Instead of a draft why not hold a live auction for NBA prospects

[JohnnyNightrain]

I don't question the fact that it would be a PR nightmare but you seem to be unable to fathom that I don't give a S*#t about something as dumb as PR.

No, I think it's very, very clear. PR is the most important thing for an organization, so for you to call it "dumb," just means you have no understanding of it.

[Stavrogin]

I redirect you to FlyingArrow's post at the start of page 3. The idea as the OP tried to presented it is just not something that can be implemented. Make it about draft positions, brand it a different way and then it can work. As it was presented, it just will never work.

Sure thing. I'm not really speaking about the OP's proposal specifically, but generally critiquing the notion that an idea that may have a positive impact may be dismissed on the grounds that it is perceived as insensitive. Btw love Agalloch.

Perception matters, though. It is based on our natural instincts. We can't ignore it.

PS: Agalloch are indeed awesome.

PPS: Agalloch would probably disagree with you on perception. Music, like most artistic endeavors, is based on perception and instincts after all

I favour truth over perception but the conversation is probably getting a little too abstract. By the way how come no on gets triggered over the draft? Didn't lots of Americans die in Vietnam & WW2? Weren't they drafted?

[Stavrogin]

I don't question the fact that it would be a PR nightmare but you seem to be unable to fathom that I don't give a S*#t about something as dumb as PR.

No, I think it's very, very clear. PR is the most important thing for an organization, so for you to call it "dumb," just means you have no understanding of it.

I'm not an organisation man. Why should I care about it? I see your point but it's clear you don't see mine. Of course understand why the NBA and politicians and every other scum sucker obsesses over how they are perceived. That's why they have no integrity.

[Nuntius]

I favour truth over perception but the conversation is probably getting a little too abstract.

Perception and truth aren't opposites. They often shape each other. It isn't an either or issue.

By the way how come no on gets triggered over the draft? Didn't lots of Americans die in Vietnam & WW2? Weren't they drafted?

The word draft has more than one meanings in the English language. The word auction only has one meaning.

[Ice Trae]

That's a PR nightmare waiting to happen lmao

[LKN]

Somehow an offseason quality thread has shown up in February

[Stavrogin]

I favour truth over perception but the conversation is probably getting a little too abstract.

Perception and truth aren't opposites. They often shape each other. It isn't an either or issue.

By the way how come no on gets triggered over the draft? Didn't lots of Americans die in Vietnam & WW2? Weren't they drafted?

The word draft has more than one meanings in the English language. The word auction only has one meaning.

What's your point? Players are drafted to their clubs just as kids were drafted to fight for whoever it was they were fighting for.

[Effigy]

Too much risk. Ate he whole reason the owners insisted on the rookie salary caps.

[Nuntius]

I favour truth over perception but the conversation is probably getting a little too abstract.

Perception and truth aren't opposites. They often shape each other. It isn't an either or issue.

By the way how come no on gets triggered over the draft? Didn't lots of Americans die in Vietnam & WW2? Weren't they drafted?

The word draft has more than one meanings in the English language. The word auction only has one meaning.

What's your point? Players are drafted to their clubs just as kids were drafted to fight for whoever it was they were fighting for.

My point is that the two drafts aren't the same. They aren't the same when it comes to the meaning of the word (military draft = conscription, NBA draft = select group of players) and they aren't the same in the way they play out either (players apply to the draft and then NBA teams select among the applicants while in a military draft the government orders the conscription of everyone that can fight and is within a certain age range and then just takes them all, trains them and ships them off, no application of soldiers of selection from the departments is happening). They're just widely different things that happen to share a name (not even a meaning, just the name).

[FlyingArrow]

Bad teams will shoot themselves in the foot regardless. And you can limit it to the 10 worst teams similar to the lottery now to prevent contenders from loading up.

Instead of just frps, you can expand the asset to roster too (combining trades with auction concepts). Say team A is willing to forfeit 5 frps to have the #1 pick, team B can "match" that forfeiture but also offer up a player in their roster for team A not to match.

While 5 frps sounds absurd, I think you have to remember how egotistical gms are and how much they value frps.

While a Zion or LeBron level prospect will garner high biddings, I don't think it will be too crazy.

LeBron had a Carmelo in his draft. Oden had a Durant.

Teams would hesitate to bet the farm when there is an alternative.

it's one thing to trade 5 frp for a veteran Anthony Davis, it's another to do so for a young unproven rookie.

And if no one bids, the picks just goes by record.

Sent from my SM-G925T using RealGM mobile app

Instead of the worst 10, I think you can just go with non-playoff teams. Call them lottery teams just so we still have the same terminology (even though there's no lottery in this setup). Instead of bidding actual frps, I think teams could bid lottery picks. That is, if I get 1st pick, I forfeit the right to any pick higher than 14 for the next X years. If you have forfeited your lottery pick for a given year, you automatically are behind all lottery teams in the draft, even if you had the worst record in the league. And, of course, you can't bid that year, either. But then, if you're in the playoffs anyway it won't matter to you. So basically, you're betting that by getting this #1 pick you're going to be in the playoffs for the next 5 years.

[SecondTake]

Can you imagine white owners sitting in their chairs holding their bid while announcers calls black mans to enters the stage and we held auction. And announcer goes "We have now young 19 year old, healthy, perfect white teeth, good strenght etc. Let's go 1st offer 1M, we have 1 M, can we get 2M. "

Are you nuts. Are you ok in your head?

I can imagine it just fine. I don’t see race so I don’t see what the problem is. I’m sure racists would have a problem with it though.

