tipping point in the stern era

[dk7th]

if the free agency madness has taught us anything, it's that the league has too many teams and not enough real talent. the ncaa is also in cahoots but as my main man Mr. Frazier has said in his book The Game Within the Game there are basically the same number of ballplayers worthy of the title professional in the NBA but too many teams to have a fair share of decent ballplayers. I will now quote him:

"When I entered the league in 1967, there were 12 teams in the NBA and only 144 players. There were so few roster spots that I never thought I was good enough to play in the NBA until my junior season at Southern Illinois when the Salukis came into the old Madison Square Garden and won the National Invitation Tournament. Now 16-year-olds think they're ready for the pros."

"The irony is that even with all the young and foreign players coming into the league today, there is still not enough talent to field 30 teams. They have the whole world to get players to fill the rosters of 30 teams-- 438 players in all-- and they can't do it. Even with this blight of talent, there's still talk of expanding. The commissioner can't stop a prospective owner from wanting to bring a new team into the league when he's willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars."

Now this is not a Bible class and I am not quoting Scripture, but I should think that Mr. Frazier has as good a take on this issue as anybody here does. Let's say that he's right-- and i'll inflate the number from 144 to 180-- i.e. that there are basically about 180 players that are true NBA-quality players. Well, less than half of those players are starting quality. That would mean that there are 80 players that are starters in this league, and those 80 players are ideally distributed evenly among 30 teams. That is "2.7" players that should be on a team if the team is to contend. Obviously the situation is not ideal, which means that we have to find those teams that have 2-3 All-Star calibre players on their rosters. And if the team has only 2 All-Stars then it had better have a very deep bench with 2 or 3 borderline starting-calibre players.

How many teams fit this criterion? My guess is that there are only about 6-8 teams, and now there will be just a few teams fully loaded while the majority of the other teams will be grist for the mill. The league needs to contract and the guaranteed money needs to be abolished if only because it makes every contract a gamble not a calculated risk.

everybody here knows that I think the league is a bloated, diluted money-maker-- as opposed to a lean and mean business that puts quality over quantity and substance over style. David Stern is responsible for the state of the league. sport is not merely entertainment. had he played sports he would understand that.

so while we as knick fans are giddy over being one of those core 6-8 teams, i ask myself "is this really good for the sport and is it good for the rest of the league and the league as a whole?" i expect that there will be attendance figures that will cause franchises to fold. why bother going to watch a couple of second-rate teams when you can catch first-rate teams on tv?

[axios]

Great POst dk. Not even half the players in the league know the fundamentals. Not even half can hit a mid range pull-up jumper. Jordan's high wire act, retarded the sport ironically. No one develops the back to the basket game anymore. Watching the 70's-80's for me now on the espn classic, the game was a thing of toughness and beauty. Now it is 3ptrs and ref whistles.
BTW- no one has even tried to replicate the most devasting, unstoppable shot of all time. The sky hook! not one person? You think some scrub white guy with zero athleticism would maybe try it at one point?

[jbnewyork162]

I definitely concur with the basis that the league is diluted and a hot mess overall. But commissioners are not elected they are appointed like a CEO of a company and the fans all have low stock even though they are the basis for everything thaat goes on the court. The owners are the board members and we are the low risk 1% stock owners.

Let me explain. Without the money from our sales from merchandise, concessions, and TV time whenever somebody sneezes NBA the NBA would be in trouble. BUT, without sports the fabric of the nation let alone the world, would be brokem We dont realize how much stake we have in changing the NBA by not showing up, not buying anything and not settling for the product we see by just not partaking, but ALL sports are guilty pleasures for as simple as polo to as complex as the Tour De France cycling.

Anyway since there are going to be a market to get any fan, in for dirt cheap gimmicks and since heroes of sport all pull at our heartstrings, especially when you dont have to leave your home state or even your TV/living room to see these heroes in the US, someone and usually alot of people show up en masse anyway.

I thought many people werent interested in basketball anymore, but the way I see non fans of this sport excited and pledged into this free agent magic sheds real light the spectrum of how popular either current, former, closet, or new fans NEED this game. And for that no matter how absurd thee product wont change because the money wont change. And that is why Stern wont change unfortunately.

