11 Teams hold 75% of tradable draft picks

[Chuck Everett]

Nope, not a problem. Fans unfortunately pay for the mistakes of impatient/shortsighted front offices.

[SomeBunghole]

Nope, not a problem. Fans unfortunately pay for the mistakes of impatient/shortsighted front offices.

Or you could say that fans and front offices pay for the mistakes of impatient/shortsighted star players.

[Jamaaliver]

Relevant to the conversation...Teams desperate to appease star players often mortgage their future for the present.

Miami and Milwaukee seem to be in this camp.

[Jamaaliver]

Absurd.

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[Jamaaliver]

[jkvonny]

Absurd.

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Smart work from their FO.

Maybe other teams (Lakers, Heat, etc) should stop trading with them and poaching their players.

[zimpy27]

A simpler way to say this is that 11 teams hold all the tradeable FRPs of 22 teams.

Ie, this is the equivalent of 11 teams in the NBA trading 4 of their future FRPs to 11 teams.

[Manimal]

Definitely helps with preventing tanking. No reason to tank anymore if nobody owns their own draft picks in most years.

[Johnny Bball]

Changing any rule around this before anywhere between 27-29 unlevels the playing field. The teams that traded for the picks have to work it out with roster spots available and trades available, and the teams that traded away the picks have to suffer through no picks to that end period.

Any proposed change needs an inception date 5 years out.

And the Thunder are almost assuredly going to have to overpay to move up in both of the next 2 drafts. But that's the trades they made. Adding roster spots now just **** everyone else.

[baldur]

Survive what?

How many teams need to rebuild in a season?
How many teams succeed through via draft only?

I know an LA Sports fan might not see it, but most markets/franchises have a hard time convincing above average players to come to their teams without massively overpaying to acquire them.

The draft is supposed to provide some semblance of competitive balance to distribute top talent to talent-poor franchises.



This trend of 30% of the league housing the majority of future draft picks is basically a version of economic disparity *inequality within the NBA. Though it is largely self inflicted.

There's a few scenarios on the horizon where the league has to get involved just to preserve competitive balance.

You sound like draft picks were taken away by the nba management.

Actions have consequences obviously.

[CIN-C-STAR]

Changing any rule around this before anywhere between 27-29 unlevels the playing field. The teams that traded for the picks have to work it out with roster spots available and trades available, and the teams that traded away the picks have to suffer through no picks to that end period.

Any proposed change needs an inception date 5 years out.

And the Thunder are almost assuredly going to have to overpay to move up in both of the next 2 drafts. But that's the trades they made. Adding roster spots now just **** everyone else.

It will be interesting to see what kind of value OKC gets for all those mid-to-late FRPs.
Everyone knows they need to move up. I'm thinking like 3 picks 20-30 for a pick around 10-12?
It will be steep, but of course, they can afford it.

[MarcusBrody]

Is this good or bad for the league?

Can a league survive with 2/3 of the teams unable to rebuild through the draft properly?

Is it time for a revised Stepien Rule to protect Front Offices from themselves?

i think "tradeable" makes this sound more extreme than it is. It doesn't mean that 11 teams own 75% of picks. Teams can't trade consecutive picks, so even if they traded the max picks they can, they still have a pick in every other draft. A lot of those "untradeable" picks are also the result of swaps. You can't trade the pick if you already swapped it (and I don't think that trading swap rights is counted as a "tradable pick here). More are untradeable due to protection on certain picks. If you owe a top 3 protected 2025 pick that becomes unprotected afterwards, then you can't trade your 2024 pick (as that would violate the no first round picks in consecutive years Stepien rule if the 2025 pick conveys then) you can't trade your 2025 pick (as it would potentially be going out anyway as you already traded it), you can't trade your 2026 pick (as it might be going out then if it doesn't convey in 2025 and if it does, trading the 26 pick would violate the Stepien rule) and you can't trade your 2027 pick as if it conveys in 2026 rather than 2025, trading the 27 pick violates the Stepien rule.

So basically a team has three picks in four years to use in the draft, but because of a trade with fairly normal protections, none of those three are counted as "tradeable" picks. Teams can still rebuild through the draft in this situation. They just can't rebuilt by trading their draft picks.

[dautjazz]

I mean teams who used a lot of draft capital usually did so for an established All-Star, like the Cavs and Wolves did, and they are in pretty good shape at the moment. Clippers also traded FRPs for their current roster, and they are in great shape for a few years.

[dautjazz]

Saying a team has 13.3% of the entire first round sounds a lot more significant than saying a team has 4 picks in that first round.

It's still a lot considering it means they acquired 3 FRPs from other teams for the same draft. It also means they are going to trade some. No way Utah signs 4 FRPs in a summer.

[CptCrunch]

I think one of the issues that most bothers me is that some teams (looking at you OKC) literally don't have the roster spots to even house all the draft picks they own.

Meaning a number of the draftees (new and past) will not get the development, reps, PT they'd normally receive if the picks were evenly distributed among the league. There'll be dozens of 19-20 year-olds the next few seasons who will fall out of the league after a rookie contract -- simply because they needed more time to develop but couldn't get it on an already overly young roster.

A ton of young guys will become NBA vagabonds as a result.



Let's call it "The Pokusevski Paradigm".

Impose a penalty to any team that doesn't have a roster spot for any first round pick not traded before draft day. Will create a desperation timer that devalues the pick more the it is to the draft.

[jazzfan1971]

I would go the other way and remove the stupid Stepien rule.

[louc1970]

Is this good or bad for the league?

Can a league survive with 2/3 of the teams unable to rebuild through the draft properly?

Is it time for a revised Stepien Rule to protect Front Offices from themselves?

Easily the answer is yes. Very few teams have had significant success with a star they have drafted.
For the most part, the team becomes middling.
Off the top of my head: Denver/ Jokic, Bucks/Giannis, Warriors/Curry-Thompson-Green climbed to the top.
Others that have for the most part been competitive are Celtics/Tatum-Brown, 76ers/Embiid, Jazz/Mitchell-Gobert.
Most all other teams succeed through trades.

[louc1970]

Changing any rule around this before anywhere between 27-29 unlevels the playing field. The teams that traded for the picks have to work it out with roster spots available and trades available, and the teams that traded away the picks have to suffer through no picks to that end period.

Any proposed change needs an inception date 5 years out.

And the Thunder are almost assuredly going to have to overpay to move up in both of the next 2 drafts. But that's the trades they made. Adding roster spots now just **** everyone else.

It will be interesting to see what kind of value OKC gets for all those mid-to-late FRPs.
Everyone knows they need to move up. I'm thinking like 3 picks 20-30 for a pick around 10-12?
It will be steep, but of course, they can afford it.

OKC would be better to trade picks for mid-age star. They enough youth as is. Those youngsters (either currently on the team or newly drafted) will have growth stunted.

[wegotthabeet]

OKC - 15
Utah - 13
San Antonio - 12
New York - 11
Brooklyn - 9
New Orleans - 9
Toronto - 9
Portland - 9
Orlando - 8
Houston - 7
Memphis - 7

Was curious how many picks these teams actually have. These 11 teams own 52% of all first round picks in the next 7 drafts (minus swaps). I find that more interesting than the 75% of all tradable picks. Basically 1/3 of the league have half of all first round picks.

I think OKC had 21 future firsts at one point. That’s 10% of all possible firsts.

[wegotthabeet]

I would go the other way and remove the stupid Stepien rule.

Agree as long as it was still capped at 7 years in the future. I don’t want to see teams trading picks ten years into the future.