I’m clinging hard to the adage that you aren’t in trouble until you lose at home, but stealing one in Milwaukee would be nice. Hopefully Nurse can make some adjustments, like playing Ibaka more and keeping Van Vleet as far away from the ball as possible, and maybe we can weather the storm. The lack of Anunoby is really being felt this series IMO.
@MattadorD The national NBA media is trash and not worth listening to. They only care about their travel schedule and want superstars where they live, but for the rest of us it doesn’t matter. That all being said, fuck the draft and it’s suppression of player autonomy and compensation for the benefit of a rich and predominantly white ownership class. If Zion or any other player wants to raise a stink about the powerlessness they feel as draftees, more power to them.
EDIT: On a related note, the latest Game of Zones just dropped and it’s fantastic:
This might be my favorite Game of Zones episode yet (besides of course the Process one because I am a homer). Wine-drunk Lebron is amazing. So many quips and references. The creators mentioned on Twitter that they had actually made all 17(?) possible endings beforehand for each team that could have gotten the #1 pick, which is incredible? And I wish we could see them all? I don’t frequent BR all that much but all their animated content (GoZ and Gridiron Heights especially) is incredibly good.
I don’t listen to the national media outside a select few, Lowe, Aldridge, and Stein, and then follow Woj and Shams to get the breaking stuff. It was just so blatantly not well thought out or false information that gets me so riled up. Like the report that Gayle Benson, owner of the Pels, said an AD trade to the Lakers would happen “over my dead body”. It was obviously false, and local reporters quickly found actual sources and said it was false. The crazy thing is this report was from Jackie MacMullan! She is such a great journalist/reporter. She does the leg work and gets sources and doesn’t just spout nonsense like Stephan A. Smith and Brian Windhorst. Reporters I respect and ones that I would think would be above it are now doing it. It’s obviously frustrating, but most of all it’s just sad to see.
I agree with you about the draft taking away player autonomy, and I’m all for the players choosing where they want to play. I’m just curious on how that would affect the league. The NBA works with a cap space so it would make it so the big market/best teams couldn’t just sign every projected 1st overall pick every year, but I think the draft does some good in spreading the talent out. I’m genuinely curious if you have any ideas or read anything that has a way for players coming into the league to have more autonomy.
Sports are such a complicated subject, for me at least, when it comes to these sort of issues. As a fan I love that the Pels are going to draft Zion and have ways to keep him on the team for the next 8 years or so all while not paying him what his labor/talents are worth, but then as a person that wants to see everyone fairly compensated for labor/talents I see it’s totally unfair that he is just stuck in the situation. But then going back to being a fan I’m pretty certain if Zion had a choice on where he wanted to go New Orleans would not be the frontrunner it is now to get him. Again all these feelings are very complicated and at times is very exhausting. I want this person to get paid what they’re worth and have a say in where they work, but also I get a ton of enjoyment from watching my team succeed. Does anyone else have similar feelings? How do you deal with them? I’m just interested to see how others deal with thoughts and feelings.
I often feel the same way. What to do? Root for the players when the CBA is being renegotiated. Advocate for the owners spending money when they say they want to win. Root for your team, but be happy for the players if they try find happiness elsewhere.
This round is pretty fun. I hope everyone else is enjoying it.
In the grand scheme of things: More than plenty. There is some wiggle room in the contracts depending on what a certain team is willing to pay, but the top pick will definitely get a ridiculous amount of money either way. I don’t feel that a million dollars less or more are a valid indicator of what a player is worth.
In other news: Very glad for the Raptors to have come back with Lowry and Powell fouled out in a VERY playoff-basketball-ish game. Way more fun to watch this than GS marching to the finals (almost) uncontested. Kawhi is definitely hurting though, I’m not sure how they will last this series.
He’ll be paid extremely well by normal human standards, but nowhere near what he’s worth in terms of how much value he’ll bring to the franchise in terms of merch and ticket sales, media coverage, etc. Also, the team who drafts a player gets control over their contract for quite a while (I think it’s 4 years, plus they get first dibs on extending his contract before any other team can make an offer) and their pay increases on a fixed scale instead of getting their market value from the get-go like they would if they were a free agent.
That was a really fun game to catch the end of. So glad to see the Raptors get a win there.
I like reading this stuff about player choice and helping them have more control over what they do and where they go, though I have nothing to really add besides “these numbers are bigh.” I thank y’all for educating me a bit.
