My solution to this NBA mess

[Q_FBE]

The NBA is about to destroy all the good work that has been done in the Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, and Paul Pierce era by possibly canceling this season over a labor dispute between billionaires vs millionaires and tainting the legacy of the NBA, perhaps forever.

Previously, I have written about the threat of economic deflation and how it would impact the NBA. Right now I don't necessarily see the deflation except in housing which has greatly hurt the middle class in this country which could very well be keeping them out of NBA arenas. But according to the following article from Forbes http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/32/basketball-valuations-11_Boston-Celtics_326173.html the franchises have appreciated in land valuation. Besides, owners like Paul Allen treat their franchises like toys a kid plays with rather than having his entire net worth invested in the Portland Trailblazers. That is why I am not on the owners side of this dispute. What I have learned in my early days of supervision is that you are dependent on your employees to perform if you are going to get a good performance review and extra stock options because you exceeded expectations. You need to keep your employees morale up so they don't "Mark Blount" you. Yet the behavior of certain owners like Paul Allen is completely flabbergasting me.

Now that I have your attention, I present the problems I perceive to be in the NBA and my brainstormed solution for fixing those problems.

The fundamental solution besides getting rid of David Stern who by his ultimatum is to take $4 billion out of the US economy plus ancillary income such as NBA gambling, leisure travel by fans, tourism, etc., is to go to a Four tier system like the British Soccer leagues has. Teams are promoted and relegated by merit. The players salaries are higher in the Primier League which will start with Boston, LA Lakers, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio, Chicago, and Orlando. My criteria is that these franchises have won a title or have won the most games and playoff series in the last five years and have the best players overall.

The Candidate Division has teams that regularly are above .500 and make the playoffs and make the 2nd round some years - Atlanta, Memphis, Denver, Phoenix, Utah, New Orleans, Portland, and Oklahoma City are included.

The Competitors Division include teams that are decently managed, play at or slightly below .500 ball and make the playoffs some years. But they don't have the financial resources (or their historical resume dictates being here) to compete with the big boys. I put Milwaukee, Detriot, New York Knicks,
Philadelphia, Houston, Golden State, Washington, and Charlotte here.

Lastly we have the NBA have nots here, plus two cities that need NBA franchises. They are the LA Clippers (if we had Donald Trump instead of Donald Sterling I would bump them up and put Washington here), Minnesota, Sacremento, Toronto, NJ Nets, and Cleveland here. Add in expansion teams Seattle and Kansas City to balance the divisions.

The NBA season would consist of 90 games:

6 games with all the teams in your division and 2 games with the teams outside your division.

The top 4 teams from each division qualify for divisional playoffs.  One seed against Four seed, Two vs Three... All series are best of Seven.

The champion of the Premier Division is awarded the NBA World Championship.

The winners of the other divisions get promoted along with the best team over the last three seasons.

Two teams from the top three divisions get relegated each base on fewest wins over a three year period.

Salaries are better for the higher division teams. Getting promoted means higher salaries. Getting relegated means lower salaries.

Make it Team Merit Based.

[Roy H.]

Honestly, I don't think relegation would be a good solution in American sports.  You're basically telling 22 fanbases that they have absolutely no shot at a title.  Had this system been in place in 2008, the Celtics would have been awarded for their investment in Ray and KG by being promoted to the third tier.  After 2009, we could have made the second tier, after 2010, we could have been promoted to the first tier, and in 2011, we finally could have competed for a championship.

[clover]

Two issues I'm not with you on at all:

1) the idea that owners must have their entire net worths wrapped up in their teams, and

2) that the NBA not playing is taking $4B out of the economy.  (Where would that $4B otherwise go--other discretionary spending or investment, no?)

[MBz]

90 games? Yikes...the season is already too long as it is.

[greenpride32]

Nobody is going to watch anything but the top division.  Even cities with 2nd and 3rd division teams will only likely follow the first division.  Basically what you are proposing is contraction.  Under contraction you don't have small market issues to deal with.  But keep in mind that revenues will decrease.  The very idea of expansion is to increase revenue; the same principle applies to any type of business be it basketball or Dunkin Brands.

