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

[Anderson Hunt]

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.

Do you think it's positive for the NBA that the player with most notoriety coming into the league two years ago was Bronny James?

Or how about the fact that many hardcore basketball fans only know a handful of players in each draft?

With one and done, the NBA has lost their connection to their true farm system -- the NCAA.

The NFL gets it. They wouldn't be as popular without the popularity of college football.

[garrick]

Completely getting rid of guaranteed contracts would be detrimental especially to the lower tier players but I do think that the max salaries are getting out of control and stuff like no trade contracts should be banned as a player can hold a team hostage like how Beal did with Phoenix that was forced to cut him because of his no trade clause and bloated salary.

Maybe have some metrics a player has to complete if he wants the full value of his contract to lessen the financial hit that these max and super max deals bring to their teams.

[Lalouie]

I don't want to hurt any player financially nor do I want to enrich billionaire owners, so if you're man enough to decompartmentalize these two things, please do. Please try your best to put those two factors off to the side, and focus solely on this question:

"Would having non-guaranteed contracts and a minimum age requirement of 21 (or three years removed from high school) make the NBA a better product?"

I say yes.

Why? Because the players will be more mature, the college game would explode in popularity and those fans will follow to the NBA, players will play harder if they can be cut, players won't take-off games, and team executives will have more flexibility to build great teams not being hamstrung by bad contracts.

When looking only at improving the product, would these changes work?

i don't know from contracts but if i wanted to watch teenagers in a sport i'd rather watch womens gymnastics or diving

[threethehardway]

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.

Um...

It's a game played by grown men who dedicated their life to playing a game so they can make generational wealth.

It's a game owned by billionaires who brought a team to preserve their generational wealth.

Only the fan is twisting themselves into knots, "being loyal" to team of a city or whatever that doesn't really care about winning or losing.

When fans can accept the first two realities about American professional sports, that it's mostly about making money for players and wealth preservation for billionaires, then you would want things like no draft, no age, no cap because you would actually want competition at the organizational level.

The reason why an owner is giving 100s of millions of dollars to injury prone broken players is because it is the easiest and simplest thing to do.

Guaranteed contracts are the best thing about the NBA. I want to see ownership commit to their stupid decisions. I don't mind dumb franchises being losers year after year. Winning in the NBA isn't that hard, it's just that most orgs are not trying because the primary reason to get a team is wealth preservation.

[YogurtProducer]

Summary of this thread:

No one read the OP.

[og15]

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.

Yea, but like I mentioned, this has nothing to do with OP's point

"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"

--------

Taking out all the logistics, who would agree to what. I agree that a higher age limit and maybe not non-guaranteed, but less guaranteed contracts would make the product better. Or maybe NBA contracts should in general have more conditions for achieving the maximum contract amount, but it would need to be league wide.

For example, every player is guaranteed 70% of their contract amount, but the other 30% is earned from games played, whatever, so this protects an injured player (sort of how your disability insurance doesn't pay 100% of your salary)

I agree there is some college fans following of the NBA that increases fandom, which is lost with one and done because fans don't make the connection with the players or teams.

The NBA with younger players has to play more guys for development purposes, which means that the quality of play from enough players is lower that there can be some effect.

In addition, more years in college means that teams will automatically draft just a little bit better, because you get more data to evaluate the players.

So yes, those things in a vacuum would make things better, but of course like mentioned in OP, there are confounding factors for a real life implementation .

[Godymas]

No, in fact I would remove the one and done rule and allow for high school players to enter if skilled enough. When you can point to multiple HoFers that came to the NBA without any collegiate experience it shows how meaningless the collegiate experience is for basketball. When you consider that this year we are already seeing two second year guys from a “BAD” draft class breaking into the top 100 players in the NBA, already, it continues to devalue your argument for age.

I’m personally sick of collegiate system trying to withold us from the best NBA players. Some guys hardly had a
meaningful had a meaningful college career and went on to have great NBA. Thr correlation between college and the NBA hardly exists.

