ATL - New Lottery Rules Move to Owner Vote - pg59

[DrWood]

Everyone is so hung up on "they won 70 games" aspect. What is the allowable threshold for games won the year previous so that whoever is jumping ship is no longer a pussy? What if KD went to the Spurs or Cavs? Still a pussy? What if he went to kind of a mediocre team but orchestrated it such that 3 top-5 to top-10 players would all sign with that team at the same time? Still a pussy?

Where is the pussy/not pussy cut off?

The pussy/not pussy cut off is joining/not joining the exact same team that you just lost to in the playoffs a month prior.

Why? It's the fans who are rabid about rivalries.

Did OKC and GSW even have a bitter rivalry?

[midranger]

Kevin Durant is an all-time great player, but his hierarchy on that all-time list is capped given the situation he put himself in. I don't see how you could disagree with that no matter how big of a KD fan you are. Like PP said, there's something to be said about a player who takes a franchise to the ultimate heights/achievements in the form of championship success. It's expectations vs. reward aspect. It's doing something for the fans that supported you.

KD left OKC and his teammate won the MVP. KD joined another MVP on a 70-win championship favorite. He's been constantly surrounded by elite, MVP talent throughout his entire career. It just seems to me that his ardent defenders are more praising him as a business man and an opportunist rather than as an athlete who shoulders expectations for a franchise. If you don't see how that kinda muddies the waters of how people perceive the specific extent of his overall "greatness", then I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not a KD fan. Really kind of apathetic to him. I'm not going to hate the guy though.

If you watched the finals last year it was obvious that despite all the "elite talent" elsewhere on that court, KD was easily the best player. He was awesome and took his own game to new heights. It was definitely his team and he bested one of the all time greats head to head. His legacy will be secure.

[emunney]

Hard cap, no max salaries, random draft.

The problem is that the rank and file NBA players lose out enormously as superstar salaries devour their own earnings.

Don't care.

Hard cap does all kinds of nasty things like force teams to lose stars/fan favorites due to having other contracts that are immovable/etc.

So badly managed teams do badly? What a change.

Random draft is vomit inducing. There is a reason why every sport uses the draft to bring up its worst teams. If crappy teams have no access to talent they might as well be relegated.

It doesn't WORK. It doesn't bring up the worst teams. It just gives them an excuse to be bad. With a hard cap, they would have access to all those stars/fan favorites the teams with immovable contracts can't afford.

[Erifee]

Because of the unprecedented cap spike Durant could have gone anywhere.

This is it, really. Maintaining competitive balance is up to the league office, not Kevin Durant.

Take money out of the decision process and players can pick a team based on which has the most solid organization--owner, coach, players, culture. It's GSW or the Spurs at that point. Blame the owners and the league for not properly incentivizing competitive balance. Don't blame the player who looked at a series of teams ranging from "garbage fire" to "really well run" and went with the team that's really good and the players there like the organization.

[Prez]

Everyone is so hung up on "they won 70 games" aspect. What is the allowable threshold for games won the year previous so that whoever is jumping ship is no longer a pussy? What if KD went to the Spurs or Cavs? Still a pussy? What if he went to kind of a mediocre team but orchestrated it such that 3 top-5 to top-10 players would all sign with that team at the same time? Still a pussy?

Where is the pussy/not pussy cut off?

The pussy/not pussy cut off is joining/not joining the exact same team that you just lost to in the playoffs a month prior.

Why? It's the fans who are rabid about rivalries.

Did OKC and GSW even have a bitter rivalry?

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

[Buck Dweller]

If the trauma center in Chicago doesn't have an X-ray machine or scalpels or nurses, I'm probably looking for a spot that does.

I'm not sure why people pretend that they would have gone to the Nets in his situation. Because you know, balls. It's ridiculous.

Because of the unprecedented cap spike Durant could have gone anywhere. In my example, you could have picked from any number of good level 1 trauma centers around the country. Instead Durant choose to put rash cream on Mark Zuckerburg's butt.

He choose to go to the situation that best accommodated his professional goals, and assuming those goals were to win a championship, play under a great coach rather than Scotty brooks, play for an ownership group that wouldn't trade 2 of his 3 best teammates for magic beans to save a buck, and play with anyone other than Russell Westbrook... mission accomplished.

I ain't mad at you KD.

The context is that he could have done all those things easily without joining forces with the greatest team in NBA history. KD apologists seem to be ignoring it.

Hell, he was up 3-1 against GSW with OKC. He was perfectly competitive with GSW and on track to accomplish his goals you speak of even with OKC, let alone the Spurs, Clips, etc., but instead he sold out. It would be like if a band got super popular worldwide with an independent label and then bailed on them at the last second to sign with Sony BMG or some big ass corporate label.

[emunney]

The point is not to have no bad teams. That's up to the management of the teams. The point is to totally remove any incentives to be bad, and to mitigate the advantages of large markets (teams like LA can afford to pay more luxury tax) and superstars (who make a much smaller percentage of salary spending than they're actually worth). Who can put the best *team* on the court with finite resources and no artificial efficiency inflation of the very best players on the planet? That's what the league should be about.