[Q_FBE]

Nobody is going to watch anything but the top division.  Even cities with 2nd and 3rd division teams will only likely follow the first division.  Basically what you are proposing is contraction.  Under contraction you don't have small market issues to deal with.  But keep in mind that revenues will decrease.  The very idea of expansion is to increase revenue; the same principle applies to any type of business be it basketball or Dunkin Brands.

Guess what? By canceling the season, you have a 100% percent decline in revenues or $4 billion dollars the US economy is not generating. Plus you have the ancillary income that is lost.

Let us be realistic here, the fans only pay attention to the top tier teams anyway. The Utah Jazz fan base only cares about Utah and they can have their spring battle with Phoenix to determine who gets to move to play against the Memphis' and New Orleans of the world. And the players get financially compensated for playing in a higher division.

Like it or not, the NBA will contract as some owners will quit investing in their teams and use them solely as a tax write-off. David Stern has even suggested that a contraction of up to six teams will strengthen the remaining 24 teams.

So yes I am proposing a contraction of sorts.

[Q_FBE]

Honestly, I don't think relegation would be a good solution in American sports.  You're basically telling 22 fanbases that they have absolutely no shot at a title.  Had this system been in place in 2008, the Celtics would have been awarded for their investment in Ray and KG by being promoted to the third tier.  After 2009, we could have made the second tier, after 2010, we could have been promoted to the first tier, and in 2011, we finally could have competed for a championship.

Guess what, Roy, 22 teams have no shot at the NBA title so why not create Tier Championships and give the opportunity for everyone to compete for something in the spring time. Don't you think that basketball series between Washington and LA clippers for the right to move up to the third division would be a good thing for their fans?

And yes it does normally take at least three years to go from the lottery to competing for a championship. Just ask Micheal Jordan.

Good franchise management will continue to be rewarded and bad management decisions will continue to be punished.

[hpantazo]

I don't like this idea for european sports leagues and I certainly don't like it for the NBA. Like someone else said, no one will watch the lower leagues, they will just watch the premier league, and telling 22 teams that they can't compete for the championship will kill the fanbase. You can also throw out all the league history and records that will be meaningless if this were to happen.

[guava_wrench]

Nobody is going to watch anything but the top division.  Even cities with 2nd and 3rd division teams will only likely follow the first division.  Basically what you are proposing is contraction.  Under contraction you don't have small market issues to deal with.  But keep in mind that revenues will decrease.  The very idea of expansion is to increase revenue; the same principle applies to any type of business be it basketball or Dunkin Brands.

Even worse, the lower divisions might even be considered inferior to foreign leagues. They would likely get lower interest than the NCAA in the US.

[MBz]

Honestly, I don't think relegation would be a good solution in American sports.  You're basically telling 22 fanbases that they have absolutely no shot at a title.  Had this system been in place in 2008, the Celtics would have been awarded for their investment in Ray and KG by being promoted to the third tier.  After 2009, we could have made the second tier, after 2010, we could have been promoted to the first tier, and in 2011, we finally could have competed for a championship.

Guess what, Roy, 22 teams have no shot at the NBA title so why not create Tier Championships and give the opportunity for everyone to compete for something in the spring time. Don't you think that basketball series between Washington and LA clippers for the right to move up to the third division would be a good thing for their fans?

And yes it does normally take at least three years to go from the lottery to competing for a championship. Just ask Micheal Jordan.

Good franchise management will continue to be rewarded and bad management decisions will continue to be punished.

Yeah but the reason the EPL works is because theres 20 teams in each league.  With 8, it would become very stale.  One problem that the EPL has though is when a team is relegated, the better players want to be transferred to an EPL team.  This is something the NBA could not do due to the rules around trading(I'm assuming they will remain the same after new CBA).

