Recently I've heard a lot of the writers and so-called experts over at espn.com and other sites proclaim that greater parity in the NBA is a fantasy; the NBA has always been a top-heavy league, and it always will be. They attribute this allegedly unassailable maxim to any number of reasons:
-Some free agent destinations will always just be better than others.
-There is an inherent lack of supply of talented tall people, and the league is just too large for every team to be competitive.
-The league will never have greater parity because we shouldn't WANT it to have greater parity; the league is at it's best when teams like New York, Boston, and LA are dominating.
And you know what? Hey, I'll admit that these are some pretty good points. And maybe absolute parity is strictly out of the question. But there's no doubt that the league can have greater parity then it currently has... all it takes is a little creativity.
Here are the two problems that I think can be fixed in a relatively painless way that would lead to greater parity:
1) Teams that are bad tend to be bad for a longggg time. It's very difficult to crawl out of the basement in this league. This fact creates a greater disparity between the teams at the top and the teams at the bottom.
2) The stacking of superstars on a handful of teams makes the league incredibly top-heavy in terms of talent.
Here are my proposed solutions:
1) Teams that are bad should have a greater opportunity for a quicker and more effective turnaround season-by-season. It would keep the league more fresh and exciting (a la the NFL) and give the fans a reason to continue caring about their team if there's a chance that they can get better again in the short-term.
We actually already have a system in place that's designed for this very purpose: it's called the draft. I simply propose that we improve the draft by putting it on steroids. Instead of two rounds where all 30 teams in the league pick sequentially, here is how it could be done to better benefit the worst teams:
-Instead of giving the team with the worst record the 1st and 31st pick, we condense the rounds so that there are essentially 6 rounds, divided into 3 categories of 10 teams: the lottery (1-10 worst records) the middlers (11-20) and the last round (21-30)
-The lottery would go first and use all of their draft picks before the next group of teams goes. In other words, the worst team in the league would get the 1st pick AND the 11th pick, while the 2nd worst team would get the 2nd pick and the 12th, and so on, up until the 21st pick.
-At the 21st pick, the 11th worst record picks, and they would also get the 31st pick. Starting to make sense? That would continue for all of the middlers, and then the process for picks 40-60 would apply to the last round.
-The result is that teams should be able to get better much more quickly by allowing them to stockpile better talent.
2) Here is how I would deal with the creation of superteams. I'm not a fan of the "franchise tag" for legal reasons, as it would probably run afoul of antitrust law. However, there is another option. As you might have noticed, the creation of superteams has usually come about as a result of a superstar leaving the team that drafted through free agency or forcing a trade to a team with other superstars.
Why does this happen? because the salary they're going to get paid anywhere in the league is roughly equivalent, so they'd rather go somewhere where they can make money AND win (of course factoring in bonuses such as nice weather, better cities, etc.).
Some examples:
-Shaq leaving Orlando for the Lakers
-Lebron and Chris Bosh to the Heat (duh)
-Wherever the heck Dwight Howard goes
-etc. (there are lots more)
The solution would be to allow hometeams to get an advantage in the bargaining process by being allowed to offer the players that they drafted whatever the league max is PLUS 50% of that maximum salary. The 50% bonus would not count towards the salary cap.
This substantial difference in salary would greatly help hometown teams to retain the superstars that they draft, and would reduce the formation of superteams, thereby helping competitive balance. Would players still want to form superteams to win? Sure, but they wouldn't want to forego, say, and extra 10 million a year in order to form a superteam. Or at least they'd think long and hard about giving up that kind of money.
The reason why the 50% max salary bonus wouldn't apply to the cap is because it would allow these teams to remain competitive by still being able to build real teams around these superstars.
So in conclusion:
I've proposed a way to help bad teams get better more quickly, and a way to help teams retain superstars to prevent the formation of superteams. I suggest that both methods would increase competitive balance.
That said, I would love to hear any comments and/or criticism.
Topic: Better parity in the NBA is NOT a Pipe Dream (Read 13048 times)