[DrWood]

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

I understand that it's your opinion. What I don't understand is why everyone else should be striving you abide by your values.

I think a guy that cheats on his wife is a pussy, but a large minority of married men disagree with me.

[blazza18]

The pussy/not pussy cut off is joining/not joining the exact same team that you just lost to in the playoffs a month prior.

So LaMarcus Aldridge isn't a pussy because he joined the Spurs juggernaut two years after they knocked out the Blazers.

Considering the circumstances aren't the same at all, yeah, I'd say so. But if someone does think he's a pussy for it I can at least see why and am not going to act dumbfounded that someone could think that way. Aldridge just isn't close to the caliber of player Durant is and what he does doesn't warrant much discussion. I'm not sure how a team that lost in the first round is a juggernaut either.

Outside of win totals and Aldridge being good not great I'm not seeing much difference between the two really.

And yea, the Spurs are a juggernaut.

[DingleJerry]

The point is not to have no bad teams. That's up to the management of the teams. The point is to totally remove any incentives to be bad, and to mitigate the advantages of large markets (teams like LA can afford to pay more luxury tax) and superstars (who make a much smaller percentage of salary spending than they're actually worth). Who can put the best *team* on the court with finite resources and no artificial efficiency inflation of the very best players on the planet? That's what the league should be about.

I guess the only way to prevent any tanking would be to actually have a lottery of all teams in the league. Pretty much all other ways just shifts around who tanks. Then stipulationtions that you can come up with, like no top 5 pick if you made the Conference finals the year before. No more than two number one overalls in a 5 year span, etc, whatever you can come up with that makes sense. You'd have to remove record from it completely.

It might have been missed after all the KD pussy talk but I mentioned awhile back of actually having a lottery for all lottery picks not just top 3. I really think that's simple tweak that could go in and at least help a bit.

[Buck Dweller]

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

I understand that it's your opinion. What I don't understand is why everyone else should be striving you abide by your values.

I think a guy that cheats on his wife is a pussy, but a large minority of married men disagree with me.

That doesn't mean it's right. You could justify murder or rape by saying "everyone else has different values, guys".

[HurricaneKid]

Hard cap, no max salaries, random draft.

The problem is that the rank and file NBA players lose out enormously as superstar salaries devour their own earnings.

Don't care.

Hard cap does all kinds of nasty things like force teams to lose stars/fan favorites due to having other contracts that are immovable/etc.

So badly managed teams do badly? What a change.

Random draft is vomit inducing. There is a reason why every sport uses the draft to bring up its worst teams. If crappy teams have no access to talent they might as well be relegated.

It doesn't WORK. It doesn't bring up the worst teams. It just gives them an excuse to be bad. With a hard cap, they would have access to all those stars/fan favorites the teams with immovable contracts can't afford.

Well the Player's Union is a democracy and you are essentially attempting to get them except a handful to give away all their income. Its completely unrealistic. Right and wrong is irrelevant when pragmatism is the only practical possibility.

You cannot have a hard cap with 4 and 5 year contracts because even if you are the best managed team in the land if Giannis breaks out and you paid another great player 4 years ago now you cannot retain your own player. Its not even poorly managed teams, its just ALL TEAMS.

Of course access to cost controlled elite young talent brings up the worst teams. Saying otherwise is just being obstinate. You can argue that poorly managed teams shouldn't be able to waste the best young talent. But you cannot say that having access to the best young players isn't going to improve teams. I mean you gave money to put up a billboard to scream it to the world.

[Nowak008]

Because of the unprecedented cap spike Durant could have gone anywhere. In my example, you could have picked from any number of good level 1 trauma centers around the country. Instead Durant choose to put rash cream on Mark Zuckerburg's butt.

He choose to go to the situation that best accommodated his professional goals, and assuming those goals were to win a championship, play under a great coach rather than Scotty brooks, play for an ownership group that wouldn't trade 2 of his 3 best teammates for magic beans to save a buck, and play with anyone other than Russell Westbrook... mission accomplished.

I ain't mad at you KD.[/quote]

What if his professional goals were inadequate? It's like being a top 5 surgeon in the world and becoming a plastic surgeon.

[Prez]

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

I understand that it's your opinion. What I don't understand is why everyone else should be striving you abide by your values.

I think a guy that cheats on his wife is a pussy, but a large minority of married men disagree with me.

Not sure where I said everyone should be abiding by my values? I'm just giving my take on it. In fact it's the other side where it's been said they "can't understand" why someone would dislike Durant's decision.

[DrWood]

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

I understand that it's your opinion. What I don't understand is why everyone else should be striving you abide by your values.

I think a guy that cheats on his wife is a pussy, but a large minority of married men disagree with me.

