule. Games = $$. You want a shotened schedule, then the owners are going to pass that loss of revenue on to the players, who then aren't going to like it one bit. and they may very well pass it on to you as well, in trying to make up for lost revenue from extra games by charging more for the games they have.

P.S. As an aside, I do however remain intrigued by the idea of not modifying foulouts, but actually eliminating them. As I've mentioend before, in no other sport does there exist the possibility that you'll have ot play without your best player because of some rule, or does there exist gameplanning centered around taking the other team's best player away from them. You can't foul out Payton Manning so you only have to face his incompetent replacement. The tenor of foul calls in other sports can't actually force you to play with players you normally would not. I would consider it a very worthwhile experiment to try out in some lesser setting the idea that 6 fouls does not foul you out. Instead with every foul over 6 its a technical foul, or foul shots and the ball, or whatever you want to do to heavily discourage continuing to hack. But your team gets to play its guys, the superstar call controversy is eliminated, and ref conspiracies in general are somewhat tamped down.

 

[Peter_Gibbons]

Like what most of you already said, most of the suggestions are silly.

But overall, I think lower salaries for players will allow the ticket prices to go down and attract a lot more fans to attend the games. I think there should a restructure from top to bottom. Even the best players don't deserve 25 million to play basketball. Thats close to half the teams cap.

Only partial of the contract should be guaranteed. Meaning there is a base salary and also the performance incentives. Too many players sign a good contract and stop working hard. That way teams aren't stuck with bad contracts for years on a once promising player who gained 30 lbs since his new contract.

 

[captain bill]

Cutting salaries has to be the first step. Lower max, hard cap (no more lux tax that only further imbalances things towards teams that can afford it) and non-gauranteed contracts. $400 million debt? Shave an average of $1 million of each contract in the league and you're breaking even. Obviously that's painful but equally obvious is that players are overpaid relative to their values. There could also be provisions tying pay to revenue- drop in tickets sales = drop in pay.

If that doesn't work, THEN you look at contraction/moving teams.

Also, less inter-conference games might save a lil money on those planes as well.

 

[kupman]

I have saying for years that 82 games is too many; too many low intensity games; too much poor play stemming from player fatigue/exhaustion and; I believe that many injuries stem from playing too much.

A 60-70 game schedule would be great IMHO, although I know it is very unlikely to happen.

 

[captain bill]

The suggestions in there are mostly just foolishness. And as an aside the NBA will never axe games from their schedule. Games = $$. You want a shotened schedule, then the owners are going to pass that loss of revenue on to the players, who then aren't going to like it one bit. and they may very well pass it on to you as well, in trying to make up for lost revenue from extra games by charging more for the games they have.

P.S. As an aside, I do however remain intrigued by the idea of not modifying foulouts, but actually eliminating them. As I've mentioend before, in no other sport does there exist the possibility that you'll have ot play without your best player because of some rule, or does there exist gameplanning centered around taking the other team's best player away from them. You can't foul out Payton Manning so you only have to face his incompetent replacement. The tenor of foul calls in other sports can't actually force you to play with players you normally would not. I would consider it a very worthwhile experiment to try out in some lesser setting the idea that 6 fouls does not foul you out. Instead with every foul over 6 its a technical foul, or foul shots and the ball, or whatever you want to do to heavily discourage continuing to hack. But your team gets to play its guys, the superstar call controversy is eliminated, and ref conspiracies in general are somewhat tamped down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S_soY5Jg_Q

 

[Bricklayer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S_soY5Jg_Q

Oh no, I have long thought that even under today's rules the "Hack a Shaq" is bogus. Under no circumstances should fouling somebody work to the fouling team's favor. Its part of the foul fascination basketball has to its detriment. A foul is basically a make good for the team that got fouled -- the other team cheats, we try to make it good by calling a foul on them and giving you points/the ball whatever. At no point should that dynamic ever get twisted in a way you cannot control so that its the fouling team gaining an edge. You getting fouled should never hurt you -- that's perverse. Which is to say I think intentional off the ball "hack a shaq" fouls should give the fouled team the option to send whoever they want to the line, regardless of whether the foulout rule is changed or not. Should have been done years ago.

