I like to think of myself as a rational individual, especially when it comes to how I think about sports. However, at the end of the day, I root with my heart. At least once a month, I dream about what it would mean to see my hometown Blazers win a championship, and what it would mean to the people in my life who\u2019ve believed in that possibility for far longer than I have.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Adam Silver\u2019s asinine suggestion that the league should abolish the draft and have rookies sign out of college as free agents was legitimately offensive to me. Silver, a commissioner that has previously approved incredibly punitive cap penalties in the name of parity and competitiveness, has now decided that combating tanking is more important than the championship contention of any small-market team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t try to suggest that removing the draft could work without destroying the league\u2019s competitive balance, because that simply isn\u2019t possible. If you\u2019re in a small market, good luck trying to land a franchise cornerstone. Even if the league\u2019s top 20 markets sign their rookie of choice, that locks a third of the league out of any realistic chance at a foundational piece.<\/p>\n
Small-market teams also simply aren\u2019t competitive in free agency. When given the opportunity, guys will almost always choose the bigger market because of the exposure and endorsement opportunities that come along with it. Free agency is an afterthought for fanbases and front offices like Portland and Charlotte, and it can\u2019t become the only option for them.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what makes the draft unique \u2014 it\u2019s both the most important roster-building factor and a facet of talent acquisition that isn\u2019t dependent on market size. Franchise-defining talents like Tim Duncan and Anthony Edwards can end up in places like San Antonio and Minneapolis because of the draft. Removing it pushes all of the competitive leverage toward big-market franchises.<\/p>\n
Taking away the draft also robs small-market teams of their ability to be competitive in trades, their other option for talent acquisition. This will take five or ten years to truly set in, but once small-market teams aren\u2019t getting valuable assets through the draft, they can\u2019t improve through trades because they don\u2019t have any players \u2014 let alone draft picks \u2014 available to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, this decision would fully price at least a third of the league out of competitiveness. Isn\u2019t that what Silver is trying to prevent with anti-tanking measures?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The unfortunate truth is that tanking is a necessary evil in the NBA. Ideally, teams wouldn\u2019t be doing it before the All-Star break like Utah. But is the alternative, which would turn the league into a slightly (emphasis on slightly) more competitive version of European soccer, any better? I don\u2019t think any fan that lives outside of Los Angeles or New York seriously believes that.<\/p>\n
Silver also has far bigger fish to fry in terms of fixing the league\u2019s day-to-day competitiveness and fan interest, which is currently lagging behind the product other sports are putting out. Sure, tanking sucks and makes for some pretty uninteresting regular-season matchups, but that mundanity is predictable and easy to plan for. Fans can generally predict which matchups will be worth their time and money prior to the season.<\/p>\n
You know what isn\u2019t predictable? Players in their athletic primes are suffering Achilles and soft-tissue injuries at alarming rates. I believe basketball is at the highest level it\u2019s ever been in terms of both skill and athleticism, but it\u2019s also reached a point where players can\u2019t keep up. It\u2019s unfair to fans that pay money to see superstars that don\u2019t end up playing, and it\u2019s unfair to superstars who need to hit a 65-game award minimum that they can’t meet without getting injured.<\/p>\n
Silver should shorten the regular season in response to this. Doing so would increase the importance of regular season games, take the stress off of players\u2019 bodies and improve the overall product of the league. But he won\u2019t, because it\u2019ll take money out of owners\u2019 pockets. That is what Silver has become \u2014 a puppet of big-market owners that isn\u2019t willing to make decisions for the benefit of fans and players, the two groups of people that make him the most money.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t how it used to be, either. Silver\u2019s first action as commissioner was to ban Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life following a series of racist remarks. Did that guy get replaced by a clone? I remember thinking that we were getting an authoritarian like David Stern with the right intentions and concerns. Instead, we have an out-of-touch pushover more focused on the league\u2019s future than its flawed present.<\/p>\n
I hate to rely on the “if (insert name here) were still around, he would have done (insert action)” talking point, but I think it’s important here: if Stern was still the commissioner, he would have shortened the regular season because he said so, and it would have happened because he commanded respect from owners and players. Silver hasn’t run the league in a manner that’s commanded respect from anyone for the past half-decade.<\/p>\n
The NBA is currently at a major flashpoint as a league. Either it\u2019s going to fix its glaring issues now, or it\u2019s going to end up falling behind the NFL (a media juggernaut) and the MLB (a league that wasn\u2019t afraid to make drastic changes for entertainment). As a fan of the league, I\u2019m afraid that its commissioner simply isn\u2019t prepared to make those decisions. As a fan of a team, I\u2019m afraid that he doesn\u2019t care about my best interest.<\/p>\n
Silver doesn’t understand what sports mean to people. He can talk all he wants about the league’s viewership numbers and the game’s global outreach, but he’s ignoring what fans actually care about: watching a good product and feeling like their team has an opportunity to win a title each year.<\/p>\n
If Silver wants to make a decision that prices fans out of experiencing something meaningful that they’ve waited their entire lives for, I’ll be distraught, but I won’t be surprised. It’d be right in line with the callous and robotic way he’s always operated the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I like to think of myself as a rational individual, especially when it comes to how I think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2214,7,30775,81492,1407,6,3243,12,1408,471,474,66,7048,427],"class_list":["post-615925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-adam-silver","tag-basketball","tag-donald-sterling","tag-issues-in-nba","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-commissioner","tag-nba-draft","tag-nba-teams","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-tanking","tag-utah-jazz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116109154446924129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}