Slacktard wrote:StikWitEM wrote:moofs wrote:
Competition ain't fair.
On the topic of fair, how fair is it that incoming draft picks, who are statistically for more likely to be all-stars and future HOF'ers are forced to be relegated to the dregs of the league for their first several years?
How fair is it that talent is forced to go to clubs who have shown, on a consistent basis, an inability to manage it?
Shouldn't we want to see the best product possible?
This type of thinking is exactly why the NBA will never live up to other professional sports. So basically you want the same teams playing year in and year out for the championship rather than have a level playing field with more parody? The NBA would thrive a lot more in more markets if smaller market teams were able to compete just like in the NFL. You talk about talent going to clubs that are in the dregs of the league, but what happened to the days when players wanted to stand alone and lead a team on their back? Now we have a bunch of cry babies dictating where they go to play and having 2 or 3 super teams. That is just boring. Nobody wants to see the same **** every year.
You can never have the parity in the NBA that you have in the NFL, NHL, or MLB(well not so much because of spending there) because one superstar has more impact in basketball than any of those other sports. Maybe with the exception of if you had a goalie on the level of Dominik Hasek in his prime in the NHL, but even then the offense has to score some goals.
Adrian Peterson since he came into the league has been either the best or 2nd best RB in the entire league every single season. Where has that got Minnesota? You have to be smart with building your entire team.
In the NBA you need your 1 mega-star and then usually a 1-B and then you're a contender. But there's not very many of those guys out there and those guys when they become FAs often bolt to one of the lucrative major markets. Barring something like lifetime contracts and allowing 1 MAX contract per team with the next highest paid player at half the salary of your MAX contract you can never have anything approaching parity in the NBA. You are always going to see haves and have nots. Removing the lottery basically makes it even harder for a have not to luck out and get a star for 3 or 4 years until they bolt to another team.
^THIS times a million
The NFL has HUGE turnover year-to-year, compared with the NBA. The average career is barely over 3 years, and despite 53 man rosters and 40 man gameday active rosters, close to 70 players per team will see time on average in a calendar year due to catastrophic injury. In a given season there will be almost 1,000 players seeing action who were not on a field for the previous year.
Not to mention, for all the talk of parody in the NFL (and granted there does appear to be more than in the NBA), it still hasn't helped the "dredges of the league." The Buffalo Bills pick higher than the other 3 teams in their division almost every year for the past 10-15 years, and yet the New England Patriots continue to win the division virtually every year. Ditto for Oakland out west, the Lions for 20 years prior, etc... If you make the argument that it is because New England has "Tom Brady" then you must also concede that he was a 6th round pick. If you make the argument that Belichick is a superior coach, that is still a team management issue.
Granted top picks matter more in the NBA, but contending teams make huge strides outside of the draft to stay competitive (Heat 2010 signings, Celtics' KG/Allen trades, Lakers' Pau trade, Rockets' trade for Drexler, Bulls moving from Horace/Cartwright to Rodman/Longley, etc...)
As someone noted, Orlando was awarded the #1 pick via the lottery -- the last time the top-weighted team has won... they reached the Finals, but I would argue that the main reasons they came up short and Dwight left was terrible management. A litany of poor acquisitions they made of their own free will, irrespective of the draft lottery.
Acquiring guys who'd suffered major injuries:
-Gilbert Arenas
-Rashard Lewis
-Steve Francis
-and in a previous era, Grant Hill
Guys who were largely past their prime:
-Vince Carter
-Jason Richardson
-Hedo Turkoglu second contract
-Jason Williams
Acquiring guys unready to help 'yet' (long growth/dev curve):
-JJ Redick
-Courtney Lee
-Brandon Bass
Bad trades:
-Marcin Gortat/Carter/Pietrus from the conf champ team for Richardson and Hedo's terrible contract
-Ryan Anderson for a guy who became basically nothing ~6 mos later.
None of these decisions had to do with draft position. Some talking heads have argued that the NFL should reverse the draft order and award the SB champs with the #1 pick to discourage late-season tanking (or at least award the "best" non-playoff team with the #1 pick). Take away all incentive to tank.