 

[Bricklayer]

As an aside guys, a long time ago the NBA season was 72 games. It was bumped to 82, then the playoffs were extended, then the number of games per playoff round was extended. You are pissing in the wind if you think its going back the other way.

Nor is it out of line with the other North American leagues. Hockey plays the same number of games as basketball (in a more brutal sport too, albeit played on ice skates), baseball plays 162 (up itself from 150(?) back in the day). Football of course plays far fewer, and that game is so physical they really can't play more. But for decades now football itself has made things longer and longer trying to squeeze more money out. Back in the day it was a 14 game season, then they bumped to 16, then they extended the playoffs with wild cards. Then they extended the preseason games. Then they added in a bye week to get one more week of TV. Then they added a second bye week. Etc.

Europe is a separate entity/sports culture and hard to compare. Remember first that soccer has always been king, queen, and hermaphrodite over there, and its only relatively recently that basketball has become a big $$ business, albeit still often run out of the basement of "sporting clubs" formed primarily for soccer. And you're in this intensely multinational culture as well, full of little countries that can only support a handful of top teams, and with a neeed to compete against teams in other countries to get top competition. So you get this mess of domestic leagues, then multinational leagues, tournaments, all playing only a handful of gasmes themselves but combining to play 50+, and all of it also with the longstanding Euro expectation that all of the top guys are going to want to play NT ball every summer for another dozen games or whatever. There's just no real way to compare that at all (actually there kind of is -- its much closer to a college type environment).

 

[swisshh]

The type of people polled for this do not represent the audience that has stopped going to games.

First thing to be addressed is the officiating and installing more parity so the fans feel each team has a chance.

 

[Superman]

The type of people polled for this do not represent the audience that has stopped going to games.

First thing to be addressed is the officiating and installing more parity so the fans feel each team has a chance.

Parity = hard cap = David Stern's dead body

Better officiating = accountability/accessibility = David Stern's dead body

 

[Bricklayer]

Parity = hard cap = David Stern's dead body

Better officiating = accountability/accessibility = David Stern's dead body

Parity = impossible due to the nature of basketball. Has nothing to do with a hard cap, unless you put in a cap so hard it forces superstars to relocate every year, which is no good for anybody. Alternately you could very sneakily create a system where the superstars were allowed/forced to be paid even MORE, so much so that having one meant you could barely field a full team. But again, that's silly. There has NEVER been "parity" in basketball, and never will. Stern was still back in high school trying to pick up chicks with coke bottle glasses and his dad's Edzel when the Celtics were running off 9 titles in 11 years or whatever. A great/foundational player means everything in this sport.

I should note BTW that the hard cap hasn't done much for parity in the NFL either, unless "parity" is taken to mean is the AFC representative in the Super Bowl this year going to be New England, Indianapolis, or Pittsburgh, while teams like the Lions and the Niners have struggled for a decade straight.

 

[Kings Faithful]

Oh no, I have long thought that even under today's rules the "Hack a Shaq" is bogus. Under no circumstances should fouling somebody work to the fouling team's favor. Its part of the foul fascination basketball has to its detriment. A foul is basically a make good for the team that got fouled -- the other team cheats, we try to make it good by calling a foul on them and giving you points/the ball whatever. At no point should that dynamic ever get twisted in a way you cannot control so that its the fouling team gaining an edge. You getting fouled should never hurt you -- that's perverse. Which is to say I think intentional off the ball "hack a shaq" fouls should give the fouled team the option to send whoever they want to the line, regardless of whether the foulout rule is changed or not. Should have been done years ago.

I disagree. Your right about the "Fouling should never work in the fouling teams favor"... if you've been practicing your free throws... it shouldn't. If you are in the NBA for god sake and you can't hit 7 out of 10 free throws, thats your problem and getting hack a shaq'd is just one of the punishments that comes with it. Shaq in his hay day was pretty much unstoppable... partially because the refs let him get away with stuff, but mainly because he was pretty good. However his one weakness was free throw shooting and its ridiculous that we would try to enforce rules that would make a dominant player, even more dominant. Whats next? Superstars can palm the ball and walk with it? Oh wait...

