OT (ish) - Lowe Post / Adam Silver Comments

[MikeSU02]

Some interesting comments on Zach Lowe's podcast with Adam Silver when Zach was asking about potential new items for the NBA:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=14417801

- Increased D-League salaries
- Additional NBA roster spots (increasing from 15 to 17 for two-way contracts)
- Two-way contracts (meaning that if one of those rosters new roster spots has a guy that bounces up from the NBA to the D-League, his contract adjusts with the league, bouncing between, for example, $500K annual salary and $80K annual salary)
- Third round to the NBA draft

The overall goal is to make the NBA D-League more appealing to guys who would otherwise go to Europe or China (where it is very difficult to come back to the NBA). And, with the additional roster spots, allow teams to get fringe guys working on their system and be able to bounce between the leagues with less friction to the teams that need them to produce.

My own take is that this is just a first step in the eventual expansion of the D-League to mirror a full throttle minor league system that would be an alternative to college, mostly for the top 20-50 players each year. The NBA caps league entrance as +1 year post-graduating HS class, but allows HS graduates to go directly to the D-League. Just my 0.02.

[EDIT: Link to podcast added]

 

[PeteCalvin]

This makes the AAU coaches far more powerful, IMHO. And could potentially dirty up the whole thing beyond repair. Colleges would get penalized throwing an AAU coach a few grand to steer a kid to their school, but D-League agents can do it without penalty. There are going to be far more kids pushed the D-League route for kickbacks, and many of those kids will flounder.

I guess the NCAA (or Power 5) could always give kids a chance to come back to college after a year of D-League play as long as they never moved up to the NBA.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

This makes the AAU coaches far more powerful, IMHO. And could potentially dirty up the whole thing beyond repair. Colleges would get penalized throwing an AAU coach a few grand to steer a kid to their school, but D-League agents can do it without penalty. There are going to be far more kids pushed the D-League route for kickbacks, and many of those kids will flounder.

I guess the NCAA (or Power 5) could always give kids a chance to come back to college after a year of D-League play as long as they never moved up to the NBA.

You know, the NCAA could win that if they allowed players to profit from their own name and likeness.

 

[MikeSU02]

This makes the AAU coaches far more powerful, IMHO. And could potentially dirty up the whole thing beyond repair. Colleges would get penalized throwing an AAU coach a few grand to steer a kid to their school, but D-League agents can do it without penalty. There are going to be far more kids pushed the D-League route for kickbacks, and many of those kids will flounder.

I guess the NCAA (or Power 5) could always give kids a chance to come back to college after a year of D-League play as long as they never moved up to the NBA.

All kids would have to come through the draft, that is why they would have the extra draft round.

The Westchester Knicks couldn't pay a kid to come from Lincoln HS to the D-League. Kid would have to go through the draft.

Isn't that a pretty good safeguard? Or am I misinterpreting your post?

 

[PeteCalvin]

All kids would have to come through the draft, that is why they would have the extra draft round.

The Westchester Knicks couldn't pay a kid to come from Lincoln HS to the D-League. Kid would have to go through the draft.

Isn't that a pretty good safeguard? Or am I misinterpreting your post?

I see what you're saying. Totally brain-farted on the draft.

An extra round is just more opportunity for Euro players to be taken and stored for later use.

 

[Melancer46]

I came away from the podcast with the same conclusion regarding a full blown minor league. I've thought that + the extra draft round was the direction that the NBA wanted to go in for a while now.

 

[MikeSU02]

I came away from the podcast with the same conclusion regarding a full blown minor league. I've thought that + the extra draft round was the direction that the NBA wanted to go in for a while now.

Yeah, agreed.

And to be honest, I think it would be good for both the NBA and the NCAA to have the very elite players in a professional minor league system instead of pretending to be student-athletes.

If I were in charge, I would actually want a system where elite kids, at a younger age, could actually do training/education in a system like you have if you are a skier or tennis player. Get the kids out of AAU and into those types of situations where the education is there, but the structure allows for intensive basketball training.

 

[PeteCalvin]

Yeah, agreed.

And to be honest, I think it would be good for both the NBA and the NCAA to have the very elite players in a professional minor league system instead of pretending to be student-athletes.

If I were in charge, I would actually want a system where elite kids, at a younger age, could actually do training/education in a system like you have if you are a skier or tennis player. Get the kids out of AAU and into those types of situations where the education is there, but the structure allows for intensive basketball training.

The AAU big shots would fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening. But I agree completely. AAU is so dirty, and so few programs concentrate on teaching the game.

 

[Knicks411]

Silver has been really making the rounds lately. Woj, Lowe, Francesca.

Yeah, agreed.

And to be honest, I think it would be good for both the NBA and the NCAA to have the very elite players in a professional minor league system instead of pretending to be student-athletes.

If I were in charge, I would actually want a system where elite kids, at a younger age, could actually do training/education in a system like you have if you are a skier or tennis player. Get the kids out of AAU and into those types of situations where the education is there, but the structure allows for intensive basketball training.

Yeah I think the full blown minor league team is the way to go. You can have your coaches running the same system the NBA team uses for the D-League team, while you control every player on the roster, etc.