LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

sorry--i meant you can just inflate one player's salary instead of adding a second one already under contract. in essence, no loophole has really been closed.

 

If LeBron wants a max. Its time for him to leave.

If LeBron really wants another ring. Take a pay cut.

 

if he takes a long time for the decision, don't we have to renounce him to get rid of the cap hold? If so, then the ability to sign and trade also goes away? Any cap expert know?

 

Yeah for sure, but I think it was Morey just doing stupid things like signing minimum guys to un guaranteed contracts and trading them for them to just get cut.

Then the CBA became too draconian.

 

LeBron Leaving LA? James Worthy Weighs In | Derek & Decker

 

yeah, not to belabor, but they closed THAT loophole two cbas ago (and morey wasn't the innovator there, btw--he was the follower who then aggregated those). used to be the first year didn't even have to be guaranteed, which was wild. now it must be a three year contract, and the first year must be fully guaranteed.

anyway, i don't see how further complicating things by not allowing another player to be added to it solves any problem i've seen or could foresee.

got a feeling they'll end up undoing some of this stuff going forward.

the new lottery proposal is gonzo, imo. like, they're going to have some worst-case scenario stuff happen there for which they'll only have themselves to blame. all to fix a problem that's not even that bad. or at least not as bad as the end of free agency, which was supposed to squash player empowerment and instead spawned the forced trade for scraps era (i.e., mega player empowerment).

 

There’s been half a dozen loop holes they’ve closed these last two CBA’s. Another one was trading a player who gets a buyout and goes back to the same team. LOL that one was just bad

I still don’t quite understand trade exceptions. Like Denver/Boston have one and could absorb a player into it without seemingly adding to their cap? Is this because the trade exception is already counted against the cap and expires after a year?

There is still ways for cap gurus to operate, it just requires more forethought than something falls into your lap and you figure out which way to execute on it. These days you have to figure out a point of execution and then find an opportunity that matches it.

 

I'm curious, what worst case scenario stuff do you think will happen?

Seems like teams finishing 14-20 will get top picks a decent amount of the time instead of the really bad teams, but that's been happening anyway due to lottery luck. Bad teams should try to be semi-competitive and finish 21-27, but that part seems fine.

The worst outcomes imo would probably be teams 14-16 with the 7-8 seed trying to lose that play-in game in order to have the lottery ball instead of being in the playoffs. I would guess that doesn't happen very often, as most owners would probably prefer either the playoff revenue or chance to advance like Orlando almost did. But yeah, if the 7-8 seeds started tanking, that would be pretty bad. Anything else?

 

i think the odds flattening further is going to lead to increased separation between the good and bad teams, and the fear of this is going to cool the trade market as much as the other stuff has cooled free agency. the weird thing about penalizing the very worst doesn't make sense to me. so instead of a race to the bottom, you have a race to almost the bottom? like is that really going to help the games at the end of the season be more competitive? i'm sure some game theory folks have suggested it will, but i have to see that to believe it.

i really think just minor tweaks like expanding the lottery out one more pick--they went three to four last time, go to five or even seven instead of all the damn way.

you said it yourself: teams are already getting punished at random for bottoming out (indy this year), and not every bottom feeder is trying to get there (sac this year).

we also haven't seen any more creative solutions like maybe introducing player options into first round contracts. all of a sudden, drafting wemby doesn't give you a runway to team building unavailable to every other team. this has been a problem forever and why lotto picks became so valuable--hitting on one truly is like winning the lottery due to all these little ancillary benefits. but if your mid-first rounder is a starter in year two--but must be paid as such--you won't see people falling all over themselves trying to take a zillion shots at this.

 

I initially thought they had expanded the lottery out. I still like that concept… but I’m not sure if you can eliminate tanking - the incentive to being bad is in the future being good. It’s delayed gratification.

Although maybe rules like you can’t be in the lottery 2 years in a row could help if it’s expanded to 5 or 7. If you get into the top 7 one year, you know you can’t be there next year, so the incentive then becomes let’s try to develop. Or maybe teams just be bad every other year for half a decade?

It’s not an easy solution.

 

Years ago some ringer guys pitched this idea that teams would just rotate through the draft order over time, record notwithstanding. Problems there, too, of course, but you’d then know rough values of picks years in advance and help hedge against luck (like the spurs winning two of the biggest lottos ever).

