Instead of a draft why not hold a live auction for NBA prospects

[JohnnyNightrain]

You said regardless of outcome - but you can't disregard outcome. The outcome of lynchings is horrific. The outcome of a money dumping pinata is a 180. The outcome of selling people is slavery. The outcome of bidding millions of dollars on NBA contracts is that a players dream of playing in the NBA comes true while making a fortune.

Details matter.

This isn't a debate. As an expert, I am telling you that an organization absolutely can't do anything that is so blatantly insensitive and tone deaf. You can't "live auction" black people off on a stage. End of story.

Expert at what? Social outrage? Is Kevin love black btw?

As I mentioned earlier, I do PR for a living. I have a master's degree in public relations, which is why I find these topics very interesting.

I'm not outraged at anything. Why would I be? There is a zero percent chance that anything like this would ever happen. I am, however, baffled at how people somehow think this isn't the worst idea of all-time.

Kevin Love? I have no idea what kind of whataboutism you're going to unleash, but I guarantee it won't help.

[SkyHookFTW]

there,s a better idea yet.

eliminate the draft.
let free market rule.

Young players wiht star potential ARE NOT GOING to sign for the warriors to be glued to the bottom of the bench.
They will sign for the suns to be able to start and star from the beggining and showcase their abilities.


free market

america

free market

america

not stalingrad

america

coca cola
wonderbra

Al Davis suggested this once.

[SecondTake]

there,s a better idea yet.

eliminate the draft.
let free market rule.

Young players wiht star potential ARE NOT GOING to sign for the warriors to be glued to the bottom of the bench.
They will sign for the suns to be able to start and star from the beggining and showcase their abilities.


free market

america

free market

america

not stalingrad

america

coca cola
wonderbra

Al Davis suggested this once.

Actually, a star player would sign with the warriors, get an easy 20 min a game, win rings, take in the endorsements and then move to the starting lineup once he enters his prime/current starters exit theirs.

[SecondTake]

This isn't a debate. As an expert, I am telling you that an organization absolutely can't do anything that is so blatantly insensitive and tone deaf. You can't "live auction" black people off on a stage. End of story.

Expert at what? Social outrage? Is Kevin love black btw?

As I mentioned earlier, I do PR for a living. I have a master's degree in public relations, which is why I find these topics very interesting.

I'm not outraged at anything. Why would I be? There is a zero percent chance that anything like this would ever happen. I am, however, baffled at how people somehow think this isn't the worst idea of all-time.

Kevin Love? I have no idea what kind of whataboutism you're going to unleash, but I guarantee it won't help.

You said we're auctioning off 'black players'. We're not. We're auctioning off the rookie contracts of every player, of any race.

I'm not arguing whether it would be a PR disaster. It would be. But that's because we live in an overly sensitive climate. Only way to change that is to stick it to the people and do it anyway. Start a dialogue that can hopefully kick a few people out of their overactive social sensitivity.

[Jabroni Lames]

Just change the terms "live auction" to "entry level free agent" and this idea might have some legs. When small market teams lose their top-end players, they would be encouraged to save their cap space for the incoming young talent instead of blowing it on second tier overpriced players. The rookie salary scale and years of control would stay the same.

Free agency is basically the same concept as a live auction, for all those who were screaming about the bad optics of this idea.

[tidho]

Have no idea where the "its slavery" narrative is coming from. Seems some have lost the understanding of what that word means.

Anyway, the issue with an auction system (also called free agency, btw) is that each mistake would be magnified, and you'd have franchises destroyed for the next five years if 'Zion' doesn't pan out.

[Jabroni Lames]

Have no idea where the "its slavery" narrative is coming from. Seems some have lost the understanding of what that word means.

Anyway, the issue with an auction system (also called free agency, btw) is that each mistake would be magnified, and you'd have franchises destroyed for the next five years if 'Zion' doesn't pan out.

You would destroy your franchise a lot less by signing Zion vs. destroying your franchise by signing John Wall, because the rookie payscale would still be enforced, or so I'd assume with this idea.

