tontoz wrote:Nivek wrote:no D: I'm not saying that my noodling on the draft lottery is an ideal system. I'm not saying it's "fair" to the teams that suck. My point is merely that the draft lottery is a failure for its intended purpose of stopping teams from tanking. The moment teams get ANY advantage for sucking, there's an incentive for tanking. And when there's an incentive for tanking, teams will tank. Because it would be stupid to not tank.
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But players don't think like that. They are playing to earn jobs/minutes. I remember the Hawks had every reason to tank at the end of the 03/04 season. They had gutted the team and they had a bunch of guys on expiring deals and a lame duck coach.
But they went on a run at the end of the season. Why? Because the players were playing for their next contracts. So was the coach. From our perspective it was stupid not to tank but their perspective is different from ours.
Do you think Booker/Vesely want to lose games so they have a better chance to draft Sully/Robinson/Davis who will take away their playing time?
I never said PLAYERS have an incentive for tanking. I said that TEAMS (meaning owners, front office, and coaches (to the extent that they've been given continued employment assurances)) have an incentive for tanking. Players will play hard for exactly the reasons you've identified. Coaches worried about their job security will coach to win.
The team's decision-makers -- if they have the support of ownership -- have every incentive to tank. And they do that with lineup decisions, roster decisions, "resting" good players with minor injuries who would normally play, giving playing time to young players, etc., etc. If Ernie and Wittman have Ted's support, they have every reason to tank games this year because the prize is better talent, which means an increased likelihood that they'll
With the money being about equal whether a free agent stays with his team or goes somewhere else, players make their decisions based on non-financial factors.
Not true. Salaries being equal players would rather play in NY/LA where they get more exposure and more endorsement opportunities rather than Charlotte/Memphis/Minny etc.[/quote]
That's exactly what I just said.
Where salaries are equal, players will go to big markets for ancillary income opportunities. Or they'll go where the weather is nice, or where they think chicks are hottest, or where family is, or where the wife's family is, or where there's no state income tax, or whatever reason a player can come up with. But, the maximum salary provision forces salaries to be basically equal no matter where a player goes. If Orlando can't trade Howard, he can go sign a max deal somewhere else and make about as much money IN SALARY as he would have in Orlando. If he signs with the Lakers or Knicks or Nets or Mavericks, he'd probably get enough money from endorsements and the like to make up the difference.
Remove that maximum salary limit on individual contracts and New York, LA and Miami lose the advantage of location/size. Then they have to compete for players based on salary -- within the limitations of a hard salary cap (at least in my system). Then teams have a choice. Do you pay Dwight Howard $35 million to keep him (or attract him) and then hope you can fill out the roster with specialists? Or, do you sign 2-3 "good, but not star" players for the same money?
Getting rid of max salary restrictions gives teams more options for building a winner. Right now, you can get a star and still have the money to go get another star (or two). And then use exceptions to bring in quality role players and still be under the luxury tax threshold. In the system I'm describing, the stars would get paid HUGE money. Lebron would get something more like $35-40 million (or more) instead of $16 million. But, the team that paid him wouldn't also be able to afford Wade AND Bosh. Those guys would have to go somewhere else to get paid.
So, teams with stars would likely have one star and one star only. Whereas a team could choose to sign several good players for less money and build a team with a bunch of guys who can play instead of hoping to get lucky in the draft or being lucky enough to have the right mix of lifestyle, city size, etc. to steal someone else's star.