@was I find the easiest one to root for without other feelings complicating it is when the owner pays the luxury tax and/or pays for extra/newer facilities and such. As for when a player leaves I find it’s much more complicated. If they’re good I obviously don’t want them to leave because that would hurt my team’s ability to win even if they’re leaving for a better situation/more money.
@Forrest what the other people said is correct. Just to add a bit more to their responses, I believe the contract for the 1st overall pick starts at 10 million a year and increase a bit over the next 3. So yes for a normal human being he is totally set, but compared to his fellow ball players he is getting underpaid (especially if he is the generational talent people are saying he will be). The contract he will have is about what the average skill leveled player would get. So think of it this way, it would be like Michael Jordan getting paid like a normal player, and he wouldn’t have a choice in it. People are spectulating that eventually these rookies won’t stand for these contracts and being under one team’s control for so long. So when they’re initial contract runs out their team still gets first dibs on keeping them it’s called restricted free agency. So their team can match any contract that player gets offered. The player can bypass this though by accepting a qualify offer. It’s a single year and for less money, but then the next year they become an unrestricted free agent and can go wherever they want. A few players have done this but not really a superstar. No one really wants to give up the security of a multi-year big money contract even if it’s with the same team. Some people believe Zion will be the first big name to do this. As a Pels fan I obviously don’t want this, but it will be interesting to see if he does do this what happens to rookie contracts in the NBA.
I have trouble getting out of the mindset of “why are you complaining about ‘only’ 10 million dollars” to be honest but the parts about restricted movement and players having control over their lives resonate a lot with me.
Not to hijack a thread about basketball with a video about football, but if you’re interested in learning more about how bargaining/CBAs/pay scales/etc. have worked historically in pro sports leagues, this episode of Pretty Good (you might have seen it before, it makes its rounds here occasionally) dives into it all in a super engaging way. It’s football so the conditions around it are a lot different (players relatively get paid less, have significantly less secure contracts, and have the disaster that is what the sport does to their health hanging over their heads, etc.). But it might be interesting for you!
I have a hard time feeling bad for the rookies in terms of the financial aspects of the situation, especially considering what Zion is going to making in sponsorship deals in a couple of months. As for playing where they want to play… Man, it’s tough. Like, of course it sucks ass to be tied down to a poorly run organization, but I almost feel like that has to be the case some times, because otherwise you’ll just end up with all the good players going to the biggest markets and biggest organizations, and I don’t think that is healthy for the competetive spirit of the league. The lottery exists because smaller market teams deserves a fair shot at being competitive, if it didn’t exist the power balance in the NBA likely wouldn’t have changed an iota since the 90’s. It allows teams like the Cavs or Pelicans a chance to acquire top level talent, something they never would’ve gotten a chance to do otherwise. It also allows teams with a legendary history like the Lakers to fall apart when they don’t draft wisely.
It’s not a perfect system but I don’t think getting rid of the draft or the lottery is beneficial to the league as a whole.
In a vacuum, I certainly understand why it’s hard to sympathize with soon-to-be millionaires, but my argument is that money isn’t just going to disappear if players aren’t paid well. It goes into the pockets of a rent seeker billionaire class who I think most reasonable people can agree are far less entitled to the fruits of the on-court product. So pay the players what they’re worth, and do the same for every employee of the NBA and it’s teams. For a cash flush organization, I don’t think that’s an impossible demand.
(I do think it is a little problematic that people are so invested in “overpaid” athletes but say nothing about Hollywood stars making enormous amounts of money for making similar mass market entertainment. The fact that athletes tend to be browner and blacker than movie stars is an interesting coincidence IMO.)
I do think there are ways to get rid of the draft and move forward with a competitive league. For one, we live in an age where size of market doesn’t correlate with the bankability of a star. Thanks to mass media and teams getting broadcast on national media, it doesn’t really matter that LeBron played in Cleveland or Giannis in Milwaukee. They’re still bonafide stars that can still live in SoCal or NY should they choose to. Provided you enforce a strict salary cap and floor with no loopholes and exceptions and adjust it to a generous share of league revenue, players will go where their financial and competitive interests lie. Granted, that does not do much for poorly run organizations, but I’ll try not to shed a tear for the Dolans of the world.
I see your point about players being paid what they’re worth for sure and lord knows the Owners don’t exactly need the money. I do wonder a bit about “being paid what they’re worth” when you consider just how many nba players bust early in their career. Say Lonzo Ball received a max contract coming out of college, or Markelle Fultz. Ultimately I think the rookie salaries are in place in order to ensure that franchises don’t shoot themselves too much in the foot through the drafting process.
