LeBron Says Contraction "would be great for the league"

[dpaps]

I did read the comment before I wrote.  The only joke here is that you can look at Glen Davis, all 300 pounds of him, get touched into by someone half his size, flop like he's been hit by a bazooka, and think that he's taken a charge...Obviously a good thing based on the fact that he wears a green uniform. 

You really think Big Baby has never taken a legitimate charge? One of the stupidest comments I've ever heard. And you think that I only think he has because he's a Celtic? Please, grow up. See now, you're argument would be logical if I had argued that no non Celtic in the league has ever taken a charge. But like your argument, that would be retarded. Big Baby has taken dozens of legitimate charges, and anyone who thinks other wise is a moron. If you don't believe me, ask any one involved with the NBA, ask any referee at any level of basketball, or anyone who has any idea about the sport. You would not find a single intelligent human to back you on that thought.

And your points on officiating are just moot, no one in this thread, nor Lebron, are talking about officiating. If you really think that it is impossible to improve the level of play, or the caliber of teams without changing officiating, you don't understand logic. You can argue, the best way to improve the league is by changing the officiating. Fine, but that's another topic. I argue that by contracting teams, the caliber of each team would have to improve because the talent on each individual team would go up. Officiating has nothing to do with that argument.

Eja, The Celtics wouldn't be a better team with Tony Parker instead of Nate Robinson? Have you ever watched a game of basketball in your life? I mean if you really think that, there's no need to argue with you anymore, because as you've demonstrated over the past few days, it's useless. Just a ridiculous statement.

So we should have just 2 teams? Any more than 2 teams and we can make the argument that less teams would make teams better.

If we have only 1 team, they would have no one to play against.

This is why the contraction argument based on consolidating talent is pointless.

That's absolutely incorrect. No one is suggesting we trim the league down to two teams. Would those two teams be better than a team in a league with 30 teams? Yes, absolutely. But clearly, no one wants a league with two teams.

These are two of the main factors you consider when trying to figure out what is the best number of teams to have in your league. For every team you add, the average talent per team goes down a little bit. But of course, to some extent, the more teams the better, until you reach a point where you have too many teams.

 If we have 26 teams as opposed to 30, the average talent per team would increase. Now, One has to decide if that increased level of talent on each team, is worth whatever negative consequences would come from reducing the number of teams. I personally don't think that the league would lose anything from a competitive standpoint by cutting the number of teams by two or four.

If you cut the league to 8 teams, you'd have 8 fantastic teams, but there would be little variety, the fans would get bored of the same matchups, and it simply reduces revenue for the league. If you raised the number of teams to 60, you'd still have decent basketball teams, it would create more jobs around the country, but the level of competition would go down because the teams would be half as good.

What's the perfect number of teams? It's debatable. Lebron thinks it's less than 30. As do I. I feel like 24-28 teams would be preferable. The caliber of each team would be noticably increased, and I don't think there would be a lack of variety in the league, I don't think fans would get bored of the same matchups, and the playoffs could still work with the same format.

Again, I've never argued that the league NEEDS contraction, or that anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. I've argued that criticizing Lebron for this and claiming that he's looking for the easy way out by lessening the number of teams he has to beat, is just flat out incorrect.

I agree with your last paragraph, but I have never claimed that you said those things. I only pointed out that Lebron's logic is misguided and based on a shallow, superficial analysis. I must have missed whoever made the argument that Lebron is looking for that easy way out -- that makes no sense whatsoever. Getting rid of Minny would in no way decrease the # of teams he has to beat since they are a doormat team.

If you cut the league to 8 teams, you'd have 8 fantastic teams

Not likely. You would still have a horrible team among the 8 many season. 'Fantastic' will always be relative. Sure, the horrible team might be great when compared to a team in a foreign league, but it would still be disrespected among NBA fans. Of course, with a smaller number of teams, the distant outliers should likely be less frequent, but the significant variable in this is the # of teams, not the distribution of talent among players.

No matter what number you decide upon, there will be horrible teams in the league!

The level of competition / # of teams correlation argument doesn't seem historically accurate nor logical. Even if we had 24 teams, there would be a teams winning 80% of games and a teams losing 80% of games.