[Prestige]

The old argument against the age limit no longer holds as the NCAA now pays players a ton, and there are a plethora of options outside college basketball.

As a fan I have no desire to sit through 4-5 years of a player developing before he makes an impact. Raising the age limit to 20 would be ideal as it allows more skilled and developed players to enter the league, and for teams to more accurately assess players, improving the ROI of teams but also young enough for players to still enjoy long careers.

[Bucks4005]

I’m a fan of non guaranteed contracts partly because the players have too much power. Like, we’ve literally seen players like James Harden, MVP candidate, just flat out quit on his team and demand a trade. In what way is that fair? The reason he can do that it because his money is guaranteed, no matter what he does, he gets paid. If most of his money is guaranteed, but he still stands to lose a big chunk of it by being cut, do you think we see fat Harden? No, he goes into every game trying his best. Jimmy Butler quit on his team, do you think he does that if money is at risk? Does Morants temper tantrum right now even happen if there’s a risk he’s cut and loses half his earnings this year? I mentioned Larry Sanders just quitting and demanding his money, in what world is that fair? The players have taken it a bit far because of guaranteed contracts, actively ruining teams for seasons based on stuff like that. Like, the Heat last year were probably a playoff contender with Butler playing at his best. Yet, they just have to tank a season because he decided I don’t want to play for you anymore, How is that good for the NBA product itself?

And for the prople saying “the Saudi league would take over.” Most of these players are Americans born. Do you really think they’ll just be fine with packing up and moving to Saudi Arabia? China? Europe? Have to learn to read a new language, leave their extended family/friends behind, etc? I don’t think the threat of a Saudi league is as big as you’d think. Plus, some of these countries are flat out more dangerous. Yet you tell an NBA player to live there half the year? No chance in hell the that holds up long term.

[toooskies]

I'd say that money above the MLE shouldn't be fully guaranteed when a contract is signed X years out. something like only MLE+50% guarantees 5 years out, MLE+60% 4 years out, MLE+75% 3 years out. It's still painful to cut, say, Paul George's deal, but lets you reclaim something from a total loss and doesn't incentivize you to hold a player hostage (possibly ending their career, i.e. John Wall). Smaller mistakes have smaller outs.

[tamaraw08]

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.

Um...

It's a game played by grown men who dedicated their life to playing a game so they can make generational wealth.

It's a game owned by billionaires who brought a team to preserve their generational wealth.

Only the fan is twisting themselves into knots, "being loyal" to team of a city or whatever that doesn't really care about winning or losing.

When fans can accept the first two realities about American professional sports, that it's mostly about making money for players and wealth preservation for billionaires, then you would want things like no draft, no age, no cap because you would actually want competition at the organizational level.

The reason why an owner is giving 100s of millions of dollars to injury prone broken bodies players is because it is the easiest thing to do.

Non-guaranteed contracts are the best thing about the NBA. I want to see ownership commit to their stupid decisions. I don't mind dumb franchises being losers year after year. Winning in the NBA isn't that hard, it's just that most orgs are not trying because the primary reason to get a team is wealth preservation.

You are making far too many Generalizations here.
Not all players are grown men "dedicating" their "life" to playing a game.... In fact there are young kids here not necessarily dedicated to the sport, being focused on other things like enjoying themselves outside basketball.
Not all owners are just there just to preserve their generational wealth. If this true, then there's not reason for some of them to sell their team.
Not all owners do NOT care about winning or losing, I really think you are way off base here.
If they really don't care about winning then why oh why would they even bother signing expensive players?
Again, owners take risk and sign talented expensive players because they hope that these assets would actually play and produce to help their team win and it's not easy to just sign them because if they miss 60 games, then fans would stop buying tickets, advertisers would pull out.
If they don't sign expensive players, then fans would ABSOLUTELY stop coming to games and advertisers won sign from game 1 to game to up to 41 home games. Also ZERO playoff games too.
You let your injury prone players walk means your team would have to wait at least 3-5 years hoping you get a couple of young men in the draft who can really help your team win. And please don't tell me those teams can simply get really good free agents every summer.

