Possible Suggestions for League Discussion
Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 2:48 pm
Hey y'all. First of all, I am not looking for points for this because this isn't an article. I have a few suggestions that'd I'd just thought of and wanted people to discuss it. There are 5: 2 are really interesting to me, but, IMO, would never pass, and 3 are legitimate that, if there's enough interest here, I can make a suggestion thread.
This will never happen, but hell, it'd be so interesting:
INSTITUTING A HARD CAP: This stems from my personal belief that a hard cap should be instituted in the NBA. We could set a hard cap at a certain level and then raise it by something like 4% every year. For example, this year, the hard cap could've been 90ish million. For anyone unfamiliar, it simply means that there is no way to go over the salary cap. It's literally a cap on spending.
Why it would work: Every team competes on the same playing field every single season. Right now, it's pretty clear how you can compete for a title in a year: save up points, make a 2-3 year run almost ignoring luxury tax implications, then settle back down and take a season (or more) off before trying to go all in again. Sure, there are exceptions to this. The Suns are only 5 million over the cap, and they have the best record in the West. But, they also have the most dominant player in our league. Here are the other 6 best records in the league and how their cap is this year: Bulls (10 over), Hawks (26 over), Warriors (29 over), Raptors (29 over), Nuggets (36 over). The last 4 teams are the 4 biggest spenders in the league. They are each over 35% over the cap. Basically, you can be good for a really long time and be smart with your cap. But, if you really want to win something right now, you have to abuse the luxury tax and go all-in. Those are the stakes. With a hard cap, there is no doing that, and it institutes another level of strategy to our game. You REALLY have to manage your cap. Instead of throwing money all over the place, you have to watch what you're doing because you cannot go over the hard cap. Everyone's on the same field, and it makes the game more interesting/exciting as all GMs have to be smarter and plan better for the future.
Why it wouldn't work: Our system right now does a pretty good job. Yeah, people abuse the tax, but they can't do it forever. And if they try to, then there's no training of players later on. Yes, the Hawks, Warriors, Raptors, and Nuggets are so far over the cap, but each of them only has 0-1 more year of being able to do this. People simply can't afford to do that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
What would need to happen: If, for some reason, this actually had interest, it would need to have at least 3-4 seasons of warning before the cap is actually instituted. That way, all new contracts could be handed out knowing this future. Also, if needed, an amnesty provision could be provided. We'd also need to rework the points system a bit and make point rewards smaller since there's no luxury tax and the only reason for points would be to train players.
INSTITUTING THE WHEEL: This is something I'm against in real life, but actually would be so interested to see it implemented here. The problem in real life is that, when you're bad in real life, it already feels like forever before you get good. Then doing this just means bad teams are bad for so long while good teams are rewarded with better draft picks dependent on the year. But in this league, where seasons last 2 months or fewer, even with a mistake, you're not bad for THAT long. For those who don't know, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... mfN8tl7k6w
Why it would work: You want to 100% end tanking? You want the most competitive league you can get? You want as much parity as possible? This is your solution. The great thing about the wheel is it is as fair as can possibly be. Years with high draft picks are followed by years with low draft picks and vice versa. You're locked into your pick no matter what, so you have no incentive to lose more games. Once you have your team, even if it isn't good, you're trying to win as much as possible because there's no reason not to. Imagine that: we have 30 teams all legitimately trying to win games and set the best gameplan possible. It'd be the most competitive this league has ever been. And it doesn't end the possibility of rebuilding. Let's say your team isn't good enough or is too old. You can still sell your good players for future draft picks. There will be teams willing to trade their top 10 pick for a great player, even if it means they don't get a better pick for 6 seasons. So you can still get teams trying to go all-in and have teams who aren't good enough that are able to rebuild effectively with no lotto. Remember, since we know what each pick will be, you know exactly what pick you're trading and trading for.
Why it wouldn't work: We have this discussion so much, and it seems like people just want to let teams run their own teams and let the lotto do its own thing. We've, as a league, somewhat decided that tanking isn't a big enough issue to try something too big to stop. And we've clearly not had a huge problem with competitiveness and parity as this is the most parity we've seen in a while and the most active league we've had in a while.
What would need to happen: Same as before, we'd need to institute this 4 years in the future because then people would know what picks they have/are trading. Besides that, we'd likely need to have a random drawing to decide the order of the first draft. From there, the wheel runs itself.
