Another Needed Reform
In the congruence of popular, interesting, and unimportant -- what I call "deep but not profound" -- lies the issue of sports drafts.
The NBA is in crisis, more or less, because the two worst teams defied the laws of chance and did not end up winning (as the biggest losers are supposed to do) the right to draft the two best players. Even worse, the draft winners are in the far Northwest where despite the fact that basketball is played indoors out of the rain no one wants to watch the teams in Portland and Seattle either there or on television, and everyone in the East is asleep when they play anyhow.
So it's time for reform, as it always is when televised sports are in a kafuffle. Check that spelling please.
First, why have a draft? If total salaries are capped, as management has managed to do for basketball and football (but not baseball), in order to restrain their own impulse to transfer money to their employees (an impulse that doesn't need restraining in similar hobbies, like art collecting and home renovation), then presumably every team would have the same amount of money over time and none would have an advantage over any other. So one could decide to splurge on veterans; another could spend it all on the one bright new star out of college; still another could fill the roster with six or ten from what is now a "draft class." In the aggregate, players would get the same, but the variety of strategies would increase, creating more interest in the league.
In terms of methodology, in a non-draft system each team would have a certain amount of biding money. Players would be selected by sealed bids: every team would submit a dollar bid for the player it wanted, say for a three year contract, and after one round the bids would be opened, the winners declared, and then the next round would be conducted. Teams would drop out as they ran out of bidding money. The bidding would continue until all teams had exhausted all bidding money.
Alternatively, if we assume the indentured servitude of the draft has irresistible appeal for management, then why not use the draft to reward NBA teams for playing well during the regular season, instead of for playing poorly? It is quite obvious even to the casual fan that the regular season has little meaning compared to the playoffs, since so many teams get into the playoffs, and therefore the regular season games are lackluster, and sometimes even disgracefully sloppy. If the regular season mattered more, coaches would have to dedicate more time to trying to win more games, as opposed to merely maintaining cohesion and doing reasonably well relative to other teams while waiting for the playoffs. With more at stake, the regular season games would be more fun to watch. Moreover, because of the length of the season, trying to maximize wins in the regular season would drive coaches to use more of their players, resting stars for longer periods, and that in turn would create more teamplay and less dependence on individual performance, which would add to the appeal of regular season games.
Therefore, why not have the teams winning their division in the regular season be the teams that draft the highest? One could fear that the best teams would then get ever stronger. However, what's wrong with that? The drafted players don't often stay more than a few years with the team that drafts them, and generally stars tend to be distributed across many teams in order to maximize income for each -- another effect of the salary cap -- so that if a winning team can be rewarded for at least a few years by drafting a fine rookie, the gains to the league far offset the alleged benefits of balance. In any case, balance is vastly overrated as an attraction for fans; a bunch of mediocre teams is not more interesting than a few great teams coupled with a generally more interesting regular season.
Moreover, if one wanted to mitigate the effects of a winner-takes-best draft, then allow only one person to be drafted by each team in descending order, from best regular season team to worst, but then reverse the order, and give the worst teams two draft choices each in order from worst to best teams. Thus in a 32 team league, for instance, the worst team would get choices 32, 33, and 34. In this way, quantity can offset presumed quality, at least to a degree.
Football has an even sillier draft than basketball, because it goes seven, if I recall right, rounds and the drafters are able to discriminate even less well among the draftees. Because the regular NFL season is only 16 games as opposed to 82 in the NBA, and because seeding in one-game playoffs is so much more important, in general the regular season generates more interest and fewer lackluster efforts. Nevertheless, the league could generate more fan interest by replacing the draft with a sealed bid system, with high bids winning each undrafted player. Alternatively, players could list the teams they wanted to play for, in descending order, and teams could list the players they wanted in descending order; with the magic of computers matches would be made. If the Redskins wanted LaRon Landry first and the Giants did too, but no one else did, then Landry would go to the Giants if they were higher on his list than the Skins, or vice-versa. In this system, teams would be incentivized to act fairer toward players, in order to have players rank them higher.
In summary, where are the geniuses of auction and game theory when we, sports fans, need them to reform plainly broken systems that are vital to maximizing well-being for all of us?
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English - Cite This Source
Main Entry: kerfuffle
Part of Speech: n
Definition: disorder, commotion; also written [curfuffle], [kafuffle], [gefuffle]
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
May 24, 2007 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
How come no one started complaining about the NBA draft until the Celtics and Jerry West didn't get what they wanted? I don't happen to think this system is in need of reform. Your characterization of fan interest in the Portland and Seattle franchises is way off, and I have a hard time swallowing the argument that playing on the West Coast makes you invisible to east-coast fans; Kobe Bryant doesn't seem to be suffering from a lack of exposure, and I don't recall anyone back east complaining about staying up to watch Denver or Phoenix games that started at 9:30. So, I think Oden and Durant will be just fine.
May 24, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that, I was under the misapprehension that it was kerfufle.
May 24, 2007 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's wrong with that? Nothing if you like predictablity and the same team dominating the division. The reason the drafted players leave teams is because they are losing teams. They want to go where they can win. Winning teams generally keep their drafted players.
