The NBA is in trouble. It looks more and more like a lockout will ruin any progress the NBA has made to win back fans that they alienated the last time the league went into lockout mode in 1998. Fans lost 928 games, the league lost all of the goodwil Michael Jordan helped secure, and players lost of $500 million dollars. In 2011, after the collective bargainings talks fail and this strike inevitably happens, I think fans should intervene as the owners rape the players association and demand some changes.
The first thing they should do is demand that the league adopt an NFL style salary structure. This means adopting a hard cap, something owners and players despise, but also allowing teams to cut players without taking on the entire salary. This would be made possible by structuring deals with a signing bonus. This bonus is counted against the payroll in the event of a player being cut.
Just think of all the headaches this would end. The New York Knicks are the poster child for this change. Isiah Thomas’s willingness to take on bad contract after bad contract in an effort to fill the roster with as much talent as possible had left the New York basketball fan base with the option of watching a team unable to compete or fix the team or befriending the New Jersey Nets.
This season the Knicks could have simply shed Marbury’s contract and would not have had to request a restraining order from David Stern to keep the other 14 players on the Knicks roster focused.
It is not just the Knicks though. Almost every team is battling the salary cap. Right now only seven teams have guaranteed contracts that take them over the cap, but those remaining 23 teams still have to sign players to keep their roster full, meaning that only about a dozen will actually have any money to wheel and deal in the lauded Summer of 2010 (a.k.a. The Race for LeBron).
The NBA already intervened in 2004 and let teams drop one bad contract. That was only a band aid though. Most teams are held hostage at least one multi-year deal worth eight figures a season.
My suggestion will only be discussed in basketball blogs and perhaps a Sports Guy column though. I think a more realistic compromise would be allowing teams to shed one bad contract a season.
The second thing I would change would make David Stern very happy. I would expand the league. Not just internationally, but in just about every major city in the United States. If you have more than 100,000 people the NBA will give you a franchise. I say let’s get 90 teams in operation.
That’s crazy though right? Well the catch would be the adoption of the European relegation system. I say let the NBA establish a four tier system and have the worst fall to the next level and the best of the rest strive to play in the premier basketball league.
I think it would make every team pay harder. The talent would spread out pretty thin, but that would solve the salary cap problem as well. I know the franchise model is the dominant sports model in the United States, but let’s make our sports leagues a free market enterprise and earn their fans appreciation.
I am tired of having to wade through Washington Wizards games and Los Angeles Clippers games when all I want to see is the top teams playing. I want to see the Los Angeles Lakers play the Boston Celtics.
The wondrous thing about the relegation system is that they have a few seasons going on at once. There is the tiered league play, a side season with an elimination style tournament based on wins and points, and a few cups that give every team a chance for some kind of glory.
If referencing something positive about Europe gets overly patriotic citizens worried about the spread of communism call it adopting a WWE-esque system with weekly events and main events.
The only huge drawback is that the league would not have the highest concentration of talent possible. Well, watch an NBA game and tell me that the play is not lackadaisical and sloppy.
Think of the new spread of talent as a way to allow gifted players a chance to play instead of being buried on the bench because of a GM’s order to showcase the nice big contract guy. Think of it as a College Basketball style of professional play. Everyone loves college sports because each game means something. Here it will too.