Would the league be better if there was a limit on All Stars?

[__ramonezy__]

Was just sitting around and thinking about the most exciting playoff matches thusfar... ironically none of them include the juggernauts, Cavs or Warriors.

Got me thinking, Would the NBA be a better league if there was a rule that prevented a recent AllStar to be added to a team with two existing AllStars?

[Roy H.]

Limiting all-stars isn't an answer.

A hard cap or removing limits on max contracts would possibly lead to more parity. It would in theory be a more competitive league; "better" is subjective.

[celticsclay]

Obviously this kind of rule would never really happen. I do think the league is going in a very bad direction and the fans are paying for it right now.

We have had 2 teams completely dominate 2 rounds of playoffs. Now a 1 seed dominating an 8 seed is fine and very common, but second round series are supper to be between 2 top 4 teams in each conference. They should never ever be 2 4 round sweeps with blowouts. The Jazz at home last night were something like 9 point underdogs and 4-1 to win. To give this some perspective if the Patriots went into Jacksonville last season jacksonville would have been more like to win than the Jazz last night.

I traditionally have loved the playoffs but have felt pretty cheated this year with very of the rounds being competitive. I am sure I am not alone on this. I don't know what the league can do though.
I guess the closest thing I could see that could actually happen is limiting teams to one true max, and then having a second limit for contracts to prevent 2 top 5 players or 3 top 10 players from going together on the same team.

Also most Warriors fans soft heartedly deny this, but living in the Bay Area the enthusiasm for this years team is not what it has been the last two years. The bars have less people in them, their is little drama and the bartenders even report making less money (one of them was lamenting the sweep to me last week). People were very hyped up for the first Westbrook game and stayed that way for a quarter and a half, but then it just got pretty boring. Nobody can stay fired up watching Mcadoo, Clark and Looney closing out a 30 point game. I really think this would have been a better NBA season if Durant had either stayed in OKC (and given us another real contender in OKC) or come to Washington, Atlanta, Toronto or Boston to make the East a lot more interesting.

I really hope the next round is more competitive games or this will be the worst playoffs i can remember watching in the last 20 years.

[PhoSita]

I think the league would be more interesting if the rules made it very difficult to hold onto more than two All-Star caliber players for more than a couple seasons at a time, while giving teams a lot of bargaining power to hold onto two stars.

How do you set up the rules and the league to make that happen?  I don't know.

On the other hand, if you make it so nobody can put a bunch of stars on one team, it makes it more likely that the teams that have one or two of the generational talents in the league will be able to dominate unopposed.


In the East right now, it looks like the only hope anybody would have of unseating LeBron would be to put 3 or more perennial All-Star talents on the same team.

[celticsclay]

I think the league would be more interesting if the rules made it very difficult to hold onto more than two All-Star caliber players for more than a couple seasons at a time, while giving teams a lot of bargaining power to hold onto two stars.

How do you set up the rules and the league to make that happen?  I don't know.

On the other hand, if you make it so nobody can put a bunch of stars on one team, it makes it more likely that the teams that have one or two of the generational talents in the league will be able to dominate unopposed.


In the East right now, it looks like the only hope anybody would have of unseating LeBron would be to put 3 or more perennial All-Star talents on the same team.

I don't know if that is true. I think Love, Irving and Lebron would get very very large contracts if all teams could bid on them. If it was just Lebron and Irving playing with Smith, Shumpert Thompson and some younger players it would be a lot more of a traditional team that would have some real weaknesses. Having that third true max player in love but the buy out loophole has really helped them add some players they shouldn't be allowed to. That is why I would be intrigued by the idea of a true max limit of one and then being able to pay a second player a 80% max and a third player a 70% max. I really do think this would be good for the NBA. It really isn't fun as a fan, and probably not for the teams for that matter, to go into these second round playoff games feeling like they don't have a prayer.

[droopdog7]

Yeah, this kind of idea really makes no sense and has no shot of ever happening.  But philosophically, the league is more interesting with super teams than without.  I don't like parity myself.

[Moranis]

I think the league would be more interesting if the rules made it very difficult to hold onto more than two All-Star caliber players for more than a couple seasons at a time, while giving teams a lot of bargaining power to hold onto two stars.

How do you set up the rules and the league to make that happen?  I don't know.

On the other hand, if you make it so nobody can put a bunch of stars on one team, it makes it more likely that the teams that have one or two of the generational talents in the league will be able to dominate unopposed.


In the East right now, it looks like the only hope anybody would have of unseating LeBron would be to put 3 or more perennial All-Star talents on the same team.

I don't know if that is true. I think Love, Irving and Lebron would get very very large contracts if all teams could bid on them. If it was just Lebron and Irving playing with Smith, Shumpert Thompson and some younger players it would be a lot more of a traditional team that would have some real weaknesses. Having that third true max player in love but the buy out loophole has really helped them add some players they shouldn't be allowed to. That is why I would be intrigued by the idea of a true max limit of one and then being able to pay a second player a 80% max and a third player a 70% max. I really do think this would be good for the NBA. It really isn't fun as a fan, and probably not for the teams for that matter, to go into these second round playoff games feeling like they don't have a prayer.

but why would you punish a team that drafted well?

[Celtics4ever]

Teams would find a way to game it.   

Sorry you can 't be on our team your too good.

[jbpats]

The league would be better if it imposed a hard cap. Can't go over the limit, no luxury tax BS, owners are making their money back 10 C's over for producing a championship team, a luxury tax means nothing to them.

[greg683x]

The NBA needs to adopt the NFLs franchise tag rule, it would do wonders to help teams retain their star players as long as theyre willing to pay them what theyre worth


and they also need to steal the arbitration rules from baseball to help compensate young players who are outperforming their contracts based on draft selection before their rookie contract expires.

[incoherent]

I can picture it now, coaches voting in fringe all-star players to the all-star game bench so that their rival team can't re-sign them next year.

[jambr380]

The only reason we are even having this conversation is because the salary cap exploded from last year to this year. Danny has done an amazing job balancing our cap, but nearly every team was able to join the fun this past off-season.

Without the jump in the cap, DA could have signed Durant's options would have been severely limited, basically coming down to OKC or the (Horford-less) Cs.

I imagine things will soon settle down again and the GSW fiasco won't be able to happen without players taking massive discounts.

Not sure what to say about the Cavs, but as others have said, it is more about Lebron being amazing than the rest of the team being overly special.

[GetLucky]

The NBA is facing the effects of irresponsible salary-cap management that I doubt will ever happen again. Unfortunately, in the meantime, fans have to watch the 5-year Golden State and Cleveland dynasties. (The rising cap let GS sign Durant outright and let the Cavs pay everybody on their team without going into egregious tax land.)

[BitterJim]

Teams would find a way to game it.   

Sorry you can 't be on our team your too good.

Yup. You would see all star caliber players sitting with mysterious "injuries" during December and January and then being miraculously healthy once All Stars were announced, during years that their team was set to have max cap space

[BitterJim]

Limiting all-stars isn't an answer.

A hard cap or removing limits on max contracts would possibly lead to more parity. It would in theory be a more competitive league; "better" is subjective.

Both of those would be great (especially removing the limit on max contracts), but the NBAPA would never go for it. It would hurt the NBA middle class way too much.