That doesn't mean it's right. You could justify murder or rape by saying "everyone else has different values, guys".

so now KD is a rapist or murderer?

[GB_Packers]

I don't understand anyone here in September (the one mo out of the year to take a break from basketball if ever there was one- but cares THAT much about the NBA) that is OK with him completely blowing the league up for a 4 year period.

So Durant is an omnipotent basketball God? I mean he singlehandedly "completely blew up" a multi billion dollar industry with his brilliance! That's amazing.

I'm just not getting this level of angst. He left a team not serious about winning to go to one that was very serious about winning. He did this all within the rules the league and players agreed upon. And then he won.

Not sure why I should hate him.

This sentence baffled me

And no one is forcing you to "hate" KD, but it's pretty damn obvious why your average basketball fan dislikes the guy

Because the average fan is stupid. Thunder never did all they could to build a serious title contender around the deadly duo that was Durant/Westbrook. Couple that with the increasingly low IQ basketball Westbrook started playing, where he would somehow forget he had one of the top guys in the league as his teammate and just start chucking away, the frustration is easy to understand. No need to continue to waste away the prime of his career when there are far greener pastures out there, with a team full of smart players.

If the day comes where Giannis gets fed up with not being surrounded with talent capable of helping him win it all, I sure as hell won't blame him for leaving. It'll hurt like hell to see it happen and I'll be done watching the Bucks but in no way will I blame him for saying goodbye. Even if he goes to the team that just knocked him out of the playoffs.

Hopefully Durant adopts even more of a "deal with it" attitude this upcoming season. Fully embrace that dark side turn! All this whining is like Obi-Wan screaming about being the chosen one

[emunney]

The problem is that the rank and file NBA players lose out enormously as superstar salaries devour their own earnings.

Don't care.

Hard cap does all kinds of nasty things like force teams to lose stars/fan favorites due to having other contracts that are immovable/etc.

So badly managed teams do badly? What a change.

Random draft is vomit inducing. There is a reason why every sport uses the draft to bring up its worst teams. If crappy teams have no access to talent they might as well be relegated.

It doesn't WORK. It doesn't bring up the worst teams. It just gives them an excuse to be bad. With a hard cap, they would have access to all those stars/fan favorites the teams with immovable contracts can't afford.

Well the Player's Union is a democracy and you are essentially attempting to get them except a handful to give away all their income. Its completely unrealistic. Right and wrong is irrelevant when pragmatism is the only practical possibility.

You cannot have a hard cap with 4 and 5 year contracts because even if you are the best managed team in the land if Giannis breaks out and you paid another great player 4 years ago now you cannot retain your own player. Its not even poorly managed teams, its just ALL TEAMS.

Of course access to cost controlled elite young talent brings up the worst teams. Saying otherwise is just being obstinate. You can argue that poorly managed teams shouldn't be able to waste the best young talent. But you cannot say that having access to the best young players isn't going to improve teams. I mean you gave money to put up a billboard to scream it to the world.

You're describing a situation where a team can't pay a great player because they already have a great player. That's exactly the situation I want to provoke.

I'm not being obstinate. I'm being observant. The chase for high draft picks does not result in significantly more winning than losing. It's a Hail Mary because there is no better way to get the talent that is outrageously inflated in value because of the max salary. Under my system, without those constraints, the players at the top of the draft would not be worth as much to their teams.

You might be right about the Players' Union never going for it, but I've seen enough people vote their aspirations over their actual self-interest to be skeptical.

[Prez]

So LaMarcus Aldridge isn't a pussy because he joined the Spurs juggernaut two years after they knocked out the Blazers.

Considering the circumstances aren't the same at all, yeah, I'd say so. But if someone does think he's a pussy for it I can at least see why and am not going to act dumbfounded that someone could think that way. Aldridge just isn't close to the caliber of player Durant is and what he does doesn't warrant much discussion. I'm not sure how a team that lost in the first round is a juggernaut either.

Outside of win totals and Aldridge being good not great I'm not seeing much difference between the two really.

And yea, the Spurs are a juggernaut.

Those are pretty significant & meaningful differences, in addition to the fact that it was over a year apart and not immediately after he lost to them.

And I think calling a team that loses in the first round a juggernaut is a pretty low standard for the term juggernaut.

[DrWood]

I don't care about rivalries. You're competing at the highest level and you just lose to someone. You can go back at them, or give up on it and join them. He did the latter, and I think that's weak IMO.

I understand that it's your opinion. What I don't understand is why everyone else should be striving you abide by your values.

I think a guy that cheats on his wife is a pussy, but a large minority of married men disagree with me.

Not sure where I said everyone should be abiding by my values? I'm just giving my take on it. In fact it's the other side where it's been said they "can't understand" why someone would dislike Durant's decision.

Because you have been suggesting his decision represents a CHARACTER FLAW, not simply a choice you wouldn't have made.

[GB_Packers]

We now have people bringing up rape comparisons. Time to seek therapy and tell them where on the doll Durant touched you.