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As always, massive thanks to our producer Brian Foster.
Show Notes
Arturo has a long history of writing about the draft. He and Dave Berri worked on a piece for the Wall Street Journal on the history of the draft and the strength of each pick. It turns out the first collaboration between Arturo and myself was a history of elite rookies. And of course, Arturo has been tinkering on a draft model for years now.
The draft isn't about fairness. It's all about controlling incoming player pay, which was its origin. Also, the veteran players get a piece of the pie, and this helps keep them cooperative in lockouts when the owners offer less money. In short, the way to fix the draft is to get rid of it. Matt Yglesias at Slate agrees! And despite the majority of ESPN pieces about "fixing the draft", Kevin Arnovitz published the same point a year ago.
There was a similar system to the draft: the National Match System for deciding where future doctors have their residencies. It turns out there was a lawsuit claiming this was anti-competitive. The fix was that congress passed a law allowing an exception and as a result the lawsuit was dismissed. It short, forcing people to work places is definitely anti-competitive, but it seems the powerful like to keep it in place.
Arturo has some fun theories on what would happen to the NBA economy if the draft was lost. He also has a few predictions for the future of the NBA economy based on some of the newer owners. Having a love of soccer gives Arturo a unique perspective. The great book Soccernomics has some points on this. Arturo also rubs in that one of the best soccer owners is Josh Kroenke, aka the Nuggets' former owner.
Owners may "lose" money at the gate, but there are tons of ways to monetize an NBA team. They're huge tax shelters, appreciate in value, and provide good ways to move money.
The NBA has a proposal for a new draft system. No longer will the worst teams gets top picks, now your next 30 years worth of picks would be decided ahead of time. While this would help prevent tanking, Arturo has another suggestion (if we're forced to keep the draft): instead of giving out draft picks, give out draft credits. Create a market for bidding on incoming players each season. A team can save their credits. And a player's contract would be based on the number of credits a team bids on them. Each year's bidding market would be must watch television.
A similar idea was posted on ESPN's ask an economist, by an economist that Arturo told the idea to at Sloan.
It's pronounced "kah-WHY" Leonard, which I was saying. Yet, oddly I say Arturo was right after Brian looks it up.
Another way to fix the NBA is to allow relegation like European football. How odd is it that so many ways to fix basketball is to treat it like soccer? '
How about this idea too: if playoff teams in one conference have fewer wins that teams out of the playoffs in the other conference, then they play a three game playoff the week before the playoffs to decide who gets in?
Last year we went to Sloan and were photographed next to several NBA management stars with Jeremy Britton's now famous t-shirt design. We're going back this year and are looking for some good t-shirt ideas. I had one "Arturo for Commissioner"
We get a little off topic discussing the NFL, Peyton Manning, and the playoffs. End point, playoffs are random, there's no asterisks for titles.
The NBA has a great chance to become the most popular sport in america. Football's concussion problems may scare away future talent. Baseball has been waning in popularity (Arturo calls it an old man's game). If the NBA made smart management moves, it could really benefit. New owners like Mikhail Prokhorov could take teams out of weaker markets and put them in stronger markets and improve the NBA.
Wrap Up
We finished talking the draft and got into NBA history. If you're a fan of that then might I suggest Dr. J's Autobiography? I was lucky enough for the doctor himself to tweet back at me after I finished reading it,
"@NerdNumbers: Hey @OfficialDrJ6, just finished your book. It was amazing, insightful and poetic. Thank you so much." No ...thank you!
— Julius Dr J Erving (@OfficialDrJ6) December 20, 2013
If you're a fan of ABA history, then Terry Pluto's Loose Balls is a must read too. It's Christmas Eve, so if you're still looking for a gift, a two pack of those books would make any NBA history fan's day.
Arturo makes a random observation, the Knicks may not be good at basketball but have produced some of the best coaches in the NBA. Arturo also shouts out some of the great Knicks bloggers. The Knicks are good at a long of things related to basketball, just not so much the basketball itself. It's no coincidence their last title run season coincided with something else.
That's our show, happy holidays!