This is part three 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. Monday we took a look at player transactions on the EPL model; Yesterday we looked at how a farm/developmental system might be beneficial and this is the final installment mostly about the promotion and relegation and how it would work in the NBA based on the EPL model.
I love how English Premier League is now all over ESPN and ESPN3 and all the rest of it. The perfect representation of this phenomenon is found in Season 2 Episode 15 of my favorite TV show, Community. In this episode called Early 21st Century Romanticism, Jeff Winger had a fight with his study group and has the following interaction with his pathetic, English, alcoholic professor buddy, played by John Oliver:
Duncan: I will see you at 6:30, or as we English call it, gravedigger’s biscuits.
I couldn’t find that actual clip so here’s a clip of the always hilarious Ken Jeong with Joel McHale and Oliver:
http://youtu.be/LXYXPTV8a4Q
The EPL got cool, as he said around 2004. I think everyone kind of got tired of college football on Saturdays and the Fox Soccer Channel, well I first became aware of it around then. It’s such a perfect compliment to “trendy” or even just thoughtful younger guys and even older guys. While there are tons of Americans who “don’t get” soccer or think it’s just a game to play until your Mom will let you put on some pads and play American Football, or even if it is just a way for ADHD kids to run off some energy, Soccer has been trying for years to gain a foothold in the United States and I think the promotion on ESPN’s bevy of networks and the aforementioned FSC could make it just enough of a niche that posts like this and the previous two days won’t be completely lost on Americans.
I just see the NBA having such major problems, at least that’s what the league is selling the public and with players going overseas to play, at least for a while, I think the players are buying in as well. These problems won’t be fixed, like for good put them to bed, not just until the next CBA expires, fixed until there are some drastic changes. I think the EPL model is one that has worked for the past 19 years (true there have only been champions) but you certainly don’t see those owners crying foul and complaining of poverty. Actually, you see American interest in ownership of those teams. Even Lebron James bought a stake in Liverpool FC. It’s a model the NBA could adopt, or at least look at.
Here’s how I see it going if I ruled the basketball landscape: Keep the NBA the way it is. Sort of set it aside as the Premier League did for itself back in 1992 when the First Division of the original “Football League” split off. Keep the D-League, but just as it’s named, make it all Developmental. Make the D-League up of players picked out of sort of a 5 year bracket of the NBA draft. Like the NBA doesn’t want players until a year after their graduating class of high school or something, so say, 19. The D-League would consist of players 17-22 and any guys who get drafted later have a 2 year window then they either move up to the big team or out of the league. No more of these Antoine Walker, Antonio Daniels reclamation projects. It would be limited to guys on the way up.
It’d only be a 2 tiered, NBA-related, system in my mind, there’s enough mid-level talent in the league today, we don’t need some second tier to go between the Developmental guys and the NBA guys. Each team would need to own its own developmental team and it would be best if it practiced and went through camp together. So a Maine to Charlotte connecting via Atlanta wouldn’t exactly work. Maybe a Bobcats team based in Charlotte could field a team playing in the old Arena on Independence Boulevard or maybe put it out in Concord or even as far away as Hickory or Winston-Salem. This would accomplish that pipe-line of talent I’m talking about as well as put down roots in a regional, multi-level fanbase.
The D-League wouldn’t work as a secondary league from which to promote and relegate teams. I’m of the opinion that both a promotion/relegation pool and a D-League are both necessary. The D-League has to stay in place because teams have already made that investment. A D-League couldn’t be converted into a relegation/promotion pool because it’s possible the Lakers could be playing against the D-Fenders, the D-League team they own. Conflict of interest. You can’t expect the 5 teams who own teams outright and the three others who have invested enough in their D-League counterparts to be single-affiliate partners to walk away from that. You might wonder how it’d be a qualification for the number of teams owning their own D-League team to go from 5 to 30 would work out. I think it’d be a worthwhile test to weed out the owners who don’t actually want to make that commitment. You’d know if an owner had the wherewithal to go ahead and make the commitment to being in things for the long haul.
I think the relegation/promotion league, let’s call it the NABL for North American Basketball League, is the perfect way for the NBA to gain market share they’re trying for with the D-League currently and to expand into areas that don’t have teams with the whole incentive of moving up, it’d be a perfect storm of basketball goodness around the country. Baseball might have the success it has because there are the 30 major market teams and then the system of around 190 minor league teams in the United States, 245 overall. The Raleigh-Durham area has 2 teams alone. Name a city in North Carolina and they have a minor league baseball team. It’s true, not many are doing that well, but so many are a major attraction in their area.
Basketball isn’t as universal and doesn’t have the same footprint or number of games as baseball. Instead of having a team in every city with 25,000 people, maybe just put them in cities that have tried for teams in the past. Kansas City built an arena 5 years ago for about $300 million and have no NBA or NHL team to fill it. Cities that support NHL teams but not NBA teams could be good candidates. They’d likely have owners in place there as well. Cities that have lost an NBA team, such as Seattle, Vancouver, San Diego could get their old team names and records back.
The most important, and the reason this necessitates inception in the first place is, the NBA would automatically relegate at least 2 teams. Forget about revenue sharing, the league goes down to 28 teams, shares the TV money without 2 mouths to feed. If there are still teams suffering, saying they can’t make it, they are the most likely to get relegated the next year and the most successful, championship winning teams from the NABL move up. Usually, if a team were to be relegated it would weed out bad owners or inept management or bad coaches. If you are relegated, you’d not be privy to the major TV money, the lower salary cap of the NABL would probably allow for a one-time amnesty clause. The amnesty clause would allow teams to rid themselves of those really horrible contracts and maybe just the guys they can’t afford. The relegation might enable teams to trade those high-contract high-value players. Those same players if not already trade-bait would demand trades because of the decreased profile afforded the NABL. This would make the NBA product better as well.
It would take a lot of investment, a lot of coordination between a lot of parties. I mean it’s a grand scheme, I know that. But it’s going to take something major and Earth-shaking to get the league back to a point that it’s making money. Between summer-leagues, secondary leagues, NHL owners without affiliation to the NBA already, former NBA cities and cities and ownership groups that have been vying for teams for years, I am certain there are markets available. If there is one flaw it’s making the already, supposedly, cash-strapped owners to shell out the money needed to create their D-League systems. I think that could be accomplished through some revenue sharing. It’d be better for the major market teams who would be sending the money down to the cash-strapped teams if they were investing in something rather than just lineing the pockets of those owners who weren’t able to keep up financially.
I just think the English Premier League does it right. They have their stuff together and while the teams you promote this year might just be the ones you relegate next year, it’s unlikely the ones you relegate will come right back to you the next year. It puts an emphasis on winning and long-term commitment to growth. My plan would eliminate the facade of athletes going to college, working them through a system with a team and paying them for the entertainment they provide at an early age would eliminate the false nature of breaking rules to retain amateur status. It’d even strengthen the national team, getting players involved in the FIBA and USA Basketball system early could do nothing but improve the game in the States.
It would take a major commitment and it would change the way people think about the game from all facets and all sorts of systems would be eliminated. A lot of people would argue that a lot of those systems are corrupt or not working anyway, from the AAU teams to college programs that can’t seem to make it without cutting corners. it’s worth a look by people much smarter than I am. I think if you studied it, worked on the structure and the parts involved, got some important people to buy into it, I think this plan, of running the NBA like the EPL could work.