[spikeslovechild]

Have no idea where the "its slavery" narrative is coming from. Seems some have lost the understanding of what that word means.

Anyway, the issue with an auction system (also called free agency, btw) is that each mistake would be magnified, and you'd have franchises destroyed for the next five years if 'Zion' doesn't pan out.

It isn't about "slavery" I'd have a problem if it done in the NHL or any other league. Players are not livestock and there is a way to do what you are suggesting without demeaning the players. Soccer sells players but their clubs don't hold live auctions it may leak out to the media but it's handled behind close doors. Teams put guys on the trade block sometimes and make it known they want to move them. Teams move around players as contracts.

It's the public spectacle that is the problem. Don't make it live. Don't televise it. I'm pro ownership and pro management but you do not have to needlessly demean and embarrass players for the sake of entertainment.

[Jabroni Lames]

Q:> Where does one apply for this NBA slavery job? Sounds like nice work if you can get it.

[EAS Law]

Considering how obsessively people try to compare things like being paid millions of dollars to live in the absolute most lavish luxury while having every single fundamental right still available to slavery, I didn’t expect this idea to go well.

With that said, tanking and all of that would be solved if we just went back to a straight up lottery where every lotto team has an equal shot to get the top guys. When you pretty much give the NBA teams a predictable model to determine whether it satisfies a cost/benefit analysis to tank, you’ll have lots of teams tanking.

Just go to a straight lotto.

[FlyingArrow]

It would have to be an auction for draft positions as opposed to players for multiple reasons.

* As everyone has stated, an auction for people is simply a bad idea. For the same reason "live" doesn't work either. And probably needs another name besides auction, too. Probably "strategic draft" or something like that.
* Different teams would want different players with different picks. Thus there is no predetermined order if it's players. But there is a predetermined order for draft picks.

And, as mentioned previously, you can't just let rookies start making the max. It messes up a lot of stuff with the salary cap and the potential to handicap teams for years. So just stick with the current salary setup. Then give teams "ping pong balls" just like they get now (but also give some to the playoff teams), but instead of holding a lottery let teams bid ping pong balls for the right to draft position #1, then #2, etc. The team that would naturally get #5 (based on number of ping pong balls) might decide they'd rather lose the auction for #5, win the #7 auction (paying a lower salary for cap purposes) and save some ping pong balls to try to win the bid for #19, too. Or maybe save up for next year. Allow a certain number of ping pong balls to carry over, but cap it so that every team has to spend at least some, and the championship winner can't save up to get the #1 pick in 4 or 5 years.

Would this work?

[NBAFan93]

As much as people find it “unfair” sometimes, the rookie scale is a good thing. No way an unproven 18-19 year old prospect should get a 4 year max-like contract to play in the NBA when he could be a complete bust. The rookie scale protects teams from themselves the same way that rule about the trading consecutive first round picks does

Teams are free to do their “bids” for things such as the first pick in the draft by using the normal trading system. For example, last year Dallas really wanted Doncic but only had the 5th pick, they made a deal and made it happen. If there is a team out there that REALLY wants Zion, they can try and offer up whatever they can to the team that wins the lottery and see if a deal can get done - it may not, but it’s not impossible.

[KingFox]

Slavery implications?

They used to do a regional thing before the official Draft started.

--Mags

Yea ... this isn’t a nice idea

[KingFox]

Can you imagine white owners sitting in their chairs holding their bid while announcers calls black mans to enters the stage and we held auction. And announcer goes "We have now young 19 year old, healthy, perfect white teeth, good strenght etc. Let's go 1st offer 1M, we have 1 M, can we get 2M. "

Are you nuts. Are you ok in your head?

jesus

[scrabbarista]

If this is slavery, SIGN ME UP!

[InsideOut]

Have no idea where the "its slavery" narrative is coming from. Seems some have lost the understanding of what that word means.

Anyway, the issue with an auction system (also called free agency, btw) is that each mistake would be magnified, and you'd have franchises destroyed for the next five years if 'Zion' doesn't pan out.

