RealGM

I am not really a big fan of the way the league is currently set up from a competitive point of view. Outside of the top handful of teams there is really very little for a fan of the other teams to cheer for. By the time the playoffs come you basically know which teams are going to be competitors for the finals.

I am also not a fan of the way the economics of the league is set up. It is a broken system that highly favors the players and really provides little incentive for being a winner. Many people argue that what the players get payed is fair market value since the owners aren't forced to pay that much but the reality is that they are. As long as there is even one or two owners who are willing to overpay and there are large markets that make so much money that it doesn't really matter what they pay all other teams will be forced to match in order to stay competitive.

So I have decided to create a league setup and an outline for a CBA to match it that would help peak fans interest in their teams and the players interest in winning while also helping the owners turn a profit consistently and prevent them from overspending. To start I will outline how the league would be set up.

Basically it would be a two tier system. Since the season isn't over I will use the current standings to show how it would look next season.

Tier 1 East

Miami Heat
Boston Celtics
Chicago Bulls
Atlanta Hawks
Orlando Magic
New York Knicks
Philadelphia 76ers
Indiana Pacers

Tier 1 West

San Antonio Spurs
Dallas Mavericks
LA Lakers
Oklahoma City Thunder
New Orleans Hornets
Denver Nuggets
Portland Trailblazers
Memphis Grizzlies

Tier 2 East

Charlotte Bobcats
Milwaukee Bucks
Detroit Pistons
New Jersey Nets
Washington Wizards
Toronto Raptors
Cleveland Cavaliers

Tier 2 West

Utah Jazz
Pheonix Suns
Houston Rockets
Golden State Warriors
LA Clippers
Sacramento Kings
Minnesota Timberwolves

For the most part the schedule wouldn't change too much, every team would play each other at least twice. The only real difference is that the Tier 2 teams would have to start their regular season about a month before the Tier 1 teams in order for the playoff format to work.

The playoff format would work start with 8 teams from Tier 2 since their regular season would end a month before Tier 1's. The top 4 teams from the West and the top 4 teams from the East. Regular playoff format, seed 1 meets seed 4 and 2 meets 3 in best of 5 series. Winners move on to Tier 2 Conference Finals, also a best of 5. The winners of these conference finals not only play in the Tier 2 finals but also qualify to advance to Tier 1 playoffs (I think this is important as every team technically has a shot at winning the title although not realistically just like the current NBA set up). The Tier 2 Finals is also important because the winner of that moves up to Tier 1 the next season. This is also a best of 5 and would end about the same time as the Tier 1 regular season.

The playoff format for Tier 1 would be similar in that the top 4 teams from both east and west make the playoffs. However it would start off with a best of 5 wildcard round. The winner of the Tier 2 conference final against the Tier 1 4th seed. After that it would be the same with the winner of that series playing the 1 seed and 2 vs 3 in 7 game series to the finals.

The draft would also be changed with the non-playoff teams from Tier two having a lottery for the top 6 picks, followed by a lottery for the 7 non playoff teams from Tier 1 (along with the winner of Tier 2 who moves up) for picks 7-14. Tier 2 playoff teams get the 15-22 picks in inverse (8th seed gets pick 15 while the Tier 1 team that moves down gets pick 22) and the Tier 1 playoff teams get the remaining picks the same way. Another bonus for the Tier 2 team that moves up is that they get to take a player from the Tier 1 team moving down (this team gets to protect 3 players).

Basically this format gives almost every fan base and team something to cheer and play for throughout the entire season. The top 4 teams in each Tier 1 conference as always have contenders to cheer for. The 5 and 6 teams in each Tier 1 conference will likely be in the playoff hunt until close to the end of the season. And the 7 & 8 seeds will be cheering and playing for their team not to finish last in the conference as well as cheering for the opposing conference in the Tier 2 playoffs. As for the Tier 2 teams I don't think there is any question that they have a lot more to cheer for and play for in this set up as opposed to the current system.

