How to Fix the NBA

So this article isn’t really going to relate much to UVA just to warn everyone. Except for the fact that if this exceptionally hypothetical situation were to happen it would be a massive boost to our program. I’ll explain that afterwards.

As we all know the NBA is getting ready to take a little break. The last time I checked the players and owners are around $70,000,000 apart on how to split revenue from the season. One of the big problems in the NBA is that there is basically 0 parity. There are good teams, and there are terrible teams and the way to make your team better is to dump all your salaries in one year and go buy up great talent. This eliminates the Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Bobcats of the world who are never going to be a big enough market to make that kind of move. That being said it’s easy to see why fans in those towns become apathetic. They can see the writing on the walls. The key to fixing this relies in 2 major changes to the current system, to give everyone an equal shot in the big picture. And the key to parity in my opinion is being able to groom your own talent. That coupled with a hard salary cap will be a good way to help level the NBA and make it a better product, more like football, where everyone has a chance every year and it comes down to coaching and front office work to decide your fate. But how would this be accomplished…

The NBA already has a soft cap, which basically means you have to pay luxury tax on players if you go over a certain amount. This is good in theory but do you think Mark Cuban cares about a few extra dollars? That’s what I thought. Commissioner Stern has already said that a hard cap is going to be one of his priorities for the new CBA. Step one we’ll call complete.

Sorry to bring this back up Wizards fans

Step two is where this gets interesting. The big reason that teams stay bad for so long is that the NBA draft is based completely on potential. Sure the guys at the top of the draft are usually good, but for every John Wall there is a Kwame Brown. Teams picking high in the draft don’t need project players they need  polished NBA ready talent to help them out. Players that can step in right away. Not some super raw kind that can’t hit a jumper past 13 feet with a hand in his face with any consistency.  The way to solve this problem is by changing the draft rules…again. This sort of worked the last time when the implemented the one and done rule (Kosta Koufus would have been a lottery pick…who?) but it needs to be expanded, or at least tweaked. The answer to this problems lies in baseball.

The MLB draft works in a very unique way. Kids are drafted both out of high school and in college. If a player is selected he is not required to sign with the team that picks him, and if he goes undrafted he can either choose to go to the college that has signed him or try and catch on with a minor league squad. Usually when a kid is picked out of high school they get offered some exorbitant amount of money to sign with the team if they are drafted high enough. But if not the MLB team will take a flyer on the kid being dumb or just not wanting to go to college. However it’s what happens when the kids go to college that is interesting. In baseball if you choose to go to college you have to stay there until your twenty first birthday. This gives you plenty of time to hone your skills and become MLB ready by the time you get drafted again. Look at Ryan Zimmerman for all you Wahoo fans. He made the majors in his first season.

Yeah...he probably needed college

So we have that settled. NBA teams now draft kids either out of high school or after they are 21. This allows phenoms like Dwight Howard and LeBron James to come into the league when they are ready but also keeps kids who aren’t in school longer. This is going to give the NBA a better product because you’ll have an influx of kids who know how to play basketball rather than a bunch of kids learning how to play. The NBA is not for learning it’s for performing. But what do we do with those high school kids? That answer is also demonstrated in baseball.

Minors! The NBA already has the NBDL but it’s not a true minor league system. Not like the MLB or NHL have. This is what I am thinking. Why not have a Minor League development league where each team has an affiliated team. I’ve already laid this out! There could be two leagues. The first would be for American Players based in the United States. I’ll use my hometown Wiz Kids as an example. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to watch Kevin Seraphin try and learn to play NBA style basketball in the actual NBA? Wouldn’t it be better to see him tear up the minors in Baltimore first? Look at the Nationals and Bryce Harper, by the time he cracks the pros he is going to be so polished you can see your reflection in it. The second league would be a minor league based in Europe. This would split the draft into two parts, a Euro Draft and an American draft (baseball only has an American draft, Latin America is a free for all). This league would be considered the stepping stone to the NBA. So a player like Jan Vesely could be picked and developed by the Wizards in Europe to make him ready to make the jump. The Euro draft would probably have different rules since they start playing professionally pretty much in utero over there. Once the players are ready they can make the jump either to the NBA or the NBDL for more seasoning. This would not only help put a better product on the floor but also expand your product worldwide.

So to all this up the NBA needs to make these changes to help level the playing field and put a better product on the floor:

             1.      Hard Cap- Help take financial strength out of the equation

             2.       New Draft Rules- makes teams focus more on talent rather than potential, which leads to better talent on the floor on a nightly basis

             3.       Minor Leagues- Helps to develop players further that need more polishing. Gets players more engrossed in the system and more knowledgeable of it to make it run better in the pros

      So let’s relate this back to UVA since this is a UVA blog. Eliminating the one and done rule would provide a tremendous boon to our program since we a) can’t and 2) don’t want or need those players. This would leave teams like UNC holding their breath until August waiting to see if they can keep their prized recruits. Coach Bennett on the other hand doesn’t recruit players like that for his system, so barring some once in a lifetime player committing here we would most likely be safe. This means more of our players in our program that Coach Bennett picks to run our system. This leads to better teams and more wins which means better players and eventually, dare I say, a banner or two for JPJ.

        

So let’s make this happen, cause I’d really like to go to a basketball game in a football stadium.