I also want to make it clear that the issue of fair compensation for mass market entertainers is certainly are larger discussion than merely athletes and I hope it didn’t come off as me calling the players “overpaid”.
With regards to competition I’m not even talking so much about market size as I’m talking about the general status quo. The point isn’t that Giannis or 'Bron didn’t need go to LA or NY, it’s that NY or LA didn’t get a chance get them there. If the draft wasn’t around in 2003 do you really think 'Bron was going to stay in North East Ohio? He’d have went to the premier team which gave him the best chance at competing for championships, as would a loooot of the top players. Maybe they don’t all do that, but a lot of them do and what you end up with is a league that fosters brand exceptionalism and kills upwards mobility in terms of being competitive. Brand exceptionalism may still exist in the league as is, but at least with things like the draft you ensure that those organizations still have to put in some of the work.
I’m all for a hard cap and shutting down loopholes, but I don’t think that solves the issues the draft seeks to solve.
I’m also strongly in favor of a draft. The lack of it is what, in my opinion, in a way ruins Europe’s premier sports like soccer. Bayern Munich is the best example. They, for a time, just bought up every player that they deemed a threat and let them rot on the bench because they already exclusively have huge stars on the roster. In that way the best teams just get better, while the worst teams have to work a lot harder to get in competitive shape. Lots of sports would benefit from a drafting process.
To not get too free market capitalist about it, “what they’re worth” is what teams are willing to pay, which in Zion’s case would be higher than what he’s being offered now. I’m not sure about the concern about teams shooting themselves in the foot, though. There’s risk to entering any player contact, and if teams choose poorly the worst that happens is that a young player makes enough money to be set for life while the team underperforms for a season or three. Hardly a disaster.
I get what you’re saying with the LeBron example, but I don’t think that’s how it would play out for two reasons. For one, LeBron is an Akron kid and might have picked Cleveland to be closer to home. For another, if we are in an arrangement with hard caps and higher player compensation, the top teams would be full up on salary to sign him, or get rid of star talent to put LeBron on the roster. It would still facilitate talent movement around the league.
Finally, the thing that we’re overlooking is that stars aren’t just the ones that are picked at the top of the draft. One only need to look at players like Kawhi Leonard or Pascal Siakam to see how strong scouting and rigorous player development can make superstars or stars. And you only need to glance over at Andrew Wiggins to see a “generational” talent bust completely. There’s enough variance and future uncertainty that “premier” teams in LA and NY cannot reliably build dominant rosters year after year.
They may not reliably be able to build contenders year after year, and it’s certainly true that there tons of examples of players outside of the top 3 who blow up and become mega stars, but I still think it’s just going to hurt the smaller teams more than the others. Giving them a better shot at bringing in top level talent than the already established contenders just seems like a better solution to me. You’re right that in my hypothetical 2003 scenario LBJ might’ve decided to stay in Cleveland (even though he grew up a Cowboys fan, Yankees fan, didn’t particularly like Cleveland and the Cavs generally had been a screaming deathfire for over a decade), but the point is that that choice didn’t exist. It resulted in revitalizing a market, turning a bad organization around and ultimately concluded in one of the greatest sports moments of our time. It ensured that Cleveland had a chance instead of giving them a chance at a chance. Teams like Orlando or New Orleans or Charlotte need that chance. I think getting rid of the draft runs the risk of creating NBA deadzones where no talent ever goes, the teams perpetually stink and even fewer manage to rise out of the muck.
But by not tanking for draft picks, don’t we get every team playing competitive basketball every season to make themselves attractive landing spots for talent? Despite the odds on the draft shifting this year, we saw plenty of teams give up the playoff hunt to go Hail Mary on Zion or RJ. Rather, I’d prefer a league with more Spurs-like organizations than Sixers-like organizations. And I think getting rid of the draft facilitates that. Talent deadzones are just symptoms of poorly run and toxic organizations, and it would be nice to put these underperforming management teams and owners on the hot seat for once.
Sure, and I personally don’t like the changes they made to the draft this year at all. Sometimes teams are just… bad! It’s not necessarily tanking, it’s a lack of talent, lack of coaching, lack of organizational competence and resources. Talent doesn’t outright cure all of these, but it’s one of, if not the best way to turn around a franchise, bring excitement back to the team, entice other players to go there, etc. Sometimes teams just need help, in the same way that the NBA decided to kick Donald Sterling out of the league to help the Clippers, or when they nixed the CP3 to Lakers deal. Sometimes, for whatever reason, be it injuries, bad luck, poor coaching, lack of talent, team might suck. There needs to be a way out of that predicament for them that at least gives them a chance.