 

[Bricklayer]

I disagree. Your right about the "Fouling should never work in the fouling teams favor"... if you've been practicing your free throws... it shouldn't. If you are in the NBA for god sake and you can't hit 7 out of 10 free throws, thats your problem and getting hack a shaq'd is just one of the punishments that comes with it. Shaq in his hay day was pretty much unstoppable... partially because the refs let him get away with stuff, but mainly because he was pretty good. However his one weakness was free throw shooting and its ridiculous that we would try to enforce rules that would make a dominant player, even more dominant. Whats next? Superstars can palm the ball and walk with it? Oh wait...

I didn't say you couldn't intentionally foul Shaq WITH the ball. He's a poor FT shooter, sure, his problem if he gets it (although truth of the matter is that too is a perversion, and if it were not for the potential for bloodshed the way to play it would be like hockey -- blow the whistle but continue playing to see if a guy scored before stopping play. Again, the foul is there to BENEFIT the guy getting fouled. Anytime its going to hurt the foulee, it should be up to him/his team if they want to take it or not. They should never come out on the short end of the stick. But anyway, that is impractical because of the violence that would ensue.

However, saying that an opposing team needs to actually play basketball, and can't just run over and grab a player who doesn't even have the ball has no downside. There is no rational reason why they should be able to do that and force Shaq or his team to shoot FTs they don't want to shoot. Its as if you took away the offense's ability to refuse the penalty in football, and could force them to accept a 10 yard holding penalty rather than taking the 30 yard completion they just made. Fouling should never work out to the benefit of the fouling team.

And as an aside, playing the superstar card is a red herring. Anger/frustration at not being good enough to play a guy straight up is no exuse for being able to cheat to do so. Hack a shaq can be used against anybody anytime, superstar or scrub. Fouling = cheating. That's why its called. You cheat, whistle is blown, you are punished. Hack a Shaq is bizarrely being allowed to cheat to win, even if the team you are cheating would prefer to decline the make good.

 

[Superman]

Parity = impossible due to the nature of basketball. Has nothing to do with a hard cap, unless you put in a cap so hard it forces superstars to relocate every year, which is no good for anybody. Alternately you could very sneakily create a system where the superstars were allowed/forced to be paid even MORE, so much so that having one meant you could barely field a full team. But again, that's silly. There has NEVER been "parity" in basketball, and never will. Stern was still back in high school trying to pick up chicks with coke bottle glasses and his dad's Edzel when the Celtics were running off 9 titles in 11 years or whatever. A great/foundational player means everything in this sport.

True. I knew there would be quibbles when I posted that, but I liked it, so...

However, a hard cap would be the first natural step toward a so-called parity movement in the NBA. And that ain't gonna happen under Stern (or any commissioner, really) because the big markets make the big bucks in the big leagues.

I should note BTW that the hard cap hasn't done much for parity in the NFL either, unless "parity" is taken to mean is the AFC representative in the Super Bowl this year going to be New England, Indianapolis, or Pittsburgh, while teams like the Lions and the Niners have struggled for a decade straight.

This is where we'll disagree. Parity means that the small market teams aren't a disadvantage as long as they are run properly. For as good as Peyton Manning is, the Colts aren't a contender unless the front office puts good pieces around him. There's a reason Bill Polian is a 6x Exec of the year, and none of them came the year he drafted Peyton Manning.

Just like any other sport, you've got to have key pieces in place, but well run teams can win in the NFL, regardless of where they're coming from. That's why the Saints were able to win the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were a play away a year ago, despite both franchises being veritable laughingstocks for decades. The Lions and Niners haven't won because they've been poorly run, not because of a lack of parity. Even with a hard cap, the teams that contend are well run. Not all of them have franchise quarterbacks; some of them luck into them via free agency (Saints, Cards); some trade for them (Giants); most draft them, and the majority of starting quarterbacks weren't drafted in the first round. There's been too many #1 drafted quarterbacks that bust to remember (Russell, Harrington, Carr, to name a few).

