Are we going to lose players to expansion?

[Moranis]

I really hate expansion. In a perfect world they would just move the clippers to Las Vegas, and The Pels to Seattle

I agree. Totally unnecessary at this point. I'd be okay with moving two current teams to Vegas and Seattle, then eliminating about 5 teams that are never good/never draw crowds. That would really improve competition.

I don't believe that. All it would do is put more and more talent on the best teams. The divide between good teams and bad would still be there and easily seen. 
Bunches of teams will still tank for draft position.

It's not like the NBA didn't have a clear divide between the haves and have nots during Bird's time in the NBA. Instead of having 2-3 great players on the best teams, the best teams would now have 3-4 great players, like in the 80's.

It might make the playoffs more entertaining and fun, but the regular season would still be filled with a ton of the best teams playing the worst teams making watching just as difficult.

Now, I'm not a fan of expansion. I like the 30 team league as is. But I get two expansion teams mean more money for the league and owners. More for the players. And more jobs for the players. So I get why the NBA wants expansion, but I don't want to see it happen.

There were 3 or maybe 4 teams at any given time in the 80's that were any good.  I mean the Lakers made the Finals 8 of the 10 years of the decade and the other 2 were the Rockets who most certainly did not have 3-4 great players on them.  The Sixers were good for the first half and the Pistons were good for the second half, but that is about it.  For as revered as the 80's were just 5 franchises made the NBA Finals.  It was about as little parity as the sport has seen since the Celtics dominated the 60's.  And there were a lot of bad teams.  There is just so much more talent today.  I'm not sure we need 2 more teams, but I do think the league is much better able to handle that today than when they did all that expansion in the 90's and the product suffered.  I don't think the product will suffer all that much. 

[GreenlyGreeny]

Expansion? There are not enough good players in the world to support thirty teams, let alone more than thirty teams. 30 should be the magic number, folks. If someone wants a franchise, buy one and relocate it if desired. NBA should cap this at 30 teams for too me immemorial.

[Kernewek]

Expansion? There are not enough good players in the world to support thirty teams, let alone more than thirty teams. 30 should be the magic number, folks. If someone wants a franchise, buy one and relocate it if desired. NBA should cap this at 30 teams for too me immemorial.

In your view how much could the NBA be contracted?

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

[nickagneta]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

I disagree. The Celtics were a Finals team last year and had 5 players so bad, the coach stuck with his nine man rotation religiously. Sometimes going to 8 or 7 if there were injuries. A bunch of those Celtic bench guys didn't deserve to be in the league.

Across the league this is common. Lots of teams with 5-8 guys with talent levels that just do not belong getting NBA minutes. Expansion would only exacerbate the situation watering down the talent level.

I don't think contraction fixes anything either. I think the league needs to wait another decade or two to have the overall talent level to improve be expanded.

Perhaps a fix would be to make every G-League team be an NBA team's farm team where all those G-League players are under contract to the NBA team and the NBA team can move players up and down as desired. Like Major League Baseball. Get rid of the two way players and do this. Pay the G-League players 1/4 to 1/2 of a that of NBA rookie minimum and if you move them up they get the rookie minimum salary. The team can trade these players now. And, it might keep a whole lot of good players from going to play outside the USA and attract foreign players to this system over Europe or China, helping to grow the overall NBA talent.

[celticsclay]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

I disagree. The Celtics were a Finals team last year and had 5 players so bad, the coach stuck with his nine man rotation religiously. Sometimes going to 8 or 7 if there were injuries. A bunch of those Celtic bench guys didn't deserve to be in the league.

Across the league this is common. Lots of teams with 5-8 guys with talent levels that just do not belong getting NBA minutes. Expansion would only exacerbate the situation watering down the talent level.

I don't think contraction fixes anything either. I think the league needs to wait another decade or two to have the overall talent level to improve be expanded.

