Author Topic: Supermax clearly does not work. Franchise tag is a better tool  (Read 5355 times)

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Re: Supermax clearly does not work. Franchise tag is a better tool
« Reply #45 on: February 15, 2019, 05:44:21 PM »

Online Donoghus

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It doesn't seem like the NBA is actually very interested in competitive balance, though.

I think they pay lip service to it, because there's a contingent of owners from small markets they need to placate.

But at the end of the day the league wants to be popular, and they're never so popular as when there are super teams in big markets and speculation about which star is going to end up where eats up the sports news cycle year round.

Well, it's not like its something they can just change on the fly.  They have a collective bargaining agreement in place.

It's also not their fault that some of their high profile talent are trying to gravitate towards the larger markets.  That's on the players.    The league can't exactly control an individual's desire to play somewhere. 

The league has tried to mitigate this with the supermax as well as having a soft salary cap.   If neither of those were in place, I might be able to buy your notion more that the league isn't that interested in competitive balance.


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Re: Supermax clearly does not work. Franchise tag is a better tool
« Reply #46 on: February 15, 2019, 07:05:07 PM »

Offline PhoSita

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It doesn't seem like the NBA is actually very interested in competitive balance, though.

I think they pay lip service to it, because there's a contingent of owners from small markets they need to placate.

But at the end of the day the league wants to be popular, and they're never so popular as when there are super teams in big markets and speculation about which star is going to end up where eats up the sports news cycle year round.

Well, it's not like its something they can just change on the fly.  They have a collective bargaining agreement in place.

It's also not their fault that some of their high profile talent are trying to gravitate towards the larger markets.  That's on the players.    The league can't exactly control an individual's desire to play somewhere. 

The league has tried to mitigate this with the supermax as well as having a soft salary cap.   If neither of those were in place, I might be able to buy your notion more that the league isn't that interested in competitive balance.


The supermax feels like a bone they threw to small market owners.  If they really thought that was going to radically change the state of affairs with the best players changing teams frequently, they aren't very smart.

The soft salary cap, I believe, has more to do with the owners wanting to prevent overall player salary becoming too great an expense and eating into their profit margins.
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Re: Supermax clearly does not work. Franchise tag is a better tool
« Reply #47 on: February 15, 2019, 07:28:53 PM »

Offline nickagneta

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It doesn't seem like the NBA is actually very interested in competitive balance, though.

I think they pay lip service to it, because there's a contingent of owners from small markets they need to placate.

But at the end of the day the league wants to be popular, and they're never so popular as when there are super teams in big markets and speculation about which star is going to end up where eats up the sports news cycle year round.
The NBA has always thrived in TV ratings during times of dynasty teams. I think, as you say, they play lip service to competitive balance. I think the Association would much rather have Celtic-Lakers dynasties playing each other or a Chicago dynasty plowing through the league with it's best player as well GSW dynasty vs the Lebron dynasty.

Competitive balance my butt. The NBA wants superteams vs superteams in their Finals and if those same superteams are in the Finals 3-4 years in a row, even better.