The only reason New England, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis are heavy Super Bowl favorites while Detroit, San Francisco, Cleveland and Oakland aren't is because the former teams are well run, while the latter teams aren't. But the hard cap acts as a restraint and causes a dilution of talent from team to team. Easier to sustain when you have a star quarterback, but not impossible just because you don't.

 

[captain bill]

However, saying that an opposing team needs to actually play basketball, and can't just run over and grab a player who doesn't even have the ball has no downside. There is no rational reason why they should be able to do that and force Shaq or his team to shoot FTs they don't want to shoot. Its as if you took away the offense's ability to refuse the penalty in football, and could force them to accept a 10 yard holding penalty rather than taking the 30 yard completion they just made. Fouling should never work out to the benefit of the fouling team.

I agree with the idea of what you're saying, I'm just not sure the solution is so easy. If those rules were implemented (intentional foul = send the best FT shooter to the line), teams will just rough up those bad FT shooters without trying to make it look intentional. Teams would practice that to no end- look at how guys like Pau and the Celtics bigs have perfected flopping. With Pau, at game speed it's very hard to tell if he's taking a legit hit or flopping. Same thing would happen- mob a guy like Shaq, get physical with him as much as you want, but don't just grab the jersey for no reason. The foul limit is a big reason why teams don't do that. If you take out the foul limit and put in the intentional foul rule, teams will just get rough every time down the floor. Then it's up to the refs to make the judgment call of whether a foul is a hack-a-Shaq or a legit attempt to get position on an opposing player. In the current system, coaches have to either (1) give a rotation player a foul towards the limit or (2) put a stiff out there to take fouls, problem being you either have to burn timeouts or leave said stiff on the floor during key stretches of the game.

 

[captain bill]

True. I knew there would be quibbles when I posted that, but I liked it, so...

However, a hard cap would be the first natural step toward a so-called parity movement in the NBA. And that ain't gonna happen under Stern (or any commissioner, really) because the big markets make the big bucks in the big leagues.



This is where we'll disagree. Parity means that the small market teams aren't a disadvantage as long as they are run properly. For as good as Peyton Manning is, the Colts aren't a contender unless the front office puts good pieces around him. There's a reason Bill Polian is a 6x Exec of the year, and none of them came the year he drafted Peyton Manning.

Just like any other sport, you've got to have key pieces in place, but well run teams can win in the NFL, regardless of where they're coming from. That's why the Saints were able to win the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were a play away a year ago, despite both franchises being veritable laughingstocks for decades. The Lions and Niners haven't won because they've been poorly run, not because of a lack of parity. Even with a hard cap, the teams that contend are well run. Not all of them have franchise quarterbacks; some of them luck into them via free agency (Saints, Cards); some trade for them (Giants); most draft them, and the majority of starting quarterbacks weren't drafted in the first round. There's been too many #1 drafted quarterbacks that bust to remember (Russell, Harrington, Carr, to name a few).

The only reason New England, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis are heavy Super Bowl favorites while Detroit, San Francisco, Cleveland and Oakland aren't is because the former teams are well run, while the latter teams aren't. But the hard cap acts as a restraint and causes a dilution of talent from team to team. Easier to sustain when you have a star quarterback, but not impossible just because you don't.

A think the difference between NBA parity and the parity in other leagues is that success in the NBA is more based on individual stars. If in the NBA you have the 2 best players at their respective positions, or an MVP and some role players, you are going to be a contender, hands done. The NFL and MLB require good players up and down the roster. You can have a top-3 QB and top flight WRs but still not be a legit contender like Arizona, Cincinatti, Seattle, etc. Top-to-bottom roster strength isn't as important in the NBA. NBA you play eight guys and need 2 or 3 top-flight players to be effective. NFL you play what, 40 or 45 guys a game? And then you probably need at least 10 great players to be a contender.

So- it's harder to keep together a contender in football, making for a lot of room for other teams to move up. NBA- you sign 2 guys to big contracts and your set for years (look what the Spurs did with limited resources). When guys want to sign those long contracts, they choose marquee cities. Marquee cities tend to have more cash, but that's really incidental to the fact that guys want to play there. I don't think a hard cap would change the situation drastically.