It isn't about "slavery" I'd have a problem if it done in the NHL or any other league. Players are not livestock and there is a way to do what you are suggesting without demeaning the players. Soccer sells players but their clubs don't hold live auctions it may leak out to the media but it's handled behind close doors. Teams put guys on the trade block sometimes and make it known they want to move them. Teams move around players as contracts.

It's the public spectacle that is the problem. Don't make it live. Don't televise it. I'm pro ownership and pro management but you do not have to needlessly demean and embarrass players for the sake of entertainment.

Having people bid for the right to pay you tens of millions of dollars is demeaning? I'm not seeing it. I'd feel like some kind of God with owners saying I want to pay him $10 million...no, I want to pay him $11 million...I'll give him $12 million. The guy that gets the highest bid would feel like the #1 pick and not demeaned.

[Nuntius]

The 5 second optics of it are bad. As soon as you take a moment to consider if there's any difference between slavery like human auctions and what was suggested by the OP it's really not an issue anymore. Having 'poor optics' shouldn't be an excuse not to do something, they should be the reason for dialogue and explaining why those optics are a false equivalency.

They aren't a false equivalency, though. The optics aren't bad because they remind people of slavery. They are bad because you cannot hold a live auction about actual human beings. You can't treat people like commodities.

For OP's idea to work, you should change it up and make the "auction" (if you want to call it that, I think that a different name would be better from a PR standpoint) about draft picks and not about the actual players. We could then discuss the idea and its merits. Personally, I consider it an awful idea even if you make those changes but a discussion could be had then.

They're not 'buying' players though - they're buying the right to their first professional NBA contracts. The result is the exact same. These guys are going to end up with a contract with one of 30 NBA teams. The way they get there is different, and that difference is just that their first contract is being bid on.

Right and you can do the exact same thing by bidding on the draft picks instead of the players.

[LKN]

How is this moronic thread still going?

[spikeslovechild]

Have no idea where the "its slavery" narrative is coming from. Seems some have lost the understanding of what that word means.

Anyway, the issue with an auction system (also called free agency, btw) is that each mistake would be magnified, and you'd have franchises destroyed for the next five years if 'Zion' doesn't pan out.

It isn't about "slavery" I'd have a problem if it done in the NHL or any other league. Players are not livestock and there is a way to do what you are suggesting without demeaning the players. Soccer sells players but their clubs don't hold live auctions it may leak out to the media but it's handled behind close doors. Teams put guys on the trade block sometimes and make it known they want to move them. Teams move around players as contracts.

It's the public spectacle that is the problem. Don't make it live. Don't televise it. I'm pro ownership and pro management but you do not have to needlessly demean and embarrass players for the sake of entertainment.

Having people bid for the right to pay you tens of millions of dollars is demeaning? I'm not seeing it. I'd feel like some kind of God with owners saying I want to pay him $10 million...no, I want to pay him $11 million...I'll give him $12 million. The guy that gets the highest bid would feel like the #1 pick and not demeaned.

What about the other players? Also you are missing the point what makes it demeaning isn't how much money they receive it's the fact they are being auctioned publicly in the first place.

The way they do the draft right now is immensely better because the focus is on the talent not money and they are not using hard currency instead picks. I wouldn't root for a league that did this for a variety of reasons. One of which is the fact it would make it impossible for small market teams to compete they are already having problems attracting free agents and keeping their young players now you are taking the draft away from it. The other is it sort of removes the magic of the sport and becomes too focused on the financial side of things and there would be huge roster turnover among clubs as they further position themselves for now not only max FA but max draft picks.

There has got to be a role in the NBA for the mid players and for fans to be able to root for them. Some of my favorite players to watch of all time were not the "stars" of the NBA. Guys like Oak. Dennis Rodman. Bill Laimbeer. Ben Wallace. Also guys like Bruce Bowen. Horace Grant.

[sp6r=underrated]

Honestly all of the people making the auction optics point are revealing the ethical disgrace that is the modern players draft. High skilled laborers in industries that are mainly white allow employees to pick their first employers when they enter the workforce. It is a joke that high skilled workers in industries that are mainly minority limit are legally allowed to limit labor mobility and salaries.