May 24, 2007 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know that I complained when the Jazz-Warriors series was in California, because then the games started at 10:30 pm my time and didn't end until after 1am! But I'm a transplant.
I don't buy that regular season games don't matter right now. After all, overall record is what gets teams into the playoffs or earns homecourt advantage. Maybe it's since I've seen my team miss the playoffs by 1 or 2 games....
If I were going to change anything, quite honestly, it would be the structure of the playoffs. Why do this east-west thing? Right now, the Western Conference is dominant -- and has been, I'd argue, for the past decade. Even when the Bulls were at the top of their game, the East wasn't all that deep. So why not seed the teams based on record, regardless of conference?
Oh, I forgot. Television markets.
May 24, 2007 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I thought it was "kerfluffle." Glad to know the right way of it -- it's a useful word!
May 24, 2007 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it interesting that in any year when there are absolutely certain stars available in the draft, those stars don't go to the losingest team in the league? In fact I can't recall a case where that statement is untrue. It was, therefore extremely predictable that Durant and Oden would not go to one of the biggest loser teams. So, am I saying that the NBA draft is rigged? Hell yes, I am. It is a legitimate draft only when there are no truly outstanding players available.
I'm not aware of a better way to run the draft other than to simplify it so the worst teams always get the first picks. That, of course, won't sell, because then a small market team like the Sacramento Kings might get someone like Shaq in the draft. And, lest we forget, the idea behind the draft is to try to keep the competition in the league reasonably even. It doesn't work well only because of free agency, where the best players always end up with the big market teams.
Anyone who has played a team sport also knows that teams don't throw games just to get a high draft choice. Athletes want to win. Always.
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 24, 2007 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seattle is almost certain to lose the Sonics after next season. The Legislature refused to build them a new arena, maybe because we are not even done paying for the last remodel of Key Arena. And the new ownership team is from Oklahoma City and successfully hosted a displaced New Orleans team. The local paper said something about Kansas City, maybe. People are still talking a good game about wanting to keep the team here, but most people figure that when an out of state group with a public committment to bringing sports to their home city buys a sports team the writing is pretty much on the wall.
Which would give Paul Allen a good opportunity to establish a regional market. He is from Seattle and could certainly get league approval to have the Trail Blazers play some home games in Seattle, and by West Coast standards it is not hard to get to Portland from Seattle anyway.
May 24, 2007 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reed, a couple problems with your system:
1. Sports fans here on the west coast constantly complain about an "east coast" bias among the sports media, and they're right. How many times have we read stuff like this?
Who gives a damn about your sleep schedule? The Celtics' home games start at 4pm in California, essentially making them unwatchable for anyone who works for a living. World Series games start when most west coasters (and mountain timers) are still wrapping up our workdays. A few people live in California, you know.
2. Your bid system is especially flawed because many players' primary forms of revenue come off the field. If I had a choice playing for the Saints for $3MM/year or the Giants for $2.5MM/year, I'd still make more money playing for the Giants. This is the case now with free agency, and the draft is part of the system that keeps teams in Green Bay and Jacksonville competitive with the Philly and Chicago franchises.
http://rangelife.typepad.com
May 24, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really don't mean to sound snide, since I found this piece very well-written, but do you actually have any clue what you're talking about? You make several statements that are questionable at best, so let's take a look at a few of them:
Umm, what? While you're correct that IN GENERAL most if not all of the teams in the NBA have enough money to spend up to the salary cap, you're completely ignoring the fact that it's not an iron-clad cap. Teams are allowed to go above and beyond to resign their own players, and the rules involving trades allow teams to trade players with expiring, vastly overpriced contracts for players making the same or more but with 4 or 5 years left on the deal. This is how a team like the Knicks can be paying the equivalent of a capped out team ($55 mil or so) to players that aren't playing for them anymore. (I think their total team salary is in the $150 mil range, counting all those other players). So while a salary cap may decrease the gap between the economic haves and have-nots, it certainly doesn't eliminate it entirely. You also completely overlook the fact that there are individual player salary caps in addition to the team caps. Just a few minor details.
Well, do you think that the NBA would be better if LeBron had gone to the '03 Spurs or Mavericks instead of the Cavs? Or if Tim Duncan had joined Michael Jordan's Bulls in 1997, during the middle of their second threepeat? There's no question that those teams would be better, and your argument that parity doesn't necessarily mean better entertainment is valid, but it's been a clear goal of most of the major sports for a long time now. Simply put, while having more great teams (and correspondingly more awful teams) might mean more interesting playoff matchups, it also significantly increases the chances that a team will get stuck in the cellar for even longer, possibly killing fan interest in an entire city. (or in the case of San Antonio, preventing it from becoming a big-time NBA town, despite having no other major sports teams, something that probably would never have happened without Duncan and the 3, going on 4 titles)
Taking a look at the 06-07 NBA All-Stars, 16 of the 29 are still with the team that drafted them and of the remaining 13, 2 were taken in the 2nd round (Arenas and Boozer) and two of them were traded for each other (Shaq and Caron Butler). If you just look at players drafted in the Lottery, you see lots of players changing teams, but it's not the superstars, it's the busts. If a guy can play, and his team isn't a complete disaster, he's not going anywhere.