[neilverson]

Aryvdas Sabonis had a nice hook, but he didnt play inthe league until he was in his late 30's I believe.
I like the post and the usage of Frazier's material, but I also kind have grown up liking the structure of the NBA, now with 3 divisions in each conference. I'm 28, so really theres only been 6 new teams since I can remember: Miami, Orlando, Minnesota, Toronto, Bobcats and the Grizzlies. I think thats right. I think 16 teams should go to the playoffs as they do and 14 in the lotto isnt too much at all. BUt I have to agree the talent pool isnt 438 players deep. If I had to drop teams I dont know who'd they be, I guess it depends on attendance like written above. I didnt like the idea of OKC getting a team thats for sure, but they sell out. I'm not crazy about Golden state. They suck. Minnesota, Memphis and Toronto suck right now but they are all pretty established. Yeah I dunno. I wouldnt mind seeing a few less teams in the lotto on second thought and Stern certainly made his mark here. Game has changed immensely, and thats only in the short time I'vee been around to notice.
-Neil

[irish2u2]

Great post DK though the message is an old one that covers all the major professional sports. They make their money through the TV so even if the product is diluted as long as the public has superstars they can watch they will watch. Even in Cleveland. ; ) Maybe not in Newark. ; )

[jbnewyork162]

Jul 7, 2010 15:45:03 GMT -5 irish2u2 said:

Great post DK though the message is an old one that covers all the major professional sports. They make their money through the TV so even if the product is diluted as long as the public has superstars they can watch they will watch. Even in Cleveland. ; ) Maybe not in Newark. ; )

You concisely just said the same thing I just did. Great minds think alike.

[rxmeister]

The problem with this league is that it's almost impossible for bad or mediocre teams to improve themselves because of the draft and salary cap. The Knicks have only gotten themselves into this position because they sacrificed two years AND play in a desirable market. Other bad teams in bad markets literally have no chance. So few players come out in the draft that are franchise changers, and even if one is in the draft, you have to get lucky in the lottery.
As bad as that is, it's even worse to be mediocre. It takes substantial payroll to be even a .500 team, and you never have the cap room to add a significant piece. Factor in that a mediocre team picks in the middle of the draft, and you can't improve that way either. I understand eliminating the salary cap would cause the same problems that they have in baseball, but even that system is better than what they have presently in the NBA. Perhaps the solution could be allowing bad teams higher cap numbers than good teams. If a team like the Nyets were given 80 million this year based on their record, and teams like the Lakers and Celtics 60 million, the league would start to balance out.

[ReneNYG1]

I think the main problem is fundamentals are not existent in today players coming out so early from college and the league gets sloppy play.Too many teams for the amount of season talent as well.

[babylon5]

Rene,
Great point.
In the NBA the focus is on the next game and preparing for the next team.
There is precious little extra time for a player to develop in a league that demands a quicker return on their investment.
Of course there are expections....namely the fellow that we hope tells the world that he will play in New York.
But for every LeBron, there are far too many kids who leave college early and never make it in the NBA.

[daglazer]

My observation is that there are about 225 NBA caliber players and only about 150 of those are quality starters and of that 150, there are only about 40 high caliber players. So, whereas it used to take 3 elite players to win, it now only takes 2.

If you surround 2 elite guys with average to above average role players, then you have a great chance to win. My hunch is that LeBron knows this and knows that with Stat, he has his two elite guys. And, based on PER, the Knicks already have 4 average to above average role players. That my friends is why I believe that LeBron will be a Knick tomorrow.

[whensly]

Greed runs the NBA and all Pro Sports and all business, be it the players or the owners, they are all looking out for themselves. AS much as I don't care for Dolan, he is of a breed where he has so much money that he wants to spend it for some personal glory (which will ultimately make him more $, see today's MSG stock), which is better than an owner like Perot Jr who only cares about bottom line.

I met a lawyer for a hedge fund company who's job is soley to find out all the SEC govt reforms that might occur and find as many loopholes around them as possible. When I asked her if maybe they should learn to play within the rules,
she replied, "why should we it's all about money and nothing else". When I asked "what about your conscience?" she replied, "our job is to make money, not to have a conscience. If I begin to rationalize then I'm not helping make money"...

After the 2nd biggest economic collapse in 200 years, the mentality is still "forget quality, and equality make $$"

Sorry to take my bible out, on the eve of a coronation but we are living in some strange times. This LBJ stuff has gotten really strange, and the beautiful young lawyer I met represented the next generation of leaders and business people,
scarey remorseless folks

[ReneNYG1]

Mouse I has a similar experience while watching what I though was one of my favorite announcer on my stock market show she turn on the china earth quake and without a peep about the deaths it cause she said let's see how the quake affects the Chinese stocks all about money I used to like her but it was all about money without one word of sorry for the horrific destruction it left on the people it showed a coldness I never saw in her and I will never forget,I'm very happy to get into the restaurant business the cold nest to show no feelings for loss of life is not for me and not the way I raised my kid,to have a heart for your fellow man.