Haha yeah this is true if you ONLY consider win percentage when determining which teams are better, and that would be ridiculous. If there were 8 teams in the league, every single team would have much much more talent overall than the average team right now. There would be no Timberwolves, no Nets, no Bobcats, etc. If the league expanded to 200 teams, and one team had LBJ and a bunch of scrubs, but because of the distribution of talent, they're able to win 99% of games, is that team "better" than the Heat right now, or the Celtics or Lakers? Of course not.

Yes, there would still be a last place team, of course, but that doesn't mean that team is bad, and it doesn't mean that the average talent per team in the league isn't improved.

"No matter what number you decide upon, there will be horrible teams in the league" ...Again, this is just flat out wrong. If there are 4 teams in the NBA, None of them will be horrible. Period. Yes one will get last place, but it will not be a horrible basketball team. I mean, come on.

[Finkelskyhook]

It doesn't make a difference what the league does with refs. There will always be both blown calls and correct calls that are perceived as blown and certain players and fans will get irate.

There's a huge difference between blown calls and what's happening now.  The NBA had an official that flew under the radar for years before it was discovered what he was doing.  Do you think if NBA officiating wasn't essentially the Jordan Rules on steroids that Donaghy wouldn't have been exposed immediately?  Overt officiating completely different for one player as opposed to another doesn't make a difference?

Do you think Shaq has any less respect for the game now than he did when he came into the league?  What he said may have been funny, but he meant it and it was spot-on.  When Jeff Van Gundy challenged the integrity of the league he was almost banished from it.  Now it happens so often that the only way anyone notices is when Sportscenter says they were fined.  Last season Stern said he was going to address the flopping.  The situation is far worse now than it was then.  This season was the great crackdown on authority...But the same star rules apply to that.  A role player like Nate Robinson gives an official a look and gets T'd up.  It took a trip and a half of Paul Pierce histrionics Saturday for him to get T'd up. Dwight Howard overtly mocks the officials and gets told to knock it off.  Perk stares and gets T'd.  I have no problem with either position.  Just apply the rule the same way to everybody.  Consolidating, contraction, or whatever isn't going to improve the product unless the product has credibility.

I don't think contraction is needed.  Like Nick and Roy said, there's not much of anywhere to move fledgling franchises. If you fold 2-3 teams the quality improvement of the teams would be negligible, at best.

When the best players in the NBA play by the same rules as the 15th man on the roster, Both the best players and the role players will elevate their games and the product will be better.  IMHO, that simple thing....An overt respect for the integrity of the game by NBA management will make the game more marketable and profitable.  I don't see just that as an end all.  But I don't see contraction as a viable solution until the game no longer looks manipulated.

[dpaps]

I don't think contraction is needed.  Like Nick and Roy said, there's not much of anywhere to move fledgling franchises. If you fold 2-3 teams the quality improvement of the teams would be negligible, at best.

But I don't see contraction as a viable solution until the game no longer looks manipulated.

The quality of improvement would be far from negligible. There are already posts in the thread that would show how much better teams would be if we contracted, 2 or 4 teams. Take Devin Harris, Brook Lopez, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, Gerald Wallace, Stephen Jackson, CP3, David West, Okafor, and add them to Sacramento, Washington, Toronto, the Clippers, and all of a sudden, 3 or 4 of the worst teams are gone. But then also, the bottom 5 or 6 teams after that become much much stronger. And then all the middle/top teams would greatly improve their benches/role players. It would be faaaaaaaaar from negligible.

Again, no one is suggesting that contraction will fix every problem in the NBA. It's not gonna fix officiating, but that is a completely different topic. To say, "well we have a problem with officiating, so we shouldn't change anything else, or improve the game in any other way because the officiating problem will still be there" is just ludicrous.

Like I've said numerous times, Contraction HAS TO improve the average talent per team in the league. No debate, it's a mathematical certainty.

EDIT: Check PM's.

[RJ87]

And now, of course, LeBron is claiming he never said any of this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/news/story?id=5960277

[nickagneta]

Another is moving in two years because they can't survive where they are and another two to three teams probably need to move but have no place to go. Cincinnati can barely support the Reds and Bengals. St Louis doesn't want basketball. San Diego can't support Padres. Tampa can't support the Rays. Kansas City can't support the Royals. Las Vegas is in a horrible recession and probably can no longer support a team financially.Forget Canada. Where are these severely struggling teams supposed to go?

Seattle.

LOL. Touche my friend.

I wonder if Seattle could support 4 NBA franchises?

