Prove Me Wrong - "Non-Guaranteed Contracts and an Age 21 Minimum Would Make the NBA a Better Product"

[ItsDanger]

Maybe do what NHL does and drafted players maintain eligibility until you first sign a pro contract. This allows the team to leave the player in a lower pressure environment to improve his game another season at least.

[MrBigShot]

1. Non guaranteed contracts being standard/mandatory is never going to happen. Teams can already give them out of they want to.

2. Cooper flagg turns 21 in his 3rd year. Why should a guy like that waste 3 years of his life that he could be playing in the nba?

[Dominator83]

The age thing is fine as-is

All salaries should only be half guaranteed. If your salary is $20 mill, you get $10M no matter what as your downside guarantee. The other $10M, comes in increments on games played.

[Anderson Hunt]

1. Non guaranteed contracts being standard/mandatory is never going to happen. Teams can already give them out of they want to.

2. Cooper flagg turns 21 in his 3rd year. Why should a guy like that waste 3 years of his life that he could be playing in the nba?

Because it builds anticipation while better preparing him before he arrives in the NBA.

[threethehardway]

I don't understand why fans care how much these players get paid and whether contracts are guaranteed.

It's the same fans that care about WNBA revenue...

Contracts aren't guaranteed according to the CBA.

Taking money out of players and limiting opportunities is gross.

[hardenASG13]

Im not opposed to an age limit if the NBA teams also had the ability to still invite players 18 or older to enter the draft. You'd have to have the invite to enter the draft if youre under the age limit, so teams invite players they think are ready. There's no point in keeping clear NBA ready players in college or another league because of age. I personally think they should be able to invite them out of high school if they are considered a top 5 talent. There was no reason to make Flagg play a year of college ball. Lebron in college would've made no sense.

[og15]

Imagine if wemby was forced to play in college right now lmao

He would just keep playing in Europe, and he's 22 now, so it would just be his rookie year that he would have had to play somewhere else

[DoItALL9]

Russell Westbrook is on a non-guaranteed deal. Is it making him play harder?

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[DoItALL9]

The NBA is a star driven league. Looking back why would my NBA viewing pleasure be better with having watched less years of having watched Luka, Wemby, Tatum, Cooper Flagg, etc.?

This feels academic but maybe I'm wrong.

The argument seems to be that the NBA would be demonstrably better with (for example) extra years of Jerryd Bayless and Austin Rivers (both guys who were good) instead of a couple seasons of the Harrison twins (from UK) at the sacrifice of true stars development in the NBA.

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[lambchop]

Imagine if wemby was forced to play in college right now lmao

It would be terrible for everyone involved and would also hamper Wemby and his development due to that style of play.

[sikma42]

The NBA would cease to exist. Players would leave and another league would form.

[DusterBuster]

You're never getting Non-Guaranteed Contracts. The NBAPA would sooner burn the league to the ground before they accept non-guaranteed contracts.

Additionally upping the age likely also won't ever happen for the same reason. You're costing players potential 3 years of NBA salary.

[monopoman]

Non-guaranteed contracts would never happen, it would take like 5-6 years of trying to strong arm the players to get it and cause massive losses due to missed games during those times.

The only reason the NFL has it is because roster sizes are much bigger and a hard cap makes teams forced to have a way to remove a contract. I see nothing wrong with punishing bad teams for signing horrendously short sighted deals, especially since they can waive the player stretching the remaining money over a few years and have a few other options to move on if they want.

The other thing you ask for only makes NCAA ball better, I think that league would benefit from players forced to stay longer since it builds more drama and makes teams better. Forcing all players to wait until 21 doesn't make a ton of sense in the NBA, we really don't have a problem with a ton of players having trouble getting minutes below age 21. There are also quite a few guys under 21 that can play at an NBA level easily, and don't need to stay in college just to hit that age necessary.

Really both things push the league back more to the old days which were not all they were cracked up to be, back then even incredible players typically stayed in college 4 years. I also believe the contract rules were different back then, which benefited the owners of the team's far more.

[tamaraw08]

I don't understand why fans care how much these players get paid and whether contracts are guaranteed.

It's the same fans that care about WNBA revenue...

Contracts aren't guaranteed according to the CBA.

Taking money out of players and limiting opportunities is gross.