THESE COULD LEGITIMATELY WORK:
REMOVING SOME DEAD DAYS OF THE OFFSEASON: Now this is all dependent on Wig. Obviously, if he would like or needs a dead day, there's no reason we can't have another dead day. Right now, we have a dead day between RFA accept/decline and sim one of UFA. Then we have another between sim one of UFA and sim 2 of UFA.
Proposal: We get rid of these unless 1) it interferes with Wig's schedule or 2) the starting date of the season could use another dead day. Especially with RFA, day 1, we exercise/decline otions, day 2, we bid, day 3, we accept/decline bids, day 5, we sim RFA. By the end of day 2, we know the outcome of most of those RFA bids. It's really like having 2 dead days. Do we really need both of these. And for the UFA dead day after sim 1, do we need a dead day for people to adjust their bids. Generally, the best players are gone with a few exceptions so teams with cap scoop up those last few players. There aren't S&T talks or anything so I just think we should be able to have the UFA sims back to back to back days.
REWARDING USE OF THE NODES: A lot of us have heard about how much time and effort it takes to input DCs, FA bids, or TC entries. We luckily have these nodes that everyone can use and take some pressure off of the input team.
Proposal: We reward people for depth chart participation. What if we gave a bonus if they used TV to input those bids? And what if we gave a small bonus for people using TV to input FA bids and TC categories? This could help incentivize people to use the nodes more often which would take pressure off the input team.
RE-INSTITUTING PROTECTED PICKS: We started this league allowing people to protect their picks but had to get rid of it because we had multiple illegal trades going down because people couldn't keep track of their picks.
Proposal: We re-institute pick protections, but we're smarter about it. First of all, a league position becomes someone who keeps track of pick protections around the league on a document visible to the rest of the league. On the document (or thread), they have which picks are protected and how they're protected along with what picks are eligible/not eligible to trade for each team. Remember, if a pick is protected at all, neither the team trading the pick or trading for the pick can claim the pick as theirs to satisfy the Stepien Rule. My other addendum to this is that a pick can only be protected for 1 season for simplicity's sake. The problem with having a pick protected for multiple years or forever is that it locks up so many future picks that can't technically be traded. So I'd propose that a pick can be protected for a season but becomes unprotected the next year.
Those are my 5 proposals. I'd love to have people discuss some of them and just see if any should become real suggestions and eventually go to a vote.
This will never happen, but hell, it'd be so interesting:
INSTITUTING A HARD CAP: This stems from my personal belief that a hard cap should be instituted in the NBA. We could set a hard cap at a certain level and then raise it by something like 4% every year. For example, this year, the hard cap could've been 90ish million. For anyone unfamiliar, it simply means that there is no way to go over the salary cap. It's literally a cap on spending.
Why it would work: Every team competes on the same playing field every single season. Right now, it's pretty clear how you can compete for a title in a year: save up points, make a 2-3 year run almost ignoring luxury tax implications, then settle back down and take a season (or more) off before trying to go all in again. Sure, there are exceptions to this. The Suns are only 5 million over the cap, and they have the best record in the West. But, they also have the most dominant player in our league. Here are the other 6 best records in the league and how their cap is this year: Bulls (10 over), Hawks (26 over), Warriors (29 over), Raptors (29 over), Nuggets (36 over). The last 4 teams are the 4 biggest spenders in the league. They are each over 35% over the cap. Basically, you can be good for a really long time and be smart with your cap. But, if you really want to win something right now, you have to abuse the luxury tax and go all-in. Those are the stakes. With a hard cap, there is no doing that, and it institutes another level of strategy to our game. You REALLY have to manage your cap. Instead of throwing money all over the place, you have to watch what you're doing because you cannot go over the hard cap. Everyone's on the same field, and it makes the game more interesting/exciting as all GMs have to be smarter and plan better for the future.
Why it wouldn't work: Our system right now does a pretty good job. Yeah, people abuse the tax, but they can't do it forever. And if they try to, then there's no training of players later on. Yes, the Hawks, Warriors, Raptors, and Nuggets are so far over the cap, but each of them only has 0-1 more year of being able to do this. People simply can't afford to do that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
What would need to happen: If, for some reason, this actually had interest, it would need to have at least 3-4 seasons of warning before the cap is actually instituted. That way, all new contracts could be handed out knowing this future. Also, if needed, an amnesty provision could be provided. We'd also need to rework the points system a bit and make point rewards smaller since there's no luxury tax and the only reason for points would be to train players.