[BballTim]

And now, of course, LeBron is claiming he never said any of this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/news/story?id=5960277

  I case there was any doubt LeBron's an idiot, I give you this:

  "That's crazy, because I had no idea what the word 'contraction' meant before I saw it on the Internet"

  Haha.

 Followed by "I was just saying how the league was back in the '80s and how it could be good again. I never said, 'Let's take some of the teams out.'"

  Which dovetails nicely with his quote:

  "Imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the [league]"

 

[indeedproceed]

hahaha. A nice TP bouquet to BBallTim.

That is hilarious.

"I have no idea what contraction means, but just imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the league! What's that called??"

[RJ87]

And now, of course, LeBron is claiming he never said any of this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/news/story?id=5960277

  I case there was any doubt LeBron's an idiot, I give you this:

  "That's crazy, because I had no idea what the word 'contraction' meant before I saw it on the Internet"

  Haha.

 Followed by "I was just saying how the league was back in the '80s and how it could be good again. I never said, 'Let's take some of the teams out.'"

  Which dovetails nicely with his quote:

  "Imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the [league]"

 

It's a gem that only BronBron could give us. He must think we're as stupid as he is.

[Finkelskyhook]

Like I've said numerous times, Contraction HAS TO improve the average talent per team in the league. No debate, it's a mathematical certainty.

The only mathamatical certainty is the certain increase in payroll that those teams would absorb.  

[Surferdad]

LeBron has his retirement to pine about the problems with the league.  For now I wish he would stick to basketball.  And I don't hate LeBron, but his words are being scrutinized only because of who he is, which also makes no sense.

[indeedproceed]

Like I've said numerous times, Contraction HAS TO improve the average talent per team in the league. No debate, it's a mathematical certainty.

The only mathamatical certainty is the certain increase in payroll that those teams would absorb.  

in the near term, yes. In the long-term (as in after the new CBA) contracts will drop. Starters who become 6-8 men will get paid like they're 6-8 men

[Redz]

Like I've said numerous times, Contraction HAS TO improve the average talent per team in the league. No debate, it's a mathematical certainty.

The only mathamatical certainty is the certain increase in payroll that those teams would absorb.  

A mathematical certainty may be overstating it, but it's certainly probable.  In the short term it might drive some fringe veterans into early retirement.  Having those vets replaced with cheaper, less experienced players would not increase the average talent.  There are a number of other possibilities that could lead to a lower average talent league that have less to do with contraction, but more as a general state of available talent. 

[guava_wrench]

"No matter what number you decide upon, there will be horrible teams in the league" ...Again, this is just flat out wrong. If there are 4 teams in the NBA, None of them will be horrible. Period. Yes one will get last place, but it will not be a horrible basketball team. I mean, come on.

No, it is correct.

Horrible is completely relative. This year's Minny might actually be better than top teams 40 years ago.

I can easily argue that Minny is not a horrible team at all. They are just much worse that 20+ teams.

Look at all star teams. There are only 2 teams, but there are years when one is horrible compared to the other. One would beat the other 70% of the time. If those were the only teams we were exposed to, we would end up saying that the losing team is a bad team.

I think I have made a pretty solid case in past points that need a more substantial response than "you are wrong". There is no platonic 'good team' or 'bad team' out there that we can measure teams against. It is all relative to their ability to compete, and there will always be teams that cannot compete.

EDIT: Come on guys, enough with the petty ticky-tack argument styles.

[Finkelskyhook]

hahaha. A nice TP bouquet to BBallTim.

That is hilarious.

"I have no idea what contraction means, but just imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the league! What's that called??"

It's called the messiah asking for a pass-first PF who rebounds.

[guava_wrench]

Like I've said numerous times, Contraction HAS TO improve the average talent per team in the league. No debate, it's a mathematical certainty.

The only mathamatical certainty is the certain increase in payroll that those teams would absorb.  

A mathematical certainty may be overstating it, but it's certainly probable.  In the short term it might drive some fringe veterans into early retirement.  Having those vets replaced with cheaper, less experienced players would not increase the average talent.  There are a number of other possibilities that could lead to a lower average talent league that have less to do with contraction, but more as a general state of available talent. 

The main support to your statement is that decreasing the number of teams does not mean that we are able to maintain the # of top players. We aren't the only league in the world.

It also isn't clear that the bad/non-competitive teams in a smaller league wouldn't still hitch their wagons to young players who aren't yet fully there, but who have a big potential upside and who excite the imaginations of fans.