NBA 2010

[ghost]

It's not necessarily about the number of teams that have won the titles.  The bigger issue is that the same teams are completely shitty year after year, e.g. the Raiders and the Lions and the Pirates and the Royals and the Clippers.  Bleh. 

[Ingmar]

It's not necessarily about the number of teams that have won the titles.  The bigger issue is that the same teams are completely shitty year after year, e.g. the Raiders and the Lions and the Pirates and the Royals and the Clippers.  Bleh. 

All of those are as much or more about bad management as they are about anything else. And hell, the Raiders have been to the Super Bowl in the last decade.

[Paelos]

It's not necessarily about the number of teams that have won the titles.  The bigger issue is that the same teams are completely shitty year after year, e.g. the Raiders and the Lions and the Pirates and the Royals and the Clippers.  Bleh. 

Raiders, Pirates, and Royals have all won in the last 30 years.

[Malakili]

It's not necessarily about the number of teams that have won the titles.  The bigger issue is that the same teams are completely shitty year after year, e.g. the Raiders and the Lions and the Pirates and the Royals and the Clippers.  Bleh. 

Raiders, Pirates, and Royals have all won in the last 30 years.

It has less to do with what franchises suck and more to do with the fact that SOME teams seem REALLY bad every year.  Not just bad, but like, waste of time to watch bad.   If you moved the LA Lakers into LA Clippers uniforms and vice versa you might get a championship team in a new uniform, but the problem still exists.

[Sjofn]

But then all the teams, in this ideal scenario, would be posting around .500 records, and you'd be bitching none of the teams are any good.

[Mosesandstick]

The Clippers are bad because Donald Sterling is... Donald Sterling. I don't think the nba is completely fair but it seems to me that generally speaking teams deserve what they get.

[Fordel]

All the pro leagues are devolving into this same top heavy bullshit.  The talent pool is now so watered down due to the massive over expansion of the leagues that the "small market" will very rarely have a chance to compete.  We haven't really seen it in the NBA too much but with the Lakers, Miami, Celtics and Knicks looking to horde talent it's starting to become baseball. 

Yeah, I'd much prefer smaller leagues across the board with fewer but higher quality games.  There just aren't enough good players to fill these leagues.

Small Leagues are horseshit and boring. I use the CFL and pre-expansion NHL as my examples. Fewer teams and you just end up with the same team winning for half a decade in a row. Edge of your seat entertainment there.

[ghost]

I still say that if you trim 4-5 teams from each league things would be diverse enough to remain entertaining, yet it would bump the talent pool up significantly for the remaining teams. 

[Ingmar]

And fuck over a bunch of cities, and put a lot of people out of work. 

[ghost]

And fuck over a bunch of cities, and put a lot of people out of work. 

Welcome to hell 

The economy sucks, eh?  And good job moving this over to politics. 

[Ingmar]

Seriously though, I think it is striking that the sport with the *least* amount of revenue management (Baseball only has the luxury tax, no salary cap, no real revenue sharing) actually has the best competitive balance, despite all the whining about the Yankees.

[ghost]

I think it's a mistake to call competitive balance good play.  Diluting the talent pool sucks the quality out no matter how you look at it.  A good example of this is NCAA basketball, which has suffered horribly in quality since the mass exodus of the early entry players to the pros even though there is a supposed "parity" that makes things better somehow.  To hell with that.  I want the big guys to have the best talent and put on the best show for me.  This is a little Colin Cowherd-ish of me, but when it comes to baseball I would much rather watch Yankees- Red Sox than any number of the other shitty teams out there.  I want the talent level to be high all around so the quality is better.  Seriously- in MLB take Kansas City, Florida, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Washington, Baltimore and Seattle and try to come up with an 18 man team that would be competitive.  You'd still have trouble truly competing with the Yankees, Phillies, Boston or other big market teams on a regular basis. 

[Sjofn]

Are you going to ever make up your mind? TOP HEAVY BULLSHIT BAD ... NO WAIT, ONE TEAM WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP FOREVER GOOD

I am 100% certain if they shrunk the league so it's some sort of CFL hellhole where it is always, ALWAYS the Alouettes versus Whoever Didn't Choke in the finals, you wouldn't like it as much as you think you would.

[ghost]

Are you going to ever make up your mind? TOP HEAVY BULLSHIT BAD ... NO WAIT, ONE TEAM WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP FOREVER GOOD

I am 100% certain if they shrunk the league so it's some sort of CFL hellhole where it is always, ALWAYS the Alouettes versus Whoever Didn't Choke in the finals, you wouldn't like it as much as you think you would.

Let me clarify for you-  It's not about who wins the championships.  It's everything to do with the shit talent on the bottom third of the leagues' teams.  Shrink all leagues by the 4-6 teams that nobody cares about so that we can see real quality play.    I could care less if the same team wins the title 50% of the time or if it's a different team every year.  It really makes no difference.  I just want to get rid of the shite teams that are almost never competitive.  Seriously, the Pirates are probably the worst team ever fielded, with a close second by the Washington Wizards.  Who would care if they faded into oblivion and donated their starters to other teams to make them more competitive on the court?

[Ingmar]

There's always going to be a worst team, and they're always going to look bad compared to the best team. All that would happen is we'd get even pickier.

