This is part one of a series, looking at ways to “fix” the NBA. Since the involved parties won’t look at the issues or the solutions, we at RobertoGato.com might as well.
English Premier League Soccer, or football as they call it in England. It’s long been the bastion of “real” football for fans around the world. When my Dad was a kid growing up in Yorkshire, the teams were formed from area youths, like if the Charlotte Bobcats were only able to take players from North and South Carolina, Manchester United only took from players around Manchester, Tottenham from the Tottenham area of London and so on. Well that’s how he explains it to me anyway. “A fella playing for Manchester United named Nah-nee? Never would I have thought I’d see that when I was a kid.” Dad falls back into his English accent whenever he hears another one; being from Yorkshire, you would barely understand a conversation between he and my grandfather once they get going on the phone.
English Premier League football (EPL), is run very much the way a British person would run things. It’s very structured and very well thought out. There are teams and they have their First Team, the reserves and the academy players. For an example, the player most Americans would know from the EPL, David Beckham came up through the youth squad of Tottenham Hotspur and then for Manchester United and then at 17 after he helped win Man-U the Youth title, he was promoted to the first team. From there, as you probably know, he went on to be the most famous player in the world. It’s a whole different process in the world of soccer. You come up through whatever “minor league” system, you’re “bought” or “transfered” or “loaned” rather than “signed,” “traded” or “(there is no equal to loaning players in North American big 4 sports).” Beckham was “transfered” to Real Madrid (edit: thank you comment from Lukesxs) in the summer of 2003 and signed an extension to his contract. Once that contract ended he became involved in MLS in the United States, because seriously, you cannot be considered Worldwide until you’ve made an impression on the USA public. He was loaned out to Milan twice in his tenure with the LA Galaxy.
That’s the trajectory of one of the biggest stars in Soccer history. Could you imagine if the NBA ran things the same way?
Imagine Lebron James, coming up through the ranks with Cleveland’s youth team. Not a youth team in Cleveland or a high school team out of the suburbs, but a Cleveland Cavaliers youth team, managed and coached by the same people as the NBA squad. Once he was ready, they’d ease him into the league. Maybe a 16 or 17 year old Lebron getting minutes halfway through those down years, replacing injured players or just getting some reps in garbage time. Then, once the managers and coaches thought he was ready, unleash him on the league. He doesn’t like the coaches or the owners or the GM, ok, he can seek a transfer and Cleveland gets back enough money, not a trade exception, not expiring contracts but enough money to replace him with whatever they wanted in cash. Say Cleveland has a horrible year, instead of the usual 60 wins they got in each of his final 2 or 3 years there, they were on pace for 30. The Shanghi Sharks of the Chinese League need a player, Yao Ming went down with a foot injury. How about Shanghi pays Cleveland and Lebron agrees, to play half a season over there? If you’re a Lebron fan, you get up in the morning at 7 to watch him play and you watch Cleveland limp through like they would anyway at 7pm.
Why wouldn’t that work? FIBA controls everything just like FIFA controls the world of soccer. Bismack Biyombo can’t just play for the Bobcats right away, not without someone taking care of his contract (either letting him play 2 more years or paying the buy-out). The European teams got it right with that buy-out stuff. The NBA, I’m sure as it became more of a global game and players like Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sibonas became available to them, the NBA teams thought “Let’s draft the guy, he’ll come over, we’re the NBA! Of course he’ll ditch that European team.” Well, as we’ve seen with guys like Ricky Rubio and Sibonas in his time, it’s not so easy. So why don’t we grease the wheels? Why doesn’t the NBA and FIBA get together and run the deal like FIFA does?
Transfer fees, buy-outs; trades, transfer fees; buying a player, drafting a player; national game, worldwide game. It’s as easy as that in my mind anyway. And how much better would this system be for guys like Lebron, Kobe, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Durant, Brandon Jennings, OJ Mayo, Kyrie Irving. All the big names who played one year in college or no college at all; wouldn’t they be better in a basketball-only system? If a guy wants to go to college, sees value in that, sees the value of a $200k free education at Duke and the tutelage of Mike Krzyzewski, or any of the major college programs as a viable option, that is certainly available to him. If a player wants to be in the NBA and scouts see him as a 14-15 year old kid and say “Yep, he’s got it,” why can’t they sign up, finish school like a normal kid, but ditch all that AAU bs and just join up with a team and work their way up? What’s with the facade of making a go at a university? It cheapens it for the player and the institution.
Just an idea I thought of while “my” Manchester United side was beating Nic Watson’s Tottenham Hotspur side 3-0 at Old Trafford today. If you see him on twitter, tell ol’ @mustachiogato about it, and remind him that while the Spurs game Beckham his start, he always wanted to be a Red Devil.
Tomorrow, a league-wide approach that might work as well, based on the soccer model.
Andrew Barraclough is Senior Editor for RobertoGato.com, a Charlotte Bobcats Blog on theFansided Network. Follow him on Twitter @therobertogato and Like the site on Facebook.