[xdrta+]

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

Actually, Zion is non-guaranteed for next year and the year after that, so that contract should make all the non-guarantee fans happy.

[Mephariel]

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.

No it doesn't. The college game is not the NBA game. Also, why the heck would I care as a NBA fan that it build anticipation? I don't want anticipation, I want the product.

Also, why risk injury? What if Flagg got injured in college? Would he still be the number #1 pick? That is dumb risk proposition for the player.

If you want hype, let players go directly into the NBA after high school again. The most hyped prospects are the ones that came from high school directly.

[Mephariel]

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.

The Clark situation is only because the WNBA is still building its fanbase and Clark frankly didn't become elite until her Junior/senior year.

What player in recent history played multiple years in college and was hyped? I can't name a single one.

If you are that good, you would be hyped in your Freshman year. Why would you need 3 additional years to hype yourself up?

[Ssj16]

I personally don't care what age a person is when they enter the NBA. If they are 15 and NBA ready, I'm all for it.

That being said, I would be all for revising contracts to be non-guaranteed with stipulations that an owner can choose to back out of a contract or maintain or revise a contract of an oft injured player with the caveat that all contracts having a 1 year mandatory guarantee.

Like Embiid would be a perfect example, after signing his long term contract, he gets severely injured. Philly's doctor's should be able to assess Embiid and ownership should be able to terminate the contract after a year is up, making Embiid a free agent where another team can assume the risk.

This means teams can take on 1 year risk on any player and the onus is on the player to ensure they are doing all they can to secure longer contracts (taking measures to stay healthy, not be a cancer to the team etc.).

Non guaranteed contracts fall more in line with how other businesses work where you get paid on what have you done for me lately.

[Daddy 801]

I have a much different take on the non guaranteed contract situation. I think my solution would be the one of the main things needed to "make the product better" as you said.

I think 50% of revenue for the entire NBA/each team should come down to actual minutes played. If you want players to play hard you have to incentivize them to not take games off.

So for example. Player X in todays CBA can make 25 million a year guaranteed. In my scenario the max he can make guaranteed is 12.5 million. The other portion of his contract (and all players contracts) are paid out on a per minute basis. So if player X gets hurt in the preseason and plays no minutes he gets his 12.5 million. But if he plays the whole season you take the percentage of minutes he played relative to the amount the whole team plays in a season. So 82*48*5=19680 total minutes for each team. Let's say the cap is 200 million, half of that goes to a per minute basis. So 100 million divided by 19680 is roughly 5,000 dollars a minute. So for each minute a player plays they get 5000 dollars. So if a player averages 32 minutes a game, and doesn't miss a single game, he would make roughly an additional 13 million dollars.

This solves multiple problems IMO. Makes players want to play and keeps superstars from sitting. Stops coaches from being able to tank because their best players are going to bitch if they can't play. And it also gets players who actually go out and perform and our on rookie scale contracts big money if they perform well. While these guys all make absurd money I do "feel bad" for a player signed on a rookie minimum contract who puts it all out on the floor and gives it his all and makes peanuts compared to a guaranteed contract player who is sitting out. Especially if some young guy balls out for a season or two and gets hurt before he can get his first big payday. Players should be paid for past AND current performance.

Guys like PG, Embiid, Dame, etc getting paid tens of millions to not play while some rookie is getting paid a couple million is absurd IMO. Give the people who are actually playing and providing the entertainment 50% of the revenue. I would be even fine with more than 50%. But that's just me.

I think the owners would be fine with this. It will be the players who negotiate for the CBA who won't push for this. Just like our society the older wealthy players have a disproportionate amount of sway/power in their negotiations. So the common player gets screwed while the older superstars would negotiate for fully guaranteed contracts.

[xdrta+]

I have a much different take on the non guaranteed contract situation. I think my solution would be the one of the main things needed to "make the product better" as you said.