[ghost]

All that would happen is we'd get even pickier.

Is that possible?   

[Malakili]

I don't need like, 12 teams or something, but I bet you could cut out a solid 10 teams and it'd be fine.  I really don't need any more games like Lakers/Cavs was last night. 

[ghost]

Getting this discussion a little bit more on target, I believe that the following NBA teams could be cut and it would significantly help the overall level of play by having a supplemental draft for the other lower tier NBA teams.

1.  Washington Wizards
2.  Toronto Raptors
3.  Minnesota Timberwolves
4.  Memhpis Grizzlies

[Mosesandstick]

Unfortunately that contradicts one of your earlier statements Ghost, some of those teams have very talented players. The problem isn't the talent pool, it's mismanagement, poor coaching, rebuilding and youth.

[ghost]

Unfortunately that contradicts one of your earlier statements Ghost, some of those teams have very talented players. The problem isn't the talent pool, it's mismanagement, poor coaching, rebuilding and youth.

Actually, most of those teams would have 2-3 players max that would get picked up by other teams.  And those players would take the place of other, less talented players on the teams that drafted them.  It's not contradictory at all. 

[Hoax]

Seriously though, I think it is striking that the sport with the *least* amount of revenue management (Baseball only has the luxury tax, no salary cap, no real revenue sharing) actually has the best competitive balance, despite all the whining about the Yankees.

No it doesn't. Number of teams winning championships should not be the best competitive balance metric.

[Mosesandstick]

Whilst I understand your point Ghost, I don't agree. Teams would risk themselves on quite a few of those players if they didn't have to deal with the salary cap and a roster limit. Especially with the way the nba draft is designed, there's a (supposedly) a lot of long-term benefit to developing your young talent and/or tanking.

[Paelos]

With the exception of the few divisions in baseball, almost of all them have two teams that compete for the title, one that's a dark horse who usually fades post-All-Star break, and one that's hopeless.

For example, Yankees and Sox compete, Tampa is the dark horse (who won this year), and Baltimore is hopeless.
Or another example, Atlanta and Philly compete, Mets are the dark horse, and Washington is hopeless.

[ghost]

if they didn't have to deal with the salary cap and a roster limit.

But they do have to deal with the salary cap and roster limit. 

[Threash]

Getting this discussion a little bit more on target, I believe that the following NBA teams could be cut and it would significantly help the overall level of play by having a supplemental draft for the other lower tier NBA teams.

1.  Washington Wizards
2.  Toronto Raptors
3.  Minnesota Timberwolves
4.  Memhpis Grizzlies

Not the cavs? they are worse than all four of them, record not withstanding.

[Paelos]

Cutting Toronto's a given. They should only have a hockey team.
Cutting Minnesota is a given. That's a shitty market filled with honkies.
Memphis stays. They are a primarily black city with nothing else except a bad AAA hockey team. They can make it work.
Washington stays. That market is huge, and they can afford to support a team.

I'd also cut the Clippers. You don't need two LA teams. The Lakers dominate and the Clippers are a regular joke.
I'd cut the Nets. Same reason as the Clippers. You are dominated by a better team you can't compete with in that market.
I'd also dump Charlotte becase they are hopeless and in terrible towns nobody cares about.

Let Cleveland stay. They like suffering.

[Hoax]

I'd cut the Hawks, Bobcats, Hornets, Magic, Grizzlies and Hornets.

[Paelos]

The Hawks and the Magic??? 

[Threash]

The Hawks and the Magic??? 

Yeah that seems a bit silly, hell Orlando just built the best arena in the league.  The Clippers have always been profitable no matter their failures on the court, you really can't argue with that.

[ghost]

New Orleans was very close to getting downsized before they got CPIII. 

To switch topics a bit, here's a nice list of the NBA's worst players. 

I find it interesting that Brian Scalabrine is still playing.  What is he, 100?

[Ingmar]

Was curious so I looked up the bottom 5 teams by home attendance per game this year:

26   Hawks   14,172
27   Pacers   13,943
28   76ers           13,885   
29   Kings      13,292   
30   Nets          12,929

Not a lot of overlap with the suggestions in the thread (but hi2u Nets.)

I can't allow the Nets to be removed though, the antics of Russian Steinbrenner promise to be too entertaining.

[ghost]

Was curious so I looked up the bottom 5 teams by home attendance per game this year:

26   Hawks   14,172
27   Pacers   13,943
28   76ers           13,885   
29   Kings      13,292   
30   Nets          12,929

Not a lot of overlap with the suggestions in the thread (but hi2u Nets.)

I can't allow the Nets to be removed though, the antics of Russian Steinbrenner promise to be too entertaining.

It is amazing that Toronto and Memphis aren't on this list.  It's probably better to look at last 5 years. 

[caladein]

http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance

You're right about Memphis, but the Raptors are pretty middle-of-the-pack actually.

[ghost]

They're a little low for middle of the pack, but it's still fucking amazing.  They're fucking awful. 

[Azuredream]

How are the Cavs #2 on that list? I live in Cleveland, I've been to a few Cavs games, but once LeBron left I lost any desire to go see them play. For good reason, the Cavs are horrible without him. If I remember right we were dead last in attendance the year before we got LeBron.