If you could contract the league by 8 teams, who would you get rid of and why?

[Lalouie]

sac and the clips are geographically redundant, they suck, and have a history of chronic sucking....period

NO has never been relevant.

atlanta as a city is traditionally mediocre with poor fan support

brooklyn, the eastern version of sac and the clips. just because it's new york doesn't mean the city deserves two of everything, even if it's two sucky teams.

detroit,,,just a black hole in the nba universe

orlando,,,florida doesn't need two teams. who picked 'em in the first place

hornets,,,the youngest franchise and that state loves their heels and bluedevils

[MemphisX]

It’s amazing that this thread was not closed.

[Egg Nog]

So...currently there are 18 teams with winning records, 12 teams with losing records.

This is RealGM we're talking about.

Everyone would get rid of the teams with the worst 8 records and assume next season there would only be 4 teams under .500, now that we finally got rid of the teams that didn't try hard enough.

[zFoxHoUnD-x]

Lol @ all you folks wanting to contract the Raps....4th largest media market by geographic area in the NBA!! (After LA/NY/Chi)

USA USA USA!

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[zFoxHoUnD-x]

Might as well edit the title to say "if you could ruin the NBA by eliminating/alienating 8 fan bases, would you?"

If I absolutely had to then I'd likely choose based on whatever team has the least history/accomplishments and also prioritizing teams where there are other teams in that same state.

I think the only fanbase that wouldn't care is Atlanta. Do they even have a fanbase? That city as a whole truly doesn't care that they have a basketball team.

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[zFoxHoUnD-x]

Raptors and their fans bring some excitement to the game. Lol. I need them to stay. Plus why no love for Canada?

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USA USA USA!

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[Sulico]

Why not demote 2 teams with worst record to g league every year, and promote 2 best from g league. Gets rid of tanking, adds fresh blood to NBA.

[PicPock]

Deep inside i hate the rockets. However, i always end up supporting them. Maybe its the Hakeem effect, i don't really know why:)

[3Diamantidis]

I was a little child when the hawks had only dominique to look at.
A player that could create some excitement.
Almost 30 years later, things haven't changed.
I don't think i have seen a team so irrelevant(playoff berths don't mean mucg if you aren't competing).

The kings, the bucks, the wolves, the hornets.....all these teams had at least players you could watch and entertain your self.
Hawks best player post dominique, is joe johnson.

[Baseline Runner]

Any team that has won a championship should not be considered. I'm mostly going with teams who have never received much fan support, most of these team are recent expansion teams, many are small markets:

Denver
New Orleans
Orlando
Charlotte
Minnesota
LA Clippers
Brooklyn
Memphis

Meanwhile the Sonics should get their team back.

There, actually pretty easy list to make and no one's toes were stepped on because most of those teams have little fan base even here on Realgm

[-Sammy-]

Eight is too many, but I'd contract between four and six if I were the commish. My first instinct is to nominate teams in cities that don't have any other pro sports franchises and/or aren't known as prime tourist destinations, but I know a lot of people will say the Spurs would need to go under those conditions, so I'll just keep my mouth shut.

[Yoshun]

I'm deeply offended by the content in this thread.

Don't be. Whenever my friends from New Jersey claim to be from New York, I always correct them. New Jersey is New Jersey and New York is New York.

Truth.

I do the same whenever my friends from New York talk about the Giants and Jets as though they actually play in New York.

[sicknastydunker]

People saying Brooklyn are absolute fools. Brooklyn is the 6th most valuable team in the NBA per Forbes. They're worth more than the Rockets, Mavericks, Heat and Spurs.

Ditto for the Clippers.


These are the teams I would get rid of (if you have to get rid of 8 teams)

Memphis
Milwaukee
New Orleans
Charlotte
Minnesota
Utah
OKC
Denver



Contracting is a stupid idea though

[Hubert44]

The Knicks, so that I would never get my hopes up about them again.

[GWVan]

Hell no, ADD 8 teams and cut down the number of games so the product can build a bigger fanbase and not be so diluted.

[GWVan]

Hell no, ADD 8 teams and cut down the number of games so the product can build a bigger fanbase and not be so diluted.

Seattle
Mexico City
Pittsburg
Lousville
Kansas City
Havana
Las Vegas
and a second Chicago team

[BDM22]

Please state your favourite team as well. I'm really curious to see if fans that hate a rival would get rid of them, or keep them to beat them. As a Raptors fan, I would turf, in no particular order:

Sacramento
Charlotte
Orlando
Memphis
Phoenix
Detroit
Brooklyn
LA Clippers

As for why, I tried to avoid teams with a long and storied history that might be going through a recent rough patch, while also removing teams with a long history of losing (Hello Clippers!). Notable rivalries also went into the decision.

Apparently 11 conference finals appearances and 3 championships in the past 3 decades doesn't mean much.

*Whispers* Shhhhh, this is how we find out who the 12 year olds are

[qm22]

People saying Brooklyn are absolute fools. Brooklyn is the 6th most valuable team in the NBA per Forbes. They're worth more than the Rockets, Mavericks, Heat and Spurs.

Ditto for the Clippers.


These are the teams I would get rid of (if you have to get rid of 8 teams)

Memphis
Milwaukee
New Orleans
Charlotte
Minnesota
Utah
OKC
Denver



Contracting is a stupid idea though

Well yeah but Brooklyn is valuable because of location and not much so for basketball, that's the entire reason they were bought IIRC. Apparently them moving the arena allowed them to clear out a residential area so they could finally grab some valuable property zone somehow and earn the ownership a massive profit?

Anyway, Forbes rankings are kind of a joke. They have no informative value beyond the obvious. When a team gets sold they adjust the value according to what it was actually sold for, making their written analyses just random filler.

When the Pistons were winning Forbes ranked it as a top 5 franchise in value. Then the owner died and the widow wanted to sell it and contributed to the GM not being able to make moves and some bad seasons, and ended up selling it surprisingly low. Then Forbes suddenly ranks them like 25 in value. If they had analysis worth anything they wouldn't have been so far off. They also wrote a bunch of BS about the business of the sale as it happened, being in the tank for one of the potential buyers, so they do not really appear to have journalistic integrity either. I have no idea why people act like they are relevant and credible.

And agreed contracting is a stupid idea. Troll thread.

[bmurph128]

I get that Cleveland is a smaller market, but LeBron is going to go down as the 2nd best player of all time - no matter how bad the team is when he's done playing, you don't remove the history of the 2nd best player of all time.

[bmurph128]

I'd pick from the pool of teams that don't have a title