 

[Superman]

A think the difference between NBA parity and the parity in other leagues is that success in the NBA is more based on individual stars. If in the NBA you have the 2 best players at their respective positions, or an MVP and some role players, you are going to be a contender, hands done. The NFL and MLB require good players up and down the roster. You can have a top-3 QB and top flight WRs but still not be a legit contender like Arizona, Cincinatti, Seattle, etc. Top-to-bottom roster strength isn't as important in the NBA. NBA you play eight guys and need 2 or 3 top-flight players to be effective. NFL you play what, 40 or 45 guys a game? And then you probably need at least 10 great players to be a contender.

So- it's harder to keep together a contender in football, making for a lot of room for other teams to move up. NBA- you sign 2 guys to big contracts and your set for years (look what the Spurs did with limited resources). When guys want to sign those long contracts, they choose marquee cities. Marquee cities tend to have more cash, but that's really incidental to the fact that guys want to play there. I don't think a hard cap would change the situation drastically.

Look at the Lakers payroll. With a hard cap, they can't resign Lamar Odom, can't sign Ron Artest, can't extend Kobe for $30 million per, can't extend Pau for $18 million per, and so on. A hard cap means that your team continually changes every season, because you have to release players, you have to make salary cap moves, etc., and it doesn't matter whether you can afford the $91 million payroll or not. You don't have that option because you HAVE to get under the cap.

This would be especially pertinent to a league where every almost every team was over the salary cap this season and roleplayers like Andrei Kirilenko and Kenyon Martin are making $15 million+ every year. Pay attention to the contracts that Rudy Gay, Carlos Boozer and Joe Johnson get this season, as peripheral players. A hard cap would keep average salaries down, even with certain exceptions, and would make it harder for really good teams to stay really good for more than a season or two. I don't know if that's necessarily good for the NBA, but it is good for teams like the Kings. And it's essentially what parity is, reducing the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams and making it easier to build a winner from the ground up.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

However, saying that an opposing team needs to actually play basketball, and can't just run over and grab a player who doesn't even have the ball has no downside. There is no rational reason why they should be able to do that and force Shaq or his team to shoot FTs they don't want to shoot. Its as if you took away the offense's ability to refuse the penalty in football, and could force them to accept a 10 yard holding penalty rather than taking the 30 yard completion they just made. Fouling should never work out to the benefit of the fouling team.

It seems like a very obvious solution to the problem is just the football answer: allow the fouled team to accept or decline the penalty on non-shooting fouls (on- or off-ball). Not just in the last two minutes, but throughout the game (once the fifth foul is reached and there is actually a penalty). Then the only problem is that the defensive team could at least pressure the ball on the inbounds, so you'd probably have to implement a no-pressure rule to allow the fouled team to get the ball in easily. Something like: all defenders must be inside the 3-point line until the ball is inbounded and touched by an offensive player. Reset the shot clock to 14 if it's below that, otherwise don't. That way if the team doesn't want the free throws, it doesn't have to take them, and it would probably put an end to the whole end-of-the-game-is-a-free-throw-shooting-contest thing that I'm not a big fan of.

 

[LPKingsFan]

"No, you cannot still read Parade!" - Stewie Griffin, Family Guy

 

[swisshh]

A think the difference between NBA parity and the parity in other leagues is that success in the NBA is more based on individual stars.

That surmises an argued view of why the NBA can not have parity, but it does not ask the question of whether it is basketball that is dominated by superstars or just the NBA.

There are superstars that come out of college ball, but they do not dominate the championships, do they? Normally it is the well run systems and colleges that do. Who are the superstars of the two teams in the last college championship game?

There are euro stars in euro leagues, but no one player dominates like they do in the NBA.

So, since the superstar makes all the difference reasoning seems to be NBA specific, we should try to understand why.

Is it because the NBA has the best of the best and the good dominate the lesser in the game of basketball?