[clover]

Nobody is going to watch anything but the top division.  Even cities with 2nd and 3rd division teams will only likely follow the first division.  Basically what you are proposing is contraction.  Under contraction you don't have small market issues to deal with.  But keep in mind that revenues will decrease.  The very idea of expansion is to increase revenue; the same principle applies to any type of business be it basketball or Dunkin Brands.

Guess what? By canceling the season, you have a 100% percent decline in revenues or $4 billion dollars the US economy is not generating. Plus you have the ancillary income that is lost.

Let us be realistic here, the fans only pay attention to the top tier teams anyway. The Utah Jazz fan base only cares about Utah and they can have their spring battle with Phoenix to determine who gets to move to play against the Memphis' and New Orleans of the world. And the players get financially compensated for playing in a higher division.

Like it or not, the NBA will contract as some owners will quit investing in their teams and use them solely as a tax write-off. David Stern has even suggested that a contraction of up to six teams will strengthen the remaining 24 teams.

So yes I am proposing a contraction of sorts.

Again, has it not occurred to you that if people aren't spending their money on the NBA, they are spending it on something else?  Or, better yet, they are saving it, which can be multiplied as an investment in real production.

[Q_FBE]

Honestly, I don't think relegation would be a good solution in American sports.  You're basically telling 22 fanbases that they have absolutely no shot at a title.  Had this system been in place in 2008, the Celtics would have been awarded for their investment in Ray and KG by being promoted to the third tier.  After 2009, we could have made the second tier, after 2010, we could have been promoted to the first tier, and in 2011, we finally could have competed for a championship.

Guess what, Roy, 22 teams have no shot at the NBA title so why not create Tier Championships and give the opportunity for everyone to compete for something in the spring time. Don't you think that basketball series between Washington and LA clippers for the right to move up to the third division would be a good thing for their fans?

And yes it does normally take at least three years to go from the lottery to competing for a championship. Just ask Micheal Jordan.

Good franchise management will continue to be rewarded and bad management decisions will continue to be punished.

Yeah but the reason the EPL works is because theres 20 teams in each league.  With 8, it would become very stale.  One problem that the EPL has though is when a team is relegated, the better players want to be transferred to an EPL team.  This is something the NBA could not do due to the rules around trading(I'm assuming they will remain the same after new CBA).

Hey I think you hit on something there - Why can't professional basketball have 60 teams in this country from the NBA Premier League to the NBA - B league all the way down to the C - League.....

And if the Corporate Pigs in the A and B league are stupid enough to walk out we can be treated to Wichita vs Boise for the C league Championship in June.

[Q_FBE]

Nobody is going to watch anything but the top division.  Even cities with 2nd and 3rd division teams will only likely follow the first division.  Basically what you are proposing is contraction.  Under contraction you don't have small market issues to deal with.  But keep in mind that revenues will decrease.  The very idea of expansion is to increase revenue; the same principle applies to any type of business be it basketball or Dunkin Brands.

Even worse, the lower divisions might even be considered inferior to foreign leagues. They would likely get lower interest than the NCAA in the US.

The NCAA has always had a much bigger following than the NBA over the years with the general population. People in non-NBA markets follow College Basketball all the time and it will always be that way. Seattle wishes the NBA would just go out of business in fact (so Portland can get taken off the Major League Map).

[PosImpos]

Honestly, I don't think relegation would be a good solution in American sports.  You're basically telling 22 fanbases that they have absolutely no shot at a title.  Had this system been in place in 2008, the Celtics would have been awarded for their investment in Ray and KG by being promoted to the third tier.  After 2009, we could have made the second tier, after 2010, we could have been promoted to the first tier, and in 2011, we finally could have competed for a championship.

Yup.  I'm personally not a fan of the tier system.  Unless you're totally used to that system, I can't see how a fan could remain interested if their team isn't one of the premier teams.  The prospect that your team could essentially be "champion of the JV division" seems pretty unappealing to me.  

It's not as if the English Premier League is a model of parity and great competition, anyway.  Not something to aspire to.