[babylon5]

Mouse,
We are indeed living in strange times.....the economic paradigm seems to have sprung from dear Milton Freedman-that inorder for capitalism to reach its potential, it has to not only be free of government intervention, but that it should be allowed to do the jobs that government heretofore used to do.....we have outsorced the military to a degree never before seen before, we have outsourced the clean-up of Katrina, we are outsourcing prision systems, schools, and more is yet to come....BUT I digress again.....
This is not the proper board to further such discussions.....for now....I have my fingers crossed.....that Friday morning I can go out and by a Knick jersey that reads James on the back....and I don't mean Jerome.

[dk7th]

i thought that in the wake of the "lebron to the heat situation" that we should take a hard look at an initially surprising but predictable turn of events.

isn't what lebron did directly linked to mr. frazier wrote about?

put tampering and being bamboozled by these three cats for a few years aside for a minute. it seems to me that you can't stop free agents from coalescing in destinations of their choice. what has occurred is a different version of the same thing that happened with both the celtics three years ago and the lakers as well. both teams received "gifts" from allegedly rival gms, mchale to ainge and west (who had the gms ear) to kupchak. both teams have been loaded and basically will just get older but will be able to sustain their dominance more or less. replacing role players is easier than replacing core players. as allen, pierce, and garnett fade, the celtics will have decisions to make, but the last several years have allowed both rondo and (perkins vastly underrated player) to mature and become core players themselves, or at least potentially so. the lakers will be in a similar situation for a bit longer than the celtics, the only difference being that they do not have those young players waiting in the wings. bynum is about it. bryant and artest won't be around forever. and of course you can't leave out san antonio in this, although to their credit they were able to get titles through incredible scouting and drafting with manu ginobili and tony parker.

but the point is that a precedent has been set and i believe it is directly related to the bloat and dilution of the nba. i don't blame elite players for wanting to win, especially since they seem to recognize that nowadays, with such a low level of basketball skill suffusing the league, that their best shot at a ring is to make sure that there are three big time players. but that means that we will have an even greater disparity between the haves and have nots, rendering the latter an endangered species. at the end of the day, as i have been hammering home for years, there have been only 6-8 teams that are worth watching in the playoffs as true contenders. the playoffs should really be only about the best 4 teams from each conference and the league itself should ideally field about 18 teams total. it is just not a good business model and something big is going to have to change so that the league can regain its health.

[greatgates1]

Jul 13, 2010 15:57:44 GMT -5 @dk7th said:

i thought that in the wake of the "lebron to the heat situation" that we should take a hard look at an initially surprising but predictable turn of events.

isn't what lebron did directly linked to mr. frazier wrote about?

put tampering and being bamboozled by these three cats for a few years aside for a minute. it seems to me that you can't stop free agents from coalescing in destinations of their choice. what has occurred is a different version of the same thing that happened with both the celtics three years ago and the lakers as well. both teams received "gifts" from allegedly rival gms, mchale to ainge and west (who had the gms ear) to kupchak. both teams have been loaded and basically will just get older but will be able to sustain their dominance more or less. replacing role players is easier than replacing core players. as allen, pierce, and garnett fade, the celtics will have decisions to make, but the last several years have allowed both rondo and (perkins vastly underrated player) to mature and become core players themselves, or at least potentially so. the lakers will be in a similar situation for a bit longer than the celtics, the only difference being that they do not have those young players waiting in the wings. bynum is about it. bryant and artest won't be around forever. and of course you can't leave out san antonio in this, although to their credit they were able to get titles through incredible scouting and drafting with manu ginobili and tony parker.

but the point is that a precedent has been set and i believe it is directly related to the bloat and dilution of the nba. i don't blame elite players for wanting to win, especially since they seem to recognize that nowadays, with such a low level of basketball skill suffusing the league, that their best shot at a ring is to make sure that there are three big time players. but that means that we will have an even greater disparity between the haves and have nots, rendering the latter an endangered species. at the end of the day, as i have been hammering home for years, there have been only 6-8 teams that are worth watching in the playoffs as true contenders. the playoffs should really be only about the best 4 teams from each conference and the league itself should ideally field about 18 teams total. it is just not a good business model and something big is going to have to change so that the league can regain its health.