What will the league look like if draft picks are not allowed to be traded?

[Slava]

As a thought exercise, how will the league operate if teams are not allowed to trade draft picks?

Every season, every team has to have two open roster spots, one each for a 1st and 2nd round pick.
A draft selection cannot be traded until the first trade deadline after they sign their rookie contracts.

Players can only be traded for other players, which means unless a team has adequate value on their roster, they cannot attain a new player. So effectively, the AD, Harden or Holiday trades are less likely to happen.

Will this restore competitive balance and place more emphasis on player development?
Is there a lesser likelihood of teams bottoming out and rebuilding as they almost always get tangible value back in trades, rather than draft picks that may or may not materialize?

[bstein14]

I do think the trading of 3 draft picks in 21 23 and 25 and 3 draft swaps in even years is too much in the future to be able to trade away. Would be wise to at least cut back to only being able to trade picks 3 years into the future, which would mean 2 picks and 1 swap.

[dk1115]

Maybe make a request to Clique Productions on youtube.

[queridiculo]

All that would accomplish is give players even more leverage and leave the teams that had a player force a trade with even worse compensation.

[SA37]

As a thought exercise, how will the league operate if teams are not allowed to trade draft picks?

Every season, every team has to have two open roster spots, one each for a 1st and 2nd round pick.
A draft selection cannot be traded until the first trade deadline after they sign their rookie contracts.

Players can only be traded for other players, which means unless a team has adequate value on their roster, they cannot attain a new player. So effectively, the AD, Harden or Holiday trades are less likely to happen.

Will this restore competitive balance and place more emphasis on player development?
Is there a lesser likelihood of teams bottoming out and rebuilding as they almost always get tangible value back in trades, rather than draft picks that may or may not materialize?

I'll have to give this some more thought, but I think it would incentivize tanking since that would be the main way of getting a better pick.

There would need to be more flexibility in how players were "priced"/valued for trades and you'd likely see an expansion of cash exchanges in trades. The other thing is, players and teams would adapt and more options would be built into contracts and/or just shorter contracts would be given overall because free agency would be a better market for getting impact players versus the Draft.

It could potentially lead to even more speculation in the draft and to the development of youth systems a la the European soccer leagues or, the opposite, where teams tightened eligibility requirements so they could make as informed of a decision as possible.

[Slava]

As a thought exercise, how will the league operate if teams are not allowed to trade draft picks?

Every season, every team has to have two open roster spots, one each for a 1st and 2nd round pick.
A draft selection cannot be traded until the first trade deadline after they sign their rookie contracts.

Players can only be traded for other players, which means unless a team has adequate value on their roster, they cannot attain a new player. So effectively, the AD, Harden or Holiday trades are less likely to happen.

Will this restore competitive balance and place more emphasis on player development?
Is there a lesser likelihood of teams bottoming out and rebuilding as they almost always get tangible value back in trades, rather than draft picks that may or may not materialize?

I'll have to give this some more thought, but I think it would incentivize tanking since that would be the main way of getting a better pick.

There would need to be more flexibility in how players were "priced"/valued for trades and you'd likely see an expansion of cash exchanges in trades. The other thing is, players and teams would adapt and more options would be built into contracts and/or just shorter contracts would be given overall because free agency would be a better market for getting impact players versus the Draft.

It could potentially lead to even more speculation in the draft and to the development of youth systems a la the European soccer leagues or, the opposite, where teams tightened eligibility requirements so they could make as informed of a decision as possible.

I think the G-league is already well set up to work as a potential youth system and the ability of teams to have rookies play in both leagues during a season will be advantageous.

Free agency will be a lot more attractive indeed but I doubt players deliberately seek shorter term deals as they always have to balance freedom of movement against injury insurance. I also doubt tanking would be more frequent as under such a scheme, player talent will be a lot more evenly distributed and good players don't like losing. A team like OKC won't be sitting on 50 draft picks and they will have to offer contracts and have competent players on their team.

[Celts17Pride]

League would be a disaster. Right now there are only a handful of teams that free agents are interested in going every year. The only way teams like OKC for example survive is to do what they are doing and acquire draft picks. There are about 10-12 teams like this in the NBA. If you eliminate trading draft picks you might as well reduce the league to 20 teams.

[Snotbubbles]

League would be a disaster. Right now there are only a handful of teams that free agents are interested in going every year. The only way teams like OKC for example survive is to do what they are doing and acquire draft picks. There are about 10-12 teams like this in the NBA. If you eliminate trading draft picks you might as well reduce the league to 20 teams.

The league already is a disaster. They need to move to a hard cap, get rid of max salaries and use an NFL model where you give signing bonuses that can be spread over multiple years. Give teams the ability to cut players without having to pay out the rest of the salary and the only cost to the team is a cap acceleration on your current year. Then when Free Agent X is on the market and OKC offers 5 years (200M with 100M signing bonus) and Miami offers 5 years (200M with 25M signing bonus) the player has more than just location to think about.

[SA37]

Spoiler:

As a thought exercise, how will the league operate if teams are not allowed to trade draft picks?

Every season, every team has to have two open roster spots, one each for a 1st and 2nd round pick.
A draft selection cannot be traded until the first trade deadline after they sign their rookie contracts.

Players can only be traded for other players, which means unless a team has adequate value on their roster, they cannot attain a new player. So effectively, the AD, Harden or Holiday trades are less likely to happen.

Will this restore competitive balance and place more emphasis on player development?
Is there a lesser likelihood of teams bottoming out and rebuilding as they almost always get tangible value back in trades, rather than draft picks that may or may not materialize?

I'll have to give this some more thought, but I think it would incentivize tanking since that would be the main way of getting a better pick.

There would need to be more flexibility in how players were "priced"/valued for trades and you'd likely see an expansion of cash exchanges in trades. The other thing is, players and teams would adapt and more options would be built into contracts and/or just shorter contracts would be given overall because free agency would be a better market for getting impact players versus the Draft.

It could potentially lead to even more speculation in the draft and to the development of youth systems a la the European soccer leagues or, the opposite, where teams tightened eligibility requirements so they could make as informed of a decision as possible.

I think the G-league is already well set up to work as a potential youth system and the ability of teams to have rookies play in both leagues during a season will be advantageous.

Free agency will be a lot more attractive indeed but I doubt players deliberately seek shorter term deals as they always have to balance freedom of movement against injury insurance. I also doubt tanking would be more frequent as under such a scheme, player talent will be a lot more evenly distributed and good players don't like losing. A team like OKC won't be sitting on 50 draft picks and they will have to offer contracts and have competent players on their team.

Players who have enough clout would get player options just like they do now; the ones with less bargaining power would have to accept team options or simply short-term deals.

I don't think tanking would get worse, per say, but it does become the only way a team can improve their draft position. Allowing the trading of draft picks not only allows you to move up or down in the draft, but it also allows you spread out your risk by turning one pick into multiple picks. You have a better shot at coming out with an NBA calibre player if you have 3 picks versus 1. It also allows you to potentially take a "safe" or "proven" player while also taking a shot at a "rawer," "unproven" players.

OKC sitting on a bunch of picks has a limit to its usefulness. You see the problems they ran into with Harden/Westbrook/Durant/Ibaka. There have been teams that have perennial selected in the top-10 of the Draft and never put together good picks while you have teams that have found All-star or franchise-changing talents in the latter half of the 1st round (Parker, Ginobili, Jimmy Butler, Pascal Siakam) or even in the second round (Jokic, Michael Redd, Draymond Green, Gilbert Arenas, Marc Gasol).