Again, college basketball supplies many stars for the NBA, and the dropoff in surrounding and opposing talent is arguably far greater in the college game. Shouldn't the pro game provide more an even footing and less room for star dominance?

So why doesn't it?

This is where we get to the refs, endorsements and financial food chain of the NBA. That is why officiating is the second part of the fix and an essential part of parity.

 

[captain bill]

Look at the Lakers payroll. With a hard cap, they can't resign Lamar Odom, can't sign Ron Artest, can't extend Kobe for $30 million per, can't extend Pau for $18 million per, and so on. A hard cap means that your team continually changes every season, because you have to release players, you have to make salary cap moves, etc., and it doesn't matter whether you can afford the $91 million payroll or not. You don't have that option because you HAVE to get under the cap.

This would be especially pertinent to a league where every almost every team was over the salary cap this season and roleplayers like Andrei Kirilenko and Kenyon Martin are making $15 million+ every year. Pay attention to the contracts that Rudy Gay, Carlos Boozer and Joe Johnson get this season, as peripheral players. A hard cap would keep average salaries down, even with certain exceptions, and would make it harder for really good teams to stay really good for more than a season or two. I don't know if that's necessarily good for the NBA, but it is good for teams like the Kings. And it's essentially what parity is, reducing the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams and making it easier to build a winner from the ground up.

Let's go with the Lakers example. If a hard cap was implemented, a lot of salaries would go to across the board. Odom and Bynum would both be making less, and likely Gasol was well. If the Lakers were forced to lose one of their players, it would likely be Odom. Artest wanted to come to LA and chose LA over other teams because it's LA, not because the team is wealthy. They would still have Kobe. They would find a way to resign Pau. Hard cap means Lakers keep at least Kobe and Pau. Those two are enough to make a contender- so my point above is still valid. Every team in the league might bleed a little talent, but they would keep their 1 or 2 marquee players.

Thinking about it, the hard cap would probably make the bottom teams in the league a little tougher and eliminate some of the super-teams we've seen of late (Boston, LA, Orlando (kinda) and whatever superteam emerges after this summer) but we'd still see only 1 or 2 teams contending every year, and the championship probably wouldn't start circling around the league. Maybe we'd see a few more Detroit-style teams, but I think basketball is just a sport prone to dynasties more than other sports are.

 

[captain bill]

That surmises an argued view of why the NBA can not have parity, but it does not ask the question of whether it is basketball that is dominated by superstars or just the NBA.

There are superstars that come out of college ball, but they do not dominate the championships, do they? Normally it is the well run systems and colleges that do. Who are the superstars of the two teams in the last college championship game?

There are euro stars in euro leagues, but no one player dominates like they do in the NBA.

So, since the superstar makes all the difference reasoning seems to be NBA specific, we should try to understand why.

Is it because the NBA has the best of the best and the good dominate the lesser in the game of basketball?

Again, college basketball supplies many stars for the NBA, and the dropoff in surrounding and opposing talent is arguably far greater in the college game. Shouldn't the pro game provide more an even footing and less room for star dominance?

So why doesn't it?

This is where we get to the refs, endorsements and financial food chain of the NBA. That is why officiating is the second part of the fix and an essential part of parity.

I'm no expert on college ball, but I'll throw some points out there:

-there have been some dynasties- UCLA is the obvious example. and while those were system-driven teams, i think it had a lil something to do with Kareem and Walton too
-lot's of the championship-caliber players I'm talking about in the NBA won in college, too. Jordan won at UNC (beating Hakeem and Clyde in the Final Four), Grant Hill won, Magic Johnson won (beating Larry Bird in the championship game).
-recently, NCAA has been all no-names and disciplined teams winning. you know way? because since garnett, every superstar-caliber player has jumped straight to the NBA.
-even with elite players, it takes time to form a championship-level core. most NBA level dynasties take a few seasons before they start winning. you don't have as much time to get that in college- 4 years max, now closer to 1.