So Im guessing you are not a fan of the Sixers or Pelicans or Hornets?
Teams that signed Embiid, Lamelo and even Zion were pretty much paralyzed for most of the seasons when they missed a ton of games.
It’s easy to say that they should have just let them walk instead of signing them but doing that would surely make them weak for sure and no one knows if these players can eventually get healthy like the case of Grant Hill or even Steph.

[76Shots]

There is no language in the current nor previous CBA that states player contracts have to be guaranteed. Players get signed to non-guaranteed and/or stipulated contracts all the time.

[Anderson Hunt]

It would make college better, not the NBA.

There is a clear link between the popularity of college ball and it's professional counterpart.

Three-year fans of a star college player will undoubtedly follow that player to the next level.

Reference Bird/Magic, the NFL, and Caitlyn Clark as examples.

This is a central argument in the premise of this thread; the NBA product improves due to the popularity of college basketball.

I'm a little surprised that some people don't recognize this connection.

[Sane]

Everyone understands that "prove me wrong" is a defensive position where the house always wins right? The person playing defense here just has to deflect and it's designed to distract you from the fact that no one is proving anything here, everyone is just submitting evidence.

You prove you're right first. If you can only provide inconclusive evidence but can't prove it, then there's no need for anyone to prove you wrong.

[sashaturiaf]

It'll make for a better league.

However unless if all the viewers stop tuning in and the NBA stops making money, nothing will change as status quo is seeing both players and owners making bank.

We the fans accept slop to be served and hence we get slop served as a result.

[pepe1991]

I don't understand why fans care how much these players get paid and whether contracts are guaranteed.

It's the same fans that care about WNBA revenue...

Contracts aren't guaranteed according to the CBA.

Taking money out of players and limiting opportunities is gross.

Because NBA works under salary cap, and pretty much all bad teams are bad because they can't get rid of bad contracts.

For example, Pelicans suck, but wtf they are going to do in near future with:
Murray being attached to their salary cap for this, next and probably year after ( player's option, $30M)
Jordan Foole on $31M this year, $34M next year
Zion on $40M this, next and year after that

Who is taking those guys off them? Maybe they can get some value back for Zion, but nowhere near what they invested into him (years and years), and other two guys are worthless and negative value.

So, Pelicans today, already have almost $200M in books for next year.


NBA players are already overpaid, even relative to other sports, even like soccer, who have higher revenue and return more money to clubs, top 100 players make at least $18 000 000 a year. 200# highest paid player makes $8 177 000 a year.

Half of players within top 200 aren't even positive contributors to wins on basketball court, on relative scale of quality, compared to other players.
Even rookies have almost always 3rd year picked, and two years guaranteed among first round selection, despite fact majority of them suck and are out of league in 4 years ( keep in mind, average length of nba career is - 4 and half year ).


You have situation like Micić, where club ( Bucks) pay guy $2M to not play for them, so he can go and sign 3 years $20M deal in Europe

Or Cole Anthony / Grizzlies situation where guy on $13M contract is being bought out, at age of 25, because team thinks he doesn't contribute much to anything.

[FarBeyondDriven]

all non-guaranteed contracts would do is bail out awful G.M.s. A player is worth what someone will pay him. Always. As far as the age minimum I couldn't disagree more. Watching young players develop into stars is one of the best things about being a fan. If we currently had this rule as you suggest we wouldn't currently be watching most of the really good young players taken in the past couple of drafts. Watching Kobe go from precocious chucker who was often lost to savvy scorer helping to lead his team to the playoffs all before he turned 21 y/o would have been taken away from us. And do you believe he would have been able to come in and help win a championship that next season as a 21 y/o rookie? Missing Lebron's first couple of seasons? Man, those early years watching him just be so energetic and flying all over the court were priceless. Sure, we would have watched some of that had they been in college but against zones with clogged lanes and coaches that control their players too much (just look at MJ at UNC)

What would make the NBA a better product is if they called the rules on the books and did away with any rule changes they've made since 2000 aimed at making offense easier. Watching these supposedly more skilled and more athletic players not be able to dribble without carrying, getting past anyone without it being a center switched onto them due to an illegal moving screen, creating any separation without a travel and/or pushing off is ugly basketball that doesn't resemble the game the majority of fans grew up and fell in love with. That's why the ratings are down. That's why there's general apathy.