 

the cavs aren't trading assets for one year of lebron when they're one of the best teams in the east

 

I really like the bottom teams not having the biggest odds. It really incentivizes teams not giving up in January and it will surely bring more competitive games.
Like my view is if you're a bad team you should try to be as good as possible. Your best young guys should be playing to get reps and develop. You should be active in the market to do trades to get better. FA signings to improve your roster.
You shouldn't be sitting your stars for half a season and playing your g-league guys multiple games. I think this rule will stop that.
Sure, there will be engineering to try to finish in those highest odds places but it's much more difficult to prep for that other than... trying to win.

I think they really cooked

 

Two?? Three!!! David Robinson, Tim Duncan and that tall guy from France who can shoot from the 3 point line.

 

The thunder use to sit SGA to tank. They had Chris Paul and finished 5th, they then traded everyone and hardly played SGA for the next two years.

 

Good response. Gonna reply to select points.

We've already seen that teams will tank from mid season on (or more) for a 2.5% increase in draft chances. So yes, it does seem that teams will fight from mid season on, to not be in the bottom 3, to gain the 2.7% increase in draft chances. Teams #26-30 (bottom 5) or so are incentivized to win just about as many games as they can, while teams 21-25 are incentivized to stay where they are, which means they must also usually try to win games (and actually win about 1 out of 3). The ones who want to make the play-in and playoffs for economic or competitive purposes will try to win every game they can. So, yes, I do think it will help games be competitive at the end of the season and even from mid season on.

That said, I do think they need to do this also. Would it be enough on it's own? I'm not sure, possibly. My own preference would be to flatten the odds for the bottom 7 and expand the lottery out to 7 picks. I think this would eliminate tanking and not create some of the weird incentives for the 7-10 seeds that the current proposal creates. However, I think the current proposal is better than the status quo, and for whatever reason, I haven't seen any support for the 7 flattening and expansion, while there seems to be enough support for the current proposal. My preference would be:

Teams #24-30 get 9.5%
Team #23 gets 8.3%
Team #22 gets 7.2%
Team #21 gets 6.0%
Team #20 gets 4.8%
Team #19 gets 3.6%
Team #18 gets 2.4%
Team #17 gets 1.2%

I would love this too, but there's no way that ownerships agree to this.

 

counter point to each of these: IF this works in the sense that the very worst teams don't get there by tanking, then stacking the deck AGAINST them hitting the lotto is going to create further problems for them. like, each year, the sacramento kings are going to finish last and pick 9th. yikes. you could end up with some washington generals stuff. meanwhile, our teams with lebron and AD in the play in might have been stacking high picks (imagine this!). the curry warriors the last few years might have had top five picks to make or trade while the wizards kept drafting in johnny davis territory.

there's a reason the league went to the progressive system in the first place, and i think they're losing the plot here.

lol, wanna really hurt the tankers like utah? adjust revenue sharing based on putrid win percentage. like financial relegation. if you win less than 30 games for consecutive seasons, you get a lower percentage of revenue than other teams, something like that. that'll perk some ownership ears. the way i see it, the tanking problem is about diluting the product. utah is making a bunch of games unwatchable. they shouldn't be paid for it.

btw, the thread starting to run through this, as always, is that we have to continually devise systems to keep these centibillionaires from shooting themselves--and all of us--in the foot.

 

Is LeBron LEAVING LAKERS FOR CAVALIERS a BIGGER POSSIBILITY after Cleveland SWEPT?

 

I really think that's the biggest part of what got us here.

Tanking happens but the teams sitting stars got really out of control. And that was after complaints of load management were already out there.

On a personal level, I waited a few times to get tickets for games to at least try and make sure my son and his friends had a shot at seeing their favorite player(s). I'm definitely not the only one in my circle with this approach.

Injuries happen, but it was clear what teams were doing. You can't have that.

 

With LeBron, I just don't see him leaving to be honest. I don't see who will give him more money. A trade with Cleveland is tough to pull off with their salary cap situation.

I suspect he ends up with us on a deal that is higher than we'd like (and thus won't make anyone happy) but is actually justifiable from the front office perspective given his production and ability to draw crowds.

But with how easy it would be to circumvent the cap given what we've saw with the Clippers, we really should just give him some bogus endorsement deal where he actually shows up a few times and call it a day.