Eliminating the anti-tampering rules and other ways to improve the system

[The Q]

Complete BS.

How are the Kings going to ever be competitive without the draft?

Offer more money?

Be smart with your cap space.

Provide rookie money to teams.

Lots of better options than letting ping pong balls decide the anals of basketball history.

 

[CitySushi]

Here would be my solution:

1) Increase overall NBA Cap limit as well as cap floor.
2) Set a hard cap, instead of a Luxury tax threshold. Allows smaller market teams to be able to compete for talent.
3) Eliminate max contract values.
4) Shorten contract length to a max of 5 years to 3.
5) Eliminate Player/Team options.

Increasing the overall cap would help teams ease into the new system with a hard cap. This way players can still get paid and not have to sacrifice what they've earned with all the league revenue.

Hard cap helps teams like Sacramento, Milwaukee, Orlando, etc all compete with the bigger market teams. It doesn't allow big market teams and rich owners to overspend the competition.

Eliminating max contract values allows the superstars to be paid their actual worth. Makes the appeal of a team who can spend more on you more appealing.

Shortening the contract lengths helps to keep players continually receiving what they're worth in the open market. It helps teams with the hard caps and doesn't restrict them from being competitive by signing bad deals. Also helps to keep the level of play up since players will continually have to earn new contracts or if they're underpaid can get paid accordingly quicker. Last and most crucial part of this is that because you're on shorter deals, players will be less likely to take discounts because there less guaranteed money. You can take 5M less a year if you get a big 5 year contract. That becomes much dicier if you only get 3 years.

Eliminating Player/Team options eliminates collusion between players for wanting to take discounts and/or try to cash in on flush years from the league.

All of the above helps to stimulate a really flush free agent market every year, while also rewarding the superstars for their play. It helps turn around time on franchises by not having to be hamstrung by horrible cap situation and teams can easily get out of bad situations quicker. If you're a bad team, it'll take you 2 years less to recover than it would today and keeps interest higher since you know your team isn't going to be in purgatory forever.

 

[trojanfan12]

It isn't anti-American at all.

The league exists as a partnership between owners. If the crappy teams start to fail, it is bad for the league as a whole. The draft gives bad teams a way to infuse young talent and energize the fan base. There is a reason why every major sport in America drafts by reverse order of standings (or close to it). It makes sense.

Yeah, folks sometimes try to compare professional sports teams to regular businesses. But it's just not a good comparison in most cases.

If you and I each open a business that does essentially the same thing, but your business is better than mine and you force me to close my doors, it may be bad for me, but it's good for you.

If a bad professional sports team has to fold, it's bad for the entire league.

 

[msgkings322]

Offer more money?

Be smart with your cap space.

Provide rookie money to teams.

Lots of better options than letting ping pong balls decide the anals of basketball history.

"anals of basketball history"

Are we still doing phrasing?