I think 50% of revenue for the entire NBA/each team should come down to actual minutes played. If you want players to play hard you have to incentivize them to not take games off.

Spoiler:

So for example. Player X in todays CBA can make 25 million a year guaranteed. In my scenario the max he can make guaranteed is 12.5 million. The other portion of his contract (and all players contracts) are paid out on a per minute basis. So if player X gets hurt in the preseason and plays no minutes he gets his 12.5 million. But if he plays the whole season you take the percentage of minutes he played relative to the amount the whole team plays in a season. So 82*48*5=19680 total minutes for each team. Let's say the cap is 200 million, half of that goes to a per minute basis. So 100 million divided by 19680 is roughly 5,000 dollars a minute. So for each minute a player plays they get 5000 dollars. So if a player averages 32 minutes a game, and doesn't miss a single game, he would make roughly an additional 13 million dollars.

This solves multiple problems IMO. Makes players want to play and keeps superstars from sitting. Stops coaches from being able to tank because their best players are going to bitch if they can't play. And it also gets players who actually go out and perform and our on rookie scale contracts big money if they perform well. While these guys all make absurd money I do "feel bad" for a player signed on a rookie minimum contract who puts it all out on the floor and gives it his all and makes peanuts compared to a guaranteed contract player who is sitting out. Especially if some young guy balls out for a season or two and gets hurt before he can get his first big payday. Players should be paid for past AND current performance.

Guys like PG, Embiid, Dame, etc getting paid tens of millions to not play while some rookie is getting paid a couple million is absurd IMO. Give the people who are actually playing and providing the entertainment 50% of the revenue. I would be even fine with more than 50%. But that's just me.

I think the owners would be fine with this. It will be the players who negotiate for the CBA who won't push for this. Just like our society the older wealthy players have a disproportionate amount of sway/power in their negotiations. So the common player gets screwed while the older superstars would negotiate for fully guaranteed contracts.

So the coach would determine how much players make, by giving or withholding minutes. Not sure what that would do for team chemistry.

[Mephariel]

I have a much different take on the non guaranteed contract situation. I think my solution would be the one of the main things needed to "make the product better" as you said.

I think 50% of revenue for the entire NBA/each team should come down to actual minutes played. If you want players to play hard you have to incentivize them to not take games off.

So for example. Player X in todays CBA can make 25 million a year guaranteed. In my scenario the max he can make guaranteed is 12.5 million. The other portion of his contract (and all players contracts) are paid out on a per minute basis. So if player X gets hurt in the preseason and plays no minutes he gets his 12.5 million. But if he plays the whole season you take the percentage of minutes he played relative to the amount the whole team plays in a season. So 82*48*5=19680 total minutes for each team. Let's say the cap is 200 million, half of that goes to a per minute basis. So 100 million divided by 19680 is roughly 5,000 dollars a minute. So for each minute a player plays they get 5000 dollars. So if a player averages 32 minutes a game, and doesn't miss a single game, he would make roughly an additional 13 million dollars.

This solves multiple problems IMO. Makes players want to play and keeps superstars from sitting. Stops coaches from being able to tank because their best players are going to bitch if they can't play. And it also gets players who actually go out and perform and our on rookie scale contracts big money if they perform well. While these guys all make absurd money I do "feel bad" for a player signed on a rookie minimum contract who puts it all out on the floor and gives it his all and makes peanuts compared to a guaranteed contract player who is sitting out. Especially if some young guy balls out for a season or two and gets hurt before he can get his first big payday. Players should be paid for past AND current performance.

Guys like PG, Embiid, Dame, etc getting paid tens of millions to not play while some rookie is getting paid a couple million is absurd IMO. Give the people who are actually playing and providing the entertainment 50% of the revenue. I would be even fine with more than 50%. But that's just me.

I think the owners would be fine with this. It will be the players who negotiate for the CBA who won't push for this. Just like our society the older wealthy players have a disproportionate amount of sway/power in their negotiations. So the common player gets screwed while the older superstars would negotiate for fully guaranteed contracts.