A side note to this I would like to see is a 64 game schedule instead of an 82 game schedule for multiple reasons. One, the season is already long enough as is and even though the set up that I layed out doesn't actually add any games to the season or the playoffs the season is extended due to the offsetting start of Tier 1 and Tier 2's seasons. Two, I personally think the wear and tear on the players bodies is too much in a 82 game season so having less games would make help make the players fresher for the prolonged playoffs that the NBA has. Three, I think that with less games it allows teams to have more practices and be more prepared for games, hence more entertaining. Four, less games makes each game more meaningful in the standings. This would never happen though since both the owners and the players would never give up the revenue those extra games make for them although I think that would be partially offset by a more interesting and competitive season.

Now for the basics of a CBA to match the new league alignment.

Seperate the Basketball Related Income (BRI) into two separate ones, Regular Season BRI (RBRI) and Playoff BRI (PBRI). Players that don't help their teams win at all, which is what they are payed for, get huge contracts that is based on a BRI that includes playoff revenue. If they can't get their team there then they really don't deserve a share of it.

Reduce the players percentage of the BRI from 57% to 50% and set that as the Hard Cap and institute a max salary of 20% of the Hard Cap and a minimum salary of 2%. The hardest hit players in this set up would be the top earners but there is something later on that offsets this. Also, when players contracts are signed they would be negotiated as a % of the cap rather then a number with annual raises. So if a player signs a 5 year contract at max it stays at 20% of the cap each year, any raises are a result of the cap going up. This way a players salary isn't increasing well beyond what the leagues revenues are. For example, Wade, LeBron, and Bosh each currently make a salary of about 25% of the cap but due to the large increases each year by the end of their contracts they will each be making over 30% of the cap.

So the players will get their salaries based on the RBRI, and players that are on playoff teams will get payed based on the PBRI depending on how many playoff series they play in with a slight increase each series. I made a rough estimate of what the RBRI and PBRI would be and will give an example of what a max contracts player would make in each case. I also set the Hard Cap up for Tier 1 teams marginally higher then for Tier 2 teams since they will generally make more revenue. The Tier 1 hard cap would be around $60,500,000 and the Tier 2 hard cap would be around $53,500,000

Max contract player at 20% of BRI

Tier 2 non-playoff team - $10.7 (in millions)
Tier 2 1st round playoff team - 11.3
Tier 2 2nd round - 12.0
Tier 2 Championship round - 13.8 (larger increase because they play in both Tier 2 finals and Tier 1 wildcard round)
Tier 1 non-playoffs - 12.1
Tier 1 Wildcard round - 13.1
Tier 1 1st round - 14.3
Tier 1 2nd round - 15.6
Tier 1 Championship - 17.0

As you can see the more your team wins the more money a max player would get, quite the incentive to win. Max contracts could also be set at 25% which would greatly change the numbers above but I like the idea of having the money more equally spread amongst the players.

Roster sizes would also be reduced to 12 players from 15. It is a complete waste of a player to have him dressed in a suit.

So far everything has been concessions on the players behalf, giving up 7% of the BRI plus talking out the playoff BRI from their guaranteed contracts as well as reducing max contracts and roster sizes. In order for the players to consider this what do the owners have to give up?

First the owners would have to agree to a certain type of revenue sharing amongst themselves, likely a 60-40 split which has been suggested. This would still keep the big market teams raking in the money but would also make the small market teams fairly profitable.

Give players royalties on merchandise sold with their name, image or number on it. Not just within a certain radius of the teams city but internationally. From what I know this is not currently done and would make a huge offset in the lower max salaries for the top end players.

Players with 5 or more years of continuous service for a team are eligible for profit sharing from their team. This would act as quite an incentive for star players to stay with a team since if they left for another market they wouldn't be able to get that in the new city for another 5 years. There would still be an advantage to being in a major center in this case but there is no real way to eliminate that outside of taking all the franchises out of New York, Los Angelas and Chicago.

