Help me flesh out my Realignment/Playoff idea.

[jade_hippo]

The 6 divisions of 5 teams makes the most sense; and other then our division, every other division is organized fairly well, and if they keep it 6 divisions of 5 teams... there really isn't anything better

Portland, GS, Sac, LAC, LAL
Pho, Utah, Den, OKC, SA
Dall, Hou, NOH, Mem, Atl

Mia, Orl, Cha, Wsh, Phi
MN, Mil, Chi, Ind, Det
Cle, Tor, NY, NJ, Bos

-but then you split up the Texas teams, and the SE and SW divisions are more spread out...

this was actually the setup i originally had, but i had to break it up because splitting the Texas teams was too hard. 3 teams in the same state makes for good rivalries if that is what you are pushing

[Breakdown777]

In order for something like this to happen, I think we need some teams to move. For example:

Memphis to Seattle
NO to Las Vegas

Then realignining divisions would make more sense.

[jade_hippo]

how does St. Louis not have a basketball team?

[Slum_Dillinger]

how does St. Louis not have a basketball team?

I think Kansas City is high up on the list of potential franchise destinations.

Anyone else think the league would benefit from dismantling two teams and having four 7 team divisions sorta like horaceworthy's idea there.

[Narf]

Personally I think they should lower the salaries, raise revenue sharing, and expand to 2 more cities. Baltimore, St Louis, Seattle, and San Diego are all mid-large markets that could support a team. I actually think Sacramento should just move to San Diego, who has 150% the population to support the team. And I think NBA teams should sign a lease for stadiums, writing an unbreakable contract to stay for 25 years for help with a new stadium. Maybe still play 5 games in Sacramento a year?

[Narf]

Here's my shoot-from-the-hip counter proposal.
Sacramento moves to San Diego and plays 5 games a year in Sacramento to keep viewership up (and really, it's not that far a drive for a weekend game for die-hards).
Give Seattle and St Louis their own expansion teams with locked-in 25 year commitments.
New Orleans moves to wherever (Pittsbugh? Baltimore?)
Redraw the conferences, calling the East the ABC and the West the NBC, bringing back the funky red white and blue ball on throw-back games.

Not done yet

-Lower the minimum number of players a team has to have from 12 to 11, keeping the max at 15.
-Lower the minimum salary a team has to spend on it's players to 50% the salary cap, meaning Sacramento can cut costs one year if they have to.
-This is compensated by adding 2 more teams (22 minimum players, up to 30 more maximum) who are also paying out more guaranteed salary.
-Have an expansion draft, where the 30 teams can "protect" 9 players and the 2 new teams can draft 3 "unprotected" players.
-Lower the luxury tax threshold and the soft cap, as well as the maximum salary. But keep the system as it is overall.
-Change the rules of trading players, so the team trading an "overpriced" player can pay a portion of his salary and not have that counted in the trade (for instance, New York could trade Eddie Curry and pay 40% of his salary, then have that portion of his salary count against their cap while the other 60% of it is counted against the other team's cap). This will allow for more reasonable trades, and we can scrap the BYC rules as well.
-Take 10% of all revenue from all teams, and split it evenly between the 30 franchises (soon to be 32). This will help alleviate the smaller market teams problems.

Overall, players will get paid the same total dollars it will just be spread out between 32 teams rather than 30 teams. This increases revenue for the owners without cutting player's jobs, and in fact gives them more jobs. And grandfathered contracts are not effected by this, so the current players aren't really giving up much (except those who aren't making max contracts, and might).

[funkatron101]

how does St. Louis not have a basketball team?

I think Kansas City is high up on the list of potential franchise destinations.

Anyone else think the league would benefit from dismantling two teams and having four 7 team divisions sorta like horaceworthy's idea there.

I'll never promote contraction in the NBA because the Wolves could eventually end up on that list. Taylor has deep pockets, but anything can happen.

5 Divisions isn't a nice even number, but geographically it's pretty solid. The crappy thing is that I think more teams will be on the move in the next 5-10 years.

[Foye]

The current system is broken, prevents truly weak teams from improving, increases travel expenses for smaller market teams, and creates lack-luster playoffs.

It's proven that it is not an ideal system.

Agree with you that it's not the ideal system but from David Stern's point of view it's proven.
Why should he care about changing the current system as long as the system isn't in controversial (public) discussion by nba owners? He doesn't care if the smaller market teams have to travel longer.
The nba won't change the system until there is a need to change it.

[john2jer]

Something needs to be done, but I think the answer is more minor tweaking then this 5 division wackiness.

Stern has a good rebuttal for why the USA/Int'l all star game is a bad idea. Only 20% or something of the NBA are international, so it's unfair to american NBAers.

And that's what the World Championships and Olympics are for. I think the World vs USA All-star game idea is a bad one. I agree with Stern on that.

[horaceworthy]

It would have made for an interesting atmosphere at this past All-Star game. Played in Dirk's NBA hometown, but them Texans are about as nationalistic as they come.

[funkatron101]

Something needs to be done, but I think the answer is more minor tweaking then this 5 division wackiness.

Stern has a good rebuttal for why the USA/Int'l all star game is a bad idea. Only 20% or something of the NBA are international, so it's unfair to american NBAers.

And that's what the World Championships and Olympics are for. I think the World vs USA All-star game idea is a bad one. I agree with Stern on that.

What do you think of my other All-star game idea?