Re: Offseason thoughts

[bird <birdwl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday, July 20, 2002, at 07:37 AM, Kim Malo wrote:

> Actually if we're going to talk ideal world, the real problem isn't the 
> cap, it's the almost everyone gets a guaranteed contract. That's the big 
> thing that football gets right and why its fairly hard cap works - few 
> guaranteed contracts. Would we mind taking on Vinnie's contract if we 
> could cut him and it, no harm done?
Even I would love to see Baker in green if that were the case.  And I 
think you're right about the guaranteed contracts.  The players' union, 
though -- and the players themselves -- probably see the guarantee as a 
sort of job security issue.  You know, if a guy gets injured, that sort of 
thing.  Plus, I think there's an idea that once you get your contract in 
the NBA, you've "made it".  And it's hard to disagree on some level.  I 
mean, guys dream from the time they're kids to play hoop, it's sort of 
human nature to use some arbitrary point as the indicator of having "made 
it".  And, since they've already been given this privilege, they are 
unlikely to give it back.

But it's not good for the game.  I think basketball's real mistake is this:
 they try to run their league as a capitalist venture, a sort of Adam 
Smith-model NBA.  They probably need more regulation of salaries because 
of the very nature of the league itself: not entirely free market to begin 
with.  The way it is now, men's professional basketball is as much about 
the money and business side of it as the basketball itself.  Maybe more so.
  And that's just not OK, I don't think.  Look, you're always going to 
have some amount of that but it probably needs to be limited.  Players 
will probably see a move to regulate or even mandate salaries as limiting 
their American right to make a killing, and they're probably right -- but 
they are taking eggs away from the Golden Goose at an alarming rate (same 
goes for the owners) and something will need to be done to fix it.


> And yeah, I think I'd pay to watch some free agents get snapped up. They 
> could make a TV game show of it and include the resulting revenue in the 
> cap figures as a sweetener (maybe have the audience vote for the hardest 
> to catch FA/best chase, resulting in a bonus that the team doesn't have 
> to pay and equivalent extra cap space for the team, which would 
> *encourage* them to improve their team by going for FA). Gaston is 
> supposed to be a big motocross racer and fan. Maybe they could have him 
> do a rodeo act with the bike, herding them up...
Now you're getting it.  I like the audience participation angle -- 
apparently a requisite nowadays for these sorts of things.  The only other 
thing we're forgetting is, of course, gratuitous nudity.  It's all bread 
and circuses, anyway.

(Motocross?  Figures -- no offense to motocross fans.)

Bird