The teams and league would also have to set up a full minor league system also where each team has an affiliate where all the players are signed to them and can be called up in case of injury.

An off-the-wall idea, I doubt either the owners or the players would ever budge enough to agree to it. Let me know what you think or if you have any other ideas yourself.

Haven't gone through the entire post, but I would like to comment on your "tier" system. In short, I don't like it and don't think it solves the competitiveness issues at all.

1. Your system basically guarantees 2 worse teams will make the playoffs, even just as wild cards, over more deserving teams. (In concept, teams in tier 1 should always the better teams then all teams in tier 2)
2. In a normal year there are usually only 2 - 3 teams that you know is going to suck from the start, and there will be a couple more who will tank late in the season when they are out of playoffs race. That's only about 5 teams. 6 teams in your tier 2 system will not make the playoffs. There will definitely still be teams trying to tank at various point of the season.
3. This is also related to tanking - Your idea of only 6 teams have a chance at the #1 pick only drive up the "values" to be 1 of the 6 worst teams, because these teams would received higher odds of winning compared to the 6 worst teams today.

MightyReds2020 wrote:Haven't gone through the entire post, but I would like to comment on your "tier" system. In short, I don't like it and don't think it solves the competitiveness issues at all.

For the most part by the 45-50 game mark the playoff positions have already been determined in the current system if not earlier. The result is that most of the games in the second half of the season really mean virtually nothing and that plays out in how the games are played whether a team is 'tanking' or not. There is very little for the players to play for and generally there is even less for the fans to cheer for.

MightyReds2020 wrote:1. Your system basically guarantees 2 worse teams will make the playoffs, even just as wild cards, over more deserving teams. (In concept, teams in tier 1 should always the better teams then all teams in tier 2)
2. In a normal year there are usually only 2 - 3 teams that you know is going to suck from the start, and there will be a couple more who will tank late in the season when they are out of playoffs race. That's only about 5 teams. 6 teams in your tier 2 system will not make the playoffs. There will definitely still be teams trying to tank at various point of the season.
3. This is also related to tanking - Your idea of only 6 teams have a chance at the #1 pick only drive up the "values" to be 1 of the 6 worst teams, because these teams would received higher odds of winning compared to the 6 worst teams today.

1. As I stated in my post the reason for those teams making it to a wild card round is mostly to allow for all teams to have the opportunity to win the title. Its not likely realistic for them to actually expect to win it just like in the current system where at the start of the season realistically only a handful of teams are expected to have a chance to win the title but everyone has the opportunity.

2. Certain management will always try to tank not matter what system is implemented but since in the CBA part of my post I mentioned how player salaries can be heavily effected by either making or not making the playoffs it could be a lot harder to accomplish the tanking since the players will be much more invested in winning.

3. The draft set up was a little of an undecided point for me. I also considered having the top 8 picks going to the Tier 1 non-playoff teams as a way to keep the top talent in tier 1. Combining both Tier 1 and 2 non-playoff teams in the lottery was another consideration as well as having the bottom 6 teams in Tier 2 getting the final six picks instead of the first 6. I'm not sure how attached to any of them I am, the one I posted is just the one I went with at the time.

No way the owners sign up to a tiering system nor would the league politically be able to sell this to the fans.

I think a hard cap system with a bonus system for the playoffs and championships would be ideal.

For example, each team has a $60m hard cap.

Each team that makes the playoffs gets $5m to split amongst players and $5m for ownership.
Each team that makes it to the semifinals gets $10m to split amongst the players and $10 for ownership.
Each team that makes it to the conference championship gets $25m to split amongst the players and $25m for ownership.
The NBA champion gets $50m to split amongst the players and $50m for ownership.

All teams are equal - i.e., equal cap and there is a real incentive to win.