 

[Superman]

Let's go with the Lakers example. If a hard cap was implemented, a lot of salaries would go to across the board. Odom and Bynum would both be making less, and likely Gasol was well. If the Lakers were forced to lose one of their players, it would likely be Odom. Artest wanted to come to LA and chose LA over other teams because it's LA, not because the team is wealthy.

LA wouldn't have been able to trade for Gasol or sign Artest, being over the cap. And they wouldn't have been able to keep Odom, so he would be back in Miami.

They would still have Kobe. They would find a way to resign Pau. Hard cap means Lakers keep at least Kobe and Pau. Those two are enough to make a contender- so my point above is still valid. Every team in the league might bleed a little talent, but they would keep their 1 or 2 marquee players.

Maybe they can keep both of their stars, but it would be harder. And they wouldn't have as much depth around them. Either way, the concentration of talent on the top teams wouldn't be the same. If LA lost their third best player to another team, the playoffs might look entirely different right now.

Thinking about it, the hard cap would probably make the bottom teams in the league a little tougher and eliminate some of the super-teams we've seen of late (Boston, LA, Orlando (kinda) and whatever superteam emerges after this summer) but we'd still see only 1 or 2 teams contending every year, and the championship probably wouldn't start circling around the league. Maybe we'd see a few more Detroit-style teams, but I think basketball is just a sport prone to dynasties more than other sports are.

The championship would certainly NOT circle around the league. Just because it's harder on the top teams doesn't mean that it's necessarily easier on the bottom teams. It does level the playing field a little bit, but the point is that you have to be well run in order to contend, simple as that. The Lakers are well run, for the most part, at least for the last four or five years, but I would argue that the Celtics are not (at least not before '08, and with a hard cap they wouldn't have been able to slap together a championship team in one offseason). I'm not impressed by too much of anything that Orlando has done, aside from drafting Dwight Howard and the draft day trade for Jameer Nelson. I like what Joe Dumars did in 2004, but since then, he's made questionable moves over and over, including signing Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.

There are a few teams that have been well run for the last five plus years, like Portland and OKC, but they are still at a major disadvantage against teams that have made mistake after mistake. That's the nature of professional sports, of course. But unlike the NFL, if you look at the perennial title contenders, they are teams that are well run. That's not necessarily true in the NBA.

 

[Bricklayer]

That surmises an argued view of why the NBA can not have parity, but it does not ask the question of whether it is basketball that is dominated by superstars or just the NBA.

There are superstars that come out of college ball, but they do not dominate the championships, do they? Normally it is the well run systems and colleges that do. Who are the superstars of the two teams in the last college championship game?

There are euro stars in euro leagues, but no one player dominates like they do in the NBA.

So, since the superstar makes all the difference reasoning seems to be NBA specific, we should try to understand why.

Is it because the NBA has the best of the best and the good dominate the lesser in the game of basketball?

Again, college basketball supplies many stars for the NBA, and the dropoff in surrounding and opposing talent is arguably far greater in the college game. Shouldn't the pro game provide more an even footing and less room for star dominance?

So why doesn't it?

This is where we get to the refs, endorsements and financial food chain of the NBA. That is why officiating is the second part of the fix and an essential part of parity.

There are minor rules things of course, a cultural issue in Europe, and just an inexperienced kid thing in America (its been 20 years since the superstars stayed in college for more than a year or two, and yes, once upon a time Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, na dMicahel jordan were all battlign each other for titles in college too. So were Bird and Magic etc.

But beyond that its precisely because there IS NO parity in college ball or Euro ball that the superstar effect does not predominate. In a world of roughly equal assets, which the NBA DOES have, he who has the greatest star has a huge leg up. In college and Europe there is no parity, no balance. A handful of top teams collect overwhelming collections of the best talent year in and year out. College of Charleston can get lucky and score a major star all they want, and still never have a shot at overcoming all the collections of high school all Americans at Duke, North Carloina, Connecticut etc. and win the title. Similarly a club based out of Southwest Antwerp could go ahead, muster all its resources, and sign one star, and never have a remote shot at competing with Real Madrid who buys stacks of what pass for stars in Europe and goes 10 deep with starters.

Its precisely the NBAs parity that makes the overwhelming edge of having a superstar evident.