Perhaps a fix would be to make every G-League team be an NBA team's farm team where all those G-League players are under contract to the NBA team and the NBA team can move players up and down as desired. Like Major League Baseball. Get rid of the two way players and do this. Pay the G-League players 1/4 to 1/2 of a that of NBA rookie minimum and if you move them up they get the rookie minimum salary. The team can trade these players now. And, it might keep a whole lot of good players from going to play outside the USA and attract foreign players to this system over Europe or China, helping to grow the overall NBA talent.

I like this idea a lot. I’m curious who would be most against this idea? The players would get more jobs, the owners would have more players on cheap contracts. What is the downside?

[nickagneta]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

I disagree. The Celtics were a Finals team last year and had 5 players so bad, the coach stuck with his nine man rotation religiously. Sometimes going to 8 or 7 if there were injuries. A bunch of those Celtic bench guys didn't deserve to be in the league.

Across the league this is common. Lots of teams with 5-8 guys with talent levels that just do not belong getting NBA minutes. Expansion would only exacerbate the situation watering down the talent level.

I don't think contraction fixes anything either. I think the league needs to wait another decade or two to have the overall talent level to improve be expanded.

Perhaps a fix would be to make every G-League team be an NBA team's farm team where all those G-League players are under contract to the NBA team and the NBA team can move players up and down as desired. Like Major League Baseball. Get rid of the two way players and do this. Pay the G-League players 1/4 to 1/2 of a that of NBA rookie minimum and if you move them up they get the rookie minimum salary. The team can trade these players now. And, it might keep a whole lot of good players from going to play outside the USA and attract foreign players to this system over Europe or China, helping to grow the overall NBA talent.

I like this idea a lot. I’m curious who would be most against this idea? The players would get more jobs, the owners would have more players on cheap contracts. What is the downside?

I think the owners balk as the G-League at salary levels that high would be very unprofitable. You tie it into the entire profitability of the actual team and it doesn't matter over time, but initially, the owners aren't going to love taking on a large unprofitable cost.

Doing this most likely means expanding the draft, which could be fun, though I don't love the idea of a much larger group of kids leaving college early because of the money available to be made in the G-League. Maybe make the G-League a 22 year old or older league with the only exception being players drafted in the first or second round of the draft.

[Moranis]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

I disagree. The Celtics were a Finals team last year and had 5 players so bad, the coach stuck with his nine man rotation religiously. Sometimes going to 8 or 7 if there were injuries. A bunch of those Celtic bench guys didn't deserve to be in the league.

Across the league this is common. Lots of teams with 5-8 guys with talent levels that just do not belong getting NBA minutes. Expansion would only exacerbate the situation watering down the talent level.

I don't think contraction fixes anything either. I think the league needs to wait another decade or two to have the overall talent level to improve be expanded.

Perhaps a fix would be to make every G-League team be an NBA team's farm team where all those G-League players are under contract to the NBA team and the NBA team can move players up and down as desired. Like Major League Baseball. Get rid of the two way players and do this. Pay the G-League players 1/4 to 1/2 of a that of NBA rookie minimum and if you move them up they get the rookie minimum salary. The team can trade these players now. And, it might keep a whole lot of good players from going to play outside the USA and attract foreign players to this system over Europe or China, helping to grow the overall NBA talent.

I think there are a lot less teams that did what the Celtics did than you realize, at least from the teams not tanking (and there will always be teams tanking).  Most teams do have a guy or two at the back end of the roster that isn't very good, the C's with 5 were definitely the extreme, though some of that was mid-season trades where they did 2 for 1 type trades.

I have long felt that the NBA needs an actual minor league.  Every team should have a dedicated team.  They should extend the draft by adding a couple of rounds.  They should let high school players be drafted. 

[GreenlyGreeny]

Expansion? There are not enough good players in the world to support thirty teams, let alone more than thirty teams. 30 should be the magic number, folks. If someone wants a franchise, buy one and relocate it if desired. NBA should cap this at 30 teams for too me immemorial.

In your view how much could the NBA be contracted?