INSTITUTING THE WHEEL: This is something I'm against in real life, but actually would be so interested to see it implemented here. The problem in real life is that, when you're bad in real life, it already feels like forever before you get good. Then doing this just means bad teams are bad for so long while good teams are rewarded with better draft picks dependent on the year. But in this league, where seasons last 2 months or fewer, even with a mistake, you're not bad for THAT long. For those who don't know, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... mfN8tl7k6w
Why it would work: You want to 100% end tanking? You want the most competitive league you can get? You want as much parity as possible? This is your solution. The great thing about the wheel is it is as fair as can possibly be. Years with high draft picks are followed by years with low draft picks and vice versa. You're locked into your pick no matter what, so you have no incentive to lose more games. Once you have your team, even if it isn't good, you're trying to win as much as possible because there's no reason not to. Imagine that: we have 30 teams all legitimately trying to win games and set the best gameplan possible. It'd be the most competitive this league has ever been. And it doesn't end the possibility of rebuilding. Let's say your team isn't good enough or is too old. You can still sell your good players for future draft picks. There will be teams willing to trade their top 10 pick for a great player, even if it means they don't get a better pick for 6 seasons. So you can still get teams trying to go all-in and have teams who aren't good enough that are able to rebuild effectively with no lotto. Remember, since we know what each pick will be, you know exactly what pick you're trading and trading for.
Why it wouldn't work: We have this discussion so much, and it seems like people just want to let teams run their own teams and let the lotto do its own thing. We've, as a league, somewhat decided that tanking isn't a big enough issue to try something too big to stop. And we've clearly not had a huge problem with competitiveness and parity as this is the most parity we've seen in a while and the most active league we've had in a while.
What would need to happen: Same as before, we'd need to institute this 4 years in the future because then people would know what picks they have/are trading. Besides that, we'd likely need to have a random drawing to decide the order of the first draft. From there, the wheel runs itself.
THESE COULD LEGITIMATELY WORK:
REMOVING SOME DEAD DAYS OF THE OFFSEASON: Now this is all dependent on Wig. Obviously, if he would like or needs a dead day, there's no reason we can't have another dead day. Right now, we have a dead day between RFA accept/decline and sim one of UFA. Then we have another between sim one of UFA and sim 2 of UFA.
Proposal: We get rid of these unless 1) it interferes with Wig's schedule or 2) the starting date of the season could use another dead day. Especially with RFA, day 1, we exercise/decline otions, day 2, we bid, day 3, we accept/decline bids, day 5, we sim RFA. By the end of day 2, we know the outcome of most of those RFA bids. It's really like having 2 dead days. Do we really need both of these. And for the UFA dead day after sim 1, do we need a dead day for people to adjust their bids. Generally, the best players are gone with a few exceptions so teams with cap scoop up those last few players. There aren't S&T talks or anything so I just think we should be able to have the UFA sims back to back to back days.
REWARDING USE OF THE NODES: A lot of us have heard about how much time and effort it takes to input DCs, FA bids, or TC entries. We luckily have these nodes that everyone can use and take some pressure off of the input team.
Proposal: We reward people for depth chart participation. What if we gave a bonus if they used TV to input those bids? And what if we gave a small bonus for people using TV to input FA bids and TC categories? This could help incentivize people to use the nodes more often which would take pressure off the input team.
RE-INSTITUTING PROTECTED PICKS: We started this league allowing people to protect their picks but had to get rid of it because we had multiple illegal trades going down because people couldn't keep track of their picks.
Proposal: We re-institute pick protections, but we're smarter about it. First of all, a league position becomes someone who keeps track of pick protections around the league on a document visible to the rest of the league. On the document (or thread), they have which picks are protected and how they're protected along with what picks are eligible/not eligible to trade for each team. Remember, if a pick is protected at all, neither the team trading the pick or trading for the pick can claim the pick as theirs to satisfy the Stepien Rule. My other addendum to this is that a pick can only be protected for 1 season for simplicity's sake. The problem with having a pick protected for multiple years or forever is that it locks up so many future picks that can't technically be traded. So I'd propose that a pick can be protected for a season but becomes unprotected the next year.
Those are my 5 proposals. I'd love to have people discuss some of them and just see if any should become real suggestions and eventually go to a vote.