The system doesn't seem "plainly broken" to me, and for all the teams complaining about getting shafted, keep in mind that since the 1988 draft, only 3 players taken in the top 3 (the picks that the lottery decides) have won titles in their prime: Duncan, Shaq and Chauncey Billups (a few guys like Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton and Glenn Robinson also won titles, but as backups at the end of their careers).
After so many harsh words, I'll end with a few kind ones: you're right that the NBA regular season needs to be tweaked to make it more exciting. Ideally, cutting 10-20 games from the schedule would make the most sense competitively, but the economics might be tricky. But there's definitely a lot of room for improvement there.
May 24, 2007 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The NBA has priced its tickets out of reach of most people. It is now a game for TV watchers and the near wealthy. I'm not sure when that problem will ripen, but I do feel sure it will eventually. I don't have an answer for that problem, unfortunately, unless it is for the NBA to prohibit cities from becoming financial partners of the NBA owners. If NBA teams had to pay market value for their arenas they couldn't pay the outrageous salaries they now pay to even mediocre players. I think that might eventually rein in the cost of tickets to games too.
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 24, 2007 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an interesting post! But I read your statistic on the all-star game a little differently: barely more than half the all-stars are with the same team that drafted them. That tells me that with money and astute trades, in any given cohort group of all-stars the draft doesn't matter for almost half of teams. More anecdotally, the draft had little to do with the assembling of the Detroit Pistons.
The Spurs are an interesting case. As you know, it was quite a fluke that a team with Robinson was able to draft Duncan, but the lesson of the Spurs to me is that as a small market team they would be much better off if low draft picks went to them for finishing well, as opposed to obliging them to fall to the bottom after Duncan retires (may that not be for many a year) and then hoping against hope that they "win" a lottery and find another Duncan, instead of, say, Kwame Brown.
May 24, 2007 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right that the All-Stars stat cuts both ways, but I was mostly using it to show that it's not the case that a significant majority of the great players in the league change teams early in their careers. Most of those 13 are veterans, which changes the math in several ways, most significantly because a lot of them came into the league before the 1998 lockout and major CBA overhaul. The way the salary structure is now, guys like LeBron, 'Melo and Wade have to play 3 years with the team that drafted them before they can get their real contract, and even then they're going to end up spending at least 3 more years before even having a chance of opting out or realistically pushing for a trade. But this also further refutes the implied argument that the current structure doesn't allow teams enough different ways of winning.
The other stat I should have included is that only 9 of those 29 All-Stars were taken in the top 3 of the draft. Clearly you don't need to win the lottery to win a title, or even to get a superstar, but it definitely helps to have a pick in the top 10 or so. Smart teams can make the playoffs and still end up with top 10 picks (see: Suns and Bulls), and they will reap the rewards even without picking Oden or Durant (and could even end up with a player that's better than both for the first year or two, when they're still fighting for titles). Remember, the Boston team that is complaining about getting screwed is the same one that picked Chauncey Billups 3rd and traded him away.
May 25, 2007 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reed, something's not quite right about your analysis. You claim that football's seven-round draft is even sillier than the NBA's. But the NFL has turned its draft into a major event, which brings the league a great deal of money. Fans actually spend two whole days watching the draft on TV--and buy hundreds of publications to learn all about the talent coming out of college each year. Furthermore, NFL teams get good players in all rounds. Sure, the early rounds produce the most good players (and also a fair share of busts), but even in late rounds valuable--and even great--players can be acquired. Tom Brady, after all, was a sixth round pick.
The NFL draft is therefore, by many measures, an astounding success. Teams really do improve in the draft. And fans get excited about it. You are right, however, that the NBA draft produces little excitement and has almost no effect on most teams. In fact, after the first five or so picks, the NBA draft may as well be over. Rarely do players picked later than that have any impact at all.
What's the difference. It's simple and it has nothing to do with the process of drafting players. It's all about the games. Football teams need 40 good players with many different specialties to win. Having consistently good talent in all those positions is essential to success. And with injuries, finding that many good players is a challenge. Having one or two superstars is nice in football, but generally success comes from having good quality at multiple postions.
Basketball is different. In basketball, you only need 8 or 9 players and it's pretty easy to get 8 or 9 very good basketball players. Most of the players in the draft are also good to very good--but they are unlikely to be much better than most of the players you already have. And depth won't help you. What you need to win in basketball is one or two superstars, because unlike in football, in basketball the key to winning is having one or two players that no one can cover, one or two guys able to take over games. You need Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal. And those guys are rare--only one or two in most drafts, if you're lucky. So basketball's problem isn't really the draft, it's the nature of the sport and its reliance on superstars to win. Football really is a team sport. Basketball is a sport of stars. Drafts are pretty effective at getting you a pretty good team filled with pretty good players. But they aren't good at getting you a superstar, because superstars are so rare. For football, truly a team sport, drafts are great. For basketball, not so much.
May 25, 2007 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink