Sandbagging and Superteams: What Can Be Done?

[ManicCompression]

None of the above is accurate.

Eidt - I mean, the Bears and the WFT made the playoffs this year, five months ago.

The NBA teams losing these stars that we desperately need to protect because they're not NYC or LA or Miami - NOLA, Houston, Detroit, OKC, etc. - also occasionally make the playoffs and in very recent history. NOLA having shit ownership and being a meandering franchise for most of the last fifteen years is indistinguishable to me from the Bengals being moribund despite making the sixth seed every 7 years or the Raiders being the sixth seed every ten. And both those franchises have had multiple players give less than 100% and demand trades. Losing consistently over two decades hasn't meaningfully affected their fanbases or the NFL's overall viewership. And let's not forget that at least three star quarterbacks (including Deshaun pre sex-assault) are trying to get traded from their current teams.

Somehow the WFT has "hope" because Alex Smith got them into the playoffs with a losing record last season but a team like the Wizards has no hope because Bradley Beal got them into the playoffs with a losing record this season? I'm not sure what the difference is between the two leagues to cause that mindset

 

[moondog80]

It certainly would, and would I love to see that game theory play out in reality. Personally, if we’re going this way I would combine it with one-year contracts. That way every year has a complete free-for-all, but that’s just me.

I’m not sure the players union would be the blockers. There’s no way ownership would except this either, just as they negotiated limited max contract length, because they know they are morons on occasion as well.

I don't see why the union should care about this -- it wouldn't change the amount of money the players would get in total, just the distribution. The owners/front offices would be the ones against this, as it would force them to make much tougher decisions. Imagine a fantasy football auction-like scenario where anyone could get Giannis, but what percentage of the hard cap (and how many years) are you willing to commit? (I know players wouldn't necessarily go to the highest bidder, but money usually talks.)

 

[ManicCompression]

More accurately I think, when teams lack "hope"

Every team has hope when the draft rolls around, same as any other sport. 7 other teams could've had Steph Curry - he wasn't destined for a big market. Giannis went mid-round to Milwaukee. Paul George went 10 to the Pacers. Kawhi 15 to SA. OKC assembled a superteam in the draft by going against the grain with their picks - James Harden and Westbrook were not preordained superstars.

I really feel like this attitude - wanting to inhibit player movement - lets teams/ownership/management off the hook for being capable talent evaluators. It's their job to find talent in places where other teams don't. That's the whole competition. It's what made the Warriors great, not their location or wallet. I would bet that the worst teams - like the worst teams in the NFL - spend the least on scouting and medical. The Bengals are famous for not really even having their own scouts and just relying on the NFLs service. Worse, some have owners who want to play fantasy basketball or be buddy buddy with the players, like Dan Gilbert or Leonsis. That's cool, they can spend their money however they want to, but I don't feel sorry for them when they drive their franchise into a ditch and their best players - who don't have the same career longevity as an NBA owner - want to hitch a ride with someone else.

 

[Auger34]

I prefer the NBA when you have a few really strong teams versus spread out talent and a wide open playoffs. That is just my personal taste.

Are there many examples of players giving subpar effort besides Blake Griffin? Zion is trying to get out, ok, but he also just had an awesome season.

Yeah….there are 2 more glaring examples that are on the same team as Griffin

 

[cheech13]

I don't see why the union should care about this -- it wouldn't change the amount of money the players would get in total, just the distribution. The owners/front offices would be the ones against this, as it would force them to make much tougher decisions. Imagine a fantasy football auction-like scenario where anyone could get Giannis, but what percentage of the hard cap (and how many years) are you willing to commit? (I know players wouldn't necessarily go to the highest bidder, but money usually talks.)

The owners were the ones that instituted the max contract, with the intention of curbing player movement and capping costs on high end talent. However it has been very beneficial to the rank and file player, as the money that normally would have been distributed to stars goes to the middle class. There is no real incentive for owners or players to disrupt the system.

 

[moondog80]

The owners were the ones that instituted the max contract, with the intention of curbing player movement and capping costs on high end talent. However it has been very beneficial to the rank and file player, as the money that normally would have been distributed to stars goes to the middle class. There is no real incentive for owners or players to disrupt the system.

Depends which players you're talking about, right? On one hand, there a lot more Evan Fourniers and Marcus Smarts than James Hardens and Joel Embids. But if the latter wanted to form an unofficial union-within-a-union and demand that the union push for an end to the max deal, they'd likely get their way, right?

 

[Auger34]

Do you not think effort is required? There has to a be a point where the level of effort is not enough. At the moment the team can really do nothing with a guy that refuses to play.

I stand by the statement, and stick to my example, that the public conversation about Blake Griffin, and Kyrie Irving not for an instant revisiting just how horribly they played for their previous teams, is wrong. Guys can give up. Guys can loaf. But, at the moment there is almost no price to pay in terms of image or reputation. There was a hall of fame discussion about Rondo on this board today, noting that completely quitting on his team is washed away by a nice three weeks in the bubble. At one time the teams had all the power, the press on their side. Tom Seaver was an ingrate for waning better teammates, Wilt deserved a pay cut because he lost to the Celtics, etc. But, the nba is close to it going too far the other way

This is 100% correct.

Every time Harden does something, how he completely screwed over Houston should be brought up. Partying with Lil Baby instead of attending training camp then finally showing up looking like he ate Lil Baby.
Every time Griffin dunks it should be noted that he never dunked with Detroit. (And the fact he never dunked in Detroit has nothing to do with personnel. A year ago, Jared Dudley said that Blake was his least favorite teammate ever because he was such a front runner. Turns out Dudley’s pretty prophetic).

Instead of these things being brought up ive seen and heard various media members and posters here talk about how it’s “cool” that Griffin is willing to be a sub….

 

[ManicCompression]

This is 100% correct.

Every time Harden does something, how he completely screwed over Houston should be brought up. Partying with Lil Baby instead of attending training camp then finally showing up looking like he ate Lil Baby.
Every time Griffin dunks it should be noted that he never dunked with Detroit. (And the fact he never dunked in Detroit has nothing to do with personnel. A year ago, Jared Dudley said that Blake was his least favorite teammate ever because he was such a front runner. Turns out Dudley’s pretty prophetic).

Instead of these things being brought up ive seen and heard various media members and posters here talk about how it’s “cool” that Griffin is willing to be a sub….

So the requirement of James Harden is that he shuts up, goes to work, and does what he's told with 100% effort and no back talk. He has to do this for the fans.

The requirement of Tillman Fertitta is... nothing. He can alienate his GM and refuse to spend a single dollar over the luxury tax, meaning that marginal improvements for the team are much more difficult to attain. Fertitta can say whatever he wants about his employees in the media and should suffer no consequences for it. He can give like 42% effort even though he's probably the most important person to the franchise. He owes nothing to the fans apparently.

Is that the correct interpretation here? I think Harden has at least admitted he acted like an ass on his way out and regrets it. Fertitta doesn't have that kind of self-awareness.

 

[Devizier]

So the requirement of James Harden is that he shuts up, goes to work, and does what he's told with 100% effort and no back talk.

Pretty much this, for most everyone.

There are exceptions, but James Harden is not working the warehouses for Amazon here.

There's also a mile of difference between demanding a trade and visibly loafing, Derrick Coleman style.

 

[HowBoutDemSox]

So the requirement of James Harden is that he shuts up, goes to work, and does what he's told with 100% effort and no back talk. He has to do this for the fans.

The requirement of Tillman Fertitta is... nothing. He can alienate his GM and refuse to spend a single dollar over the luxury tax, meaning that marginal improvements for the team are much more difficult to attain. Fertitta can say whatever he wants about his employees in the media and should suffer no consequences for it. He can give like 42% effort even though he's probably the most important person to the franchise. He owes nothing to the fans apparently.

Is that the correct interpretation here? I think Harden has at least admitted he acted like an ass on his way out and regrets it. Fertitta doesn't have that kind of self-awareness.

If you want to propose some kind of penalty for Fertitta's mismanagement, I don't think you'll find too much push back here, outside of practical concerns of what it would look like or how it would be implemented. Dock his portion of revenue sharing or make him sell the team or apply some other kind of mechanism to incentivize better management if they languish going forward, I wish they instituted something like that before the Hinkie era in Philly.

I just think (1) it's seen as a not particularly viable outcome given the power the owners have, so it tends to take up less air in the conversation, and (2) the fans can theoretically have more of an impact on his bottom line if they want to stop buying tickets or watching games, so there's less of a feeling that league-level action is necessary. But I don't think many here would fundamentally or morally oppose repercussions for bad management. We all want good basketball.

 

[Average Game James]

I have mixed feelings overall on some of the recent player movement. I think players should have the opportunity to choose where they want to live and work during their careers - free agency is good. At the same time, it's frustrating as a fan to see some of the recent situations that have played out like Davis, Harden, and (even though OKC may massively win on this trade) Paul George where players under contract have essentially forced their way to a chosen destination. None of those guys were on rookie deals, nobody made them sign their contracts, and I don't imagine any would have given their checks back if they suffered a major injury and couldn't play, so suck it up and play hard. And in general I'd rather see talent more broadly distributed through the league rather than clustered into a handful of super teams - if there's maybe a dozen guys in the league good enough to carry a team to a title, I'd optimally like to see those dozen guys on 12 different teams. That's obviously just a personal preference, and I won't knock you if you'd rather watch a couple stacked teams go at it, but I thought it was infinitely more interesting watching Durant go absolutely nuclear to carry the Nets to a win the other night.

With the starting assumption that removing the max salary is a complete non-starter, what changes might help inject a little more parity into the league? I'll acknowledge both have flaws, but these are the best ideas I could come up with:

1. Something akin to the franchise tag. Let's say that if a team offers one of its players the standard max, any team signing that player away in free agency has to give up 2 first rounders over the next 3 years. If the team offers the super max, it's 3 over the next 5 years (if the team doesn't own its picks, it can acquire them to satisfy this requirement). Obviously, what likely amount to some low firsts doesn't compensate a team for the loss of a supermax level player, but it does take some leverage away from a player trying to force a trade before he becomes a free agent. It also makes it harder for teams to acquire multiple stars from outside the organization - KD and Kyrie, for example, may not have been able to collude to go to Brooklyn, and even if they did, Brooklyn certainly wouldn't have the assets left to trade for Harden too.

2. Keep the max salaries, but make it harder for teams to fit or build around 3 max contracts. For example, what if a team acquiring a 3rd max contract (defined as 25% of the cap or greater, through FA signing or trade) was automatically hard capped? This allows a team like the pre-KD Warriors to stay together, but it really puts the onus on teams to develop a third guy and makes something like this year's Nets incredibly hard to build any depth around (they would need to dump 2 of Harris, Dinwiddie, and Jordan to stay under the hard cap).

 

[Auger34]

So the requirement of James Harden is that he shuts up, goes to work, and does what he's told with 100% effort and no back talk. He has to do this for the fans.

The requirement of Tillman Fertitta is... nothing. He can alienate his GM and refuse to spend a single dollar over the luxury tax, meaning that marginal improvements for the team are much more difficult to attain. Fertitta can say whatever he wants about his employees in the media and should suffer no consequences for it. He can give like 42% effort even though he's probably the most important person to the franchise. He owes nothing to the fans apparently.

Is that the correct interpretation here? I think Harden has at least admitted he acted like an ass on his way out and regrets it. Fertitta doesn't have that kind of self-awareness.

That’s not the correct interpretation and I think you know that. BTW, Fertitta is an ass and a terrible owner so we agree on that.

Acting like Harden was just some bystander who went to work and silently watched as the team fell apart around him is a joke.

The Rockets catered to every one of Harden’s whims. The Athletic did a whole profile on how he was given free reign to do whatever the fuck he wanted, which was one of the main reasons the relationship between him and Russ completely fell apart.

It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If the Rockets didn’t listen to Harden’s demands and terrible personnel ideas then he gets upset and he wants out. They did listen, it worked out terribly and he ended up wanting out anyway.

BTW, check out what Cousins and Wall said about Harden as he was forcing his way out. They were fellow players who were less than thrilled with what Harden did

 

[ManicCompression]

That’s not the correct interpretation and I think you know that. BTW, Fertitta is an ass and a terrible owner so we agree on that.

Acting like Harden was just some bystander who went to work and silently watched as the team fell apart around him is a joke.

The Rockets catered to every one of Harden’s whims. The Athletic did a whole profile on how he was given free reign to do whatever the fuck he wanted, which was one of the main reasons the relationship between him and Russ completely fell apart.

It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If the Rockets didn’t listen to Harden’s demands and terrible personnel ideas then he gets upset and he wants out. They did listen, it worked out terribly and he ended up wanting out anyway.

BTW, check out what Cousins and Wall said about Harden as he was forcing his way out. They were fellow players who were less than thrilled with what Harden did

I'm not saying Harden is an innocent bystander. I think he's an asshole and I'm not rooting for him. I think he acted like an asshole in getting out of Houston. I think the same of AD and Drummond and Griffin.

The fact that they acted like assholes doesn't mean that the system is broken. It simply means that some NBA players are assholes, and you can find those folks in any industry.

My point is that there are expectations placed on players, by fans and media, and those same expectations are not extended to ownership. Houston is a bad team because Fertitta is a bad, cheap, and petty owner. If a player is forced to play for an owner like that, he has no recourse except to ask for a trade. If the trade is refused, they typically to go to the next level of acting like they really want out. Who in their right mind would want to work for that guy? Morey didn't - he literally quit on the team, but that's the right kind of quitting I guess?

If the choice is between a league where Tillman Fertitta has sole discretion over the kind of team that a player like James Harden is on OR that a player like James Harden can choose what team he plays on, I'm going to pick the players like Harden every time, no matter how big an asshole he is. Because sometimes the players aren't assholes and they should be able to escape the Vivek Ranadives and Jerry Krause's of the world to reach their full potential.

Players really can't win. They have to get a ring or they're not among the all-time greats, but they need to play team basketball to get there. To get those teammates, they shouldn't sign for max money they can because then they don't leave their team with enough cap space to sign other star players, but if they do take less money they shouldn't do it like KD did in GS because that's unfair to the rest of the league. And they shouldn't team up with their friends like the Heatles because that's also unfair, but it's totally fine if a GM is able to cobble together KG, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen. If the team that drafted them is dysfunctional, they should just sign whatever contract to stay there because the all the fans who don't show up during their 30-52 season will be far too hurt by the rejection.

People are always going to find something to complain about, so I don't blame these guys for just ignoring the noise and riding their own wave. All of this stuff is going to become a footnote anyway, just as it did for Kareem, Jordan's retirement mid-career (is that not quitting on a team?), Shaq leaving ORL, KG asking out MN, etc.

 

[reggiecleveland]

So the requirement of James Harden is that he shuts up, goes to work, and does what he's told with 100% effort and no back talk. He has to do this for the fans.

The requirement of Tillman Fertitta is... nothing. He can alienate his GM and refuse to spend a single dollar over the luxury tax, meaning that marginal improvements for the team are much more difficult to attain. Fertitta can say whatever he wants about his employees in the media and should suffer no consequences for it. He can give like 42% effort even though he's probably the most important person to the franchise. He owes nothing to the fans apparently.

Is that the correct interpretation here? I think Harden has at least admitted he acted like an ass on his way out and regrets it. Fertitta doesn't have that kind of self-awareness.

Why does it have to be a dichotomy? Why does dislikeing the power of the players, and wanting them held accountable mean we we are siding with owners and GMs. The press makes lots of noise about the management, generally blaming them when a player wants to leave or leaves.

It is sad to me with all the opinion shows, ESPN having basically 2 hours of people talking about the same stories every day on 4 different shows, nobody has said "If I was a Pistons fan I would be pissed. Blake plays like that in Detroit maybe he gets tarded out of Detroit and my team gets some return." Or "You know Kyrie never mentioned racism until this week, and he shot 6-21, and had more turnovers and assists in the playoffs in Boston. I mean Kyrie was terrible, and should own that." Kyrie stomps on the logo like some liberated prosiner and not a peep about how shitty he played. Because his agent will deny access? Because the 15 year olds on IG have jumped on the Nets bandwagon? It's sad and bad for the game.

 

[ManicCompression]

Why does it have to be a dichotomy? Why does dislikeing the power of the players, and wanting them held accountable mean we we are siding with owners and GMs. The press makes lots of noise about the management, generally blaming them when a player wants to leave or leaves.

It is sad to me with all the opinion shows, ESPN having basically 2 hours of people talking about the same stories every day on 4 different shows, nobody has said "If I was a Pistons fan I would be pissed. Blake plays like that in Detroit maybe he gets tarded out of Detroit and my team gets some return." Or "You know Kyrie never mentioned racism until this week, and he shot 6-21, and had more turnovers and assists in the playoffs in Boston. I mean Kyrie was terrible, and should own that." Kyrie stomps on the logo like some liberated prosiner and not a peep about how shitty he played. Because his agent will deny access? Because the 15 year olds on IG have jumped on the Nets bandwagon? It's sad and bad for the game.

First off, I think a lot more ink and talk show time and meme-ification has been spent on how out of shape and shitty James Harden is than Tillman Fertitta. I'd guess the average NBA fan doesn't even know his name even though he's more dangerous to the Houston franchise than any player. But I don't watch ESPN shows, so maybe I'm wrong.

It's a dichotomy because the thesis of this thread is whether a mechanism should be put in place to limit player movement and such a mechanism would, by definition, give more power to the owners via salary slots or a hard cap or a franchise tag, etc. It's a choice between two shitty options, neither are "good." Just personally I'd rather not give morons like James Dolan more power because they've never shown they know what to do with it. Player movement is brief and we get used to it, but empowering bad ownership is a stain that can last for much longer.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

When players get to pick their teammates and choose their teammates, the nature of competition is changed. A team is supposed to make shrewd moves and signings to improve its competitive position. Now at best, the basic requirement is to engage in shrewd PR, though at worse, enjoy the fortune of being based in a desirable locale.

Get rid of the soft cap, abolish the maximum salary, those are essential first steps to alter player incentives, so we can start seeing better run franchises being rewarded.

 

[OnTheBlack]

Easiest solution is to get rid of max contracts but the players union would never allow it. It'd make decisions for these guys a lot more difficult if they had to give up more money to go play with their buddies.

This is the answer. What’s Lebron worth in his prime to a team? 100M a year maybe? Can’t build a super team when there is cap on total team salary but not on individual players. asking a guy to turn down 75M for 30M to join a super team is a much, much bigger ask. Let the free market reign here and you won’t have super teams, players get paid what they are worth, and smart salary management becomes more valuable. The max contract is a no - brainer to pay for like 30 guys in the league.

 

[lovegtm]

AD and Kawhi belong on the list

Definitely Kawhi in San Antonio, but to be fair to him, he gave it his all for the Raps while not being fully healthy, probably knowing he was leaving all along.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

We have a version of this discussion every year, right? As someone else has already noted, this is a particularly weird year to have it, given that a) injuries are showing just how fragile super-teams can be, and b) GM skill in team construction seems to be getting rewarded more than usual this year. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Travis Schlenk!)

In general, I'm all in favor of parity and levelling playing fields to make that happen, and I think it might be possible to incrementally raise the max salary over time to a level whereby only the best 10-15 players in the league will be given it, instead of c. 1-2 players per team automatically getting it. (That alone would make a big difference.) But fundamentally, this is an issue with the outsized importance that one or two great players can have on a team's outlook in basketball relative to other team sports, and there's no real way to get past that. You can't stop players from wanting to play together, and there will never be a punishment sufficent to fit the crime of dogging it to force your way out of a team, because if you're good enough, nobody will care how you left your previous team as long as you're now on their team.