Is there any treatment for color blindness? Must suck seeing the world in monochrome.

[SecondTake]

It's 100% serious. Tell me why I shouldn't be in this thread.

So, you really don't see an issue with a professional sports league in America - a league in which roughly 75% of its players are black - having a "live auction" of its players? Really? It would, literally, be one of the biggest PR disasters in modern history. How this is lost on anyone, I do not know. Unless you, literally, have zero knowledge of American history, I don't know what to say.

Even if you ignore this whole race issue (which, let me be clear, is not something that should be ignored), it still wouldn't work. Can you imagine putting a player up in a podium and have someone going "here, here, we present this 6'8 athletic forward with a sweet-looking stroke, bidding starts at 800k, who wants to top it"? That, in itself, would be enough to create backlash. Human beings aren't commodities to be sold on an auction.

Make it about the draft picks instead of the players, brand it something other than an auction and then we can talk about the merits of the idea. I still wouldn't be a big fan of it but you can at least make an argument now.

It's nothing like slavery. Only at a very surface level does it look that way. The player is earning the value of the bid, not a slave master. The player is voluntarily signing a contract to play basketball for a few years in exchange for ungodly amounts of money. There is no forced labor. No poverty. No punishments. No race exclusion. (players can be white, owners can be black)

The optics only look bad because people are too lazy to actually think about it for one second.

[Osirus89]

Incredibly dumb idea. If you want to go the perception route as others have mentioned, that is reason enough alone. In this political climate....feel free to hold an auction if you want to destroy any goodwill the NBA has over other sports leagues.

If you want to go into logistics of why is it’s a horrible idea.... two guys off the top of the head
Markelle Fultz
Anthony Bennett

The End

[SwatLakeCity527]

Oh my... This thread is so melodramatic, my eyes rolled back in to my at least 10 times before I got done reading the first page.

1) I just wanted to remind everyone of a very important point:

IT'S. NOT. SLAVERY. Do I need to remind you how much these people get paid?

2) Just because auctions were used for slavery does not mean auctions are bad. An auction is a form of selling something against competition of other customers in a public setting. Also, WE ALREADY DO THIS. An "auction" per-se, happens behind closed doors every time there is a suitor for a free agent or a trade piece on the table. The owner/agent goes out, figures out what people will pay for their asset, and the party with the best offer wins. This is how every day business works - it's not a new concept.

3) Not every draft pick is black, so quit acting like the "imagery" is so terrible that the idea couldn't be implemented.

If you actually use your brain and quit worrying about what conclusions people without rational thinking ability will jump to, you'll realize that this could work.

[Joshyjess]

Wow, I didn't realize just how incredibly (I'd prefer not to say dumb, but I think dumb is the best word to use here) some people can sound. Slavery????? Really???? We aren't talking about owners "buying" people. We are talking about which team is willing to OFFER the MOST MONEY for a player (black or white or Asian) to come and play on their team. This is about as opposite to slavery as you can possibly get. We are talking about spending money to offer a contract to players. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
I mean "slavery"??? Seriously???

[old skool]

Disregarding any negative politically incorrect optics, this is a really bad idea on many levels.

1. An important goal of any professional sports league is to maintain some level competitiveness. The current draft maintains a veil of fair competition for resources. An imbalance already exists, favoring teams with more revenue, a nicer climate, and a better income tax situation. The random draft is the only chance some teams have to be competitive.

2. The NBA sells the idea that every team has either the chance to make the playoffs or the hope that they can improve via the draft. Any system that would potentially leave a team without a chance to get a top player via the draft would destroy this sense of hope.

3. NBA veteran players want more money to go to those who have proved to be able to contribute in the NBA. They will never agree to a contract that gives top dollar to unproven high school or college age kids, at their expense.

4. NBA owners do not want to increase the opportunities for their fan base to hate them. When Cleveland won the rights to draft Lebron, the other 29 NBA owners were not blamed for failing to get Lebron. Under this system, each of those owners would be blamed for not assembling enough picks and for not bidding enough to win Lebron.

Replacing the draft with an auction would reduce the NBA's competitive balance, would eliminate hope for some teams with losing records, and would be unpopular with NBA players and NBA owners. But hey, fans of large market teams would love it!

[wolves_89]

I can't see the NBA players association having interest in seeing guys who have never done anything in the NBA making huge amounts of money (especially when a good percent of those guys would end up not deserving the money). The current salary structure of the NBA rewards success in that the vets who prove themselves make most of the money.

[kamby12]

How about no draft, no auction. Just let them be free agents. That would be pretty cool. Half of today’s top 10-15 players weren’t even lottery picks so it’s not a forgone conclusion that the best teams would take the best players plus they’d have less cap obviously.

[TheGameWinner]

Slavery implications?

They used to do a regional thing before the official Draft started.

--Mags

Yeah - I don't know where you get slavery from - Slavery was trafficking and selling humans for unpaid labour - a bit insensitive dude.

All he is suggesting in his post is that within the confines of the salary cap rules, teams can bid (e.g. vet min -> max) for a player. This would only not work in the case of a tie-breaker and the obvious advantages that large-market teams have (if all else equal - e.g. space for a max player).

[og15]

One big issue I see is that it becomes inconsistent with the league's current model of having max salary. So let's say that a guy like Zion (or even someone with greater potential like Lebron) is available. Is there a maximum amount of money that you can bid on Zion? If not, then, can Zion make more than anybody currently in the NBA? Because that would be very odd that a rookie can make money above the max. And if there is a ceiling that Zion can make, what if multiple teams bid the ceiling? Who gets Zion then?

Coin toss, lol