In a perfect world, probably 10-20% fewer teams, so 24-27 or so just like 30-40 years ago. That said, when is the last time a major professional sports league in North America contracted? It’s not happening. Which is why it’s a horrible idea to expand when we clearly do not have 300 NBA-caliber players in the world right now (that is, 10 players on 30 teams on average who could play 12-18 MPG and not be embarrassing). There’s probably only 230-270 true NBA-caliber players out there depending on the year/era, and we do not need to spread them out over more than 30 teams. That could get quite ugly.

[nickagneta]

Expansion? There are not enough good players in the world to support thirty teams, let alone more than thirty teams. 30 should be the magic number, folks. If someone wants a franchise, buy one and relocate it if desired. NBA should cap this at 30 teams for too me immemorial.

In your view how much could the NBA be contracted?

In a perfect world, probably 10-20% fewer teams, so 24-27 or so just like 30-40 years ago. That said, when is the last time a major professional sports league in North America contracted? It’s not happening. Which is why it’s a horrible idea to expand when we clearly do not have 300 NBA-caliber players in the world right now (that is, 10 players on 30 teams on average who could play 12-18 MPG and not be embarrassing). There’s probably only 230-270 true NBA-caliber players out there depending on the year/era, and we do not need to spread them out over more than 30 teams. That could get quite ugly.

Yeah ... Gotta agree with Greenly. The league needs more time for the average talent level get better to the point where everyone has 10-12 higher quality players and a couple young and promising prospects before expansion. And contraction is never happening.

[Moranis]

Expansion? There are not enough good players in the world to support thirty teams, let alone more than thirty teams. 30 should be the magic number, folks. If someone wants a franchise, buy one and relocate it if desired. NBA should cap this at 30 teams for too me immemorial.

In your view how much could the NBA be contracted?

In a perfect world, probably 10-20% fewer teams, so 24-27 or so just like 30-40 years ago. That said, when is the last time a major professional sports league in North America contracted? It’s not happening. Which is why it’s a horrible idea to expand when we clearly do not have 300 NBA-caliber players in the world right now (that is, 10 players on 30 teams on average who could play 12-18 MPG and not be embarrassing). There’s probably only 230-270 true NBA-caliber players out there depending on the year/era, and we do not need to spread them out over more than 30 teams. That could get quite ugly.

Yeah ... Gotta agree with Greenly. The league needs more time for the average talent level get better to the point where everyone has 10-12 higher quality players and a couple young and promising prospects before expansion. And contraction is never happening.

Well what do you call higher quality because aside from the teams clearly tanking, I don't see many teams that don't have at least 10 legit rotational level players on the roster, and frankly most of the tanking teams do as well (they are just young and unproven).

[Kernewek]

Also: team-wide, the players on the best offenses averaged about 8-9 PPG last season, I'm not sure PPG is a reliable metric:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2022.html

edit: ignore me I can't read, I thought he said PPG not MPG.

[GreenEnvy]

There’s plenty of talent to support two more teams. Only 5 guys can play for each team at the same time, yet there are thousands of really good players in this world- just watch the Euro tourney.

I disagree. The Celtics were a Finals team last year and had 5 players so bad, the coach stuck with his nine man rotation religiously. Sometimes going to 8 or 7 if there were injuries. A bunch of those Celtic bench guys didn't deserve to be in the league.

Across the league this is common. Lots of teams with 5-8 guys with talent levels that just do not belong getting NBA minutes. Expansion would only exacerbate the situation watering down the talent level.

I don't think contraction fixes anything either. I think the league needs to wait another decade or two to have the overall talent level to improve be expanded.

Perhaps a fix would be to make every G-League team be an NBA team's farm team where all those G-League players are under contract to the NBA team and the NBA team can move players up and down as desired. Like Major League Baseball. Get rid of the two way players and do this. Pay the G-League players 1/4 to 1/2 of a that of NBA rookie minimum and if you move them up they get the rookie minimum salary. The team can trade these players now. And, it might keep a whole lot of good players from going to play outside the USA and attract foreign players to this system over Europe or China, helping to grow the overall NBA talent.

That’s poor roster construction, not because there aren’t enough good players in this league. Evident by PBS going out and adding two impact players without touching those top-8 on the roster.

Whether you have 40 teams or 10, there are always going to be elite contenders and terrible teams.