How does this make sense? Why are they getting paid per minute and not based on performance? What if you play every game but averaged only 10 points? Why do you deserve to get higher pay than Luka who may sustained a major injury and but is averaging 37 points and carrying your team to the playoffs? That is like paying someone for coming to the office rather than what he or she accomplished. Also, what if you don't make the playoffs or play-in? Do you just get less money because there are less games?

Lastly, you realized there would be numerous lawsuits and claims of abuse right? What happens if the coach dislike a player and play him less? He would be asking for a trade immediately. There would be tons of tension. Players would want to play every single minute, rather than taking a break, even if it hurts their performance.

PG, Embiid, and Dame are getting more than some rookie because they are worth more than the rookies. They have a history of performing better and they draw more fans. Why is that unfair?

[threethehardway]

You are making far too many Generalizations here.
Not all players are grown men "dedicating" their "life" to playing a game.... In fact there are young kids here not necessarily dedicated to the sport, being focused on other things like enjoying themselves outside basketball.
Not all owners are just there just to preserve their generational wealth. If this true, then there's not reason for some of them to sell their team.
Not all owners do NOT care about winning or losing, I really think you are way off base here.
If they really don't care about winning then why oh why would they even bother signing expensive players?
Again, owners take risk and sign talented expensive players because they hope that these assets would actually play and produce to help their team win and it's not easy to just sign them because if they miss 60 games, then fans would stop buying tickets, advertisers would pull out.
If they don't sign expensive players, then fans would ABSOLUTELY stop coming to games and advertisers won sign from game 1 to game to up to 41 home games. Also ZERO playoff games too.
You let your injury prone players walk means your team would have to wait at least 3-5 years hoping you get a couple of young men in the draft who can really help your team win. And please don't tell me those teams can simply get really good free agents every summer.

Most owners don't care about winning or losing, if they did, they would push for no cap, so they can have the ability to build a team with less financial constraints.

They are the ones that dictate the rules.

If I was a multi-billionaire that loved professional basketball and wanted to build the best team possible, I wouldn't want a salary cap. I wouldn't want a draft. I want to hand pick my players.

They don't care.

The entire system is designed to reward losing and lots of it. The entire system is designed to reward penny pinching in the name of parity.

NBA players are not really expensive compared to baseball players. The commit of guaranteed money isn't even that long.

The Dodgers ownership cares about winning because look at how much money they throw at it.

The pervious Celtics ownership cares about winning, they spent so much money, they realized they can't afford the team and sold it.

The Warriors ownership cares about winning and was wealthy to buy their own arena.

The Eagles ownership cares about winning, they spent a lot of money on their team to make it what it is today.

NBA and NFL owners in general are penny pinchers that want to push "parity". MLB owners are turning into penny pinchers too because most of them don't want to spend money to compete with the Dodgers.

As a competitive owner that wants to win, you shouldn't care about parity, parity is for losers. If they can't afford to have a team and to spend the money required to field the best team possible, majority ownership isn't for them.

And yes, if you are a professional athlete, you have dedicated yourself since a kid. It's not something you can pick up and try. And the point is to hit the league and get paid off for the sacrifices you had to make as a child.

And fans shouldn't be up in arms trying to snatch that way because of "the product" and should point to the owners who largely make the rules to save as much money as possible and reduce competition as much as possible.

If you don't want to see draft busts on organizationally mismatched teams, how about get rid of the draft so players can pick where they want to go that best suit their talents?

Nah, the solution is make them in at 21 and after 3 years of college.

If you don't want your team to pay the Bradley Beals and Zach Lavines of the NBA maxed contracts and to be stuck on a mediocre team, that's an argument for eliminating max contracts so the Doncics and Wembys can get paid 500 million and then the Beals and Lavines would get paid 50 to 100 because NBA owners largely don't compete on contracts.

[DoItALL9]

If the NBA did this would it be the rule for the NBA Europe too (that's about to begin soon)?