Watercooler Talk: Relegation?

[Celtics18]

Relegation would mean there is an available team that's better than a NBA squad. Since Kentucky can't be elevated as they're currently still amateurs, I don't think it's a topic right now that has much merit .

It wouldn't mean that if they created two tiered divisions among existing NBA teams and relegated and/or promoted teams based on their yearly record within their given division.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

Relegation would mean there is an available team that's better than a NBA squad. Since Kentucky can't be elevated as they're currently still amateurs, I don't think it's a topic right now that has much merit .

It will be the Second Division Champions, and the proposed second divisikn would be the D League.

Sure, right now if you take the worst team (Bucks) and the D League champs (Fort Wayne) you can say that the Bucks would handily beat them. But having some sort of a reward/demote system I think the D League would be much more active in building a better roster, as theres NBA promotion at hand and the bottom dwelling teams in the NBA would compete till the final game to avoid demotion.

It eliminates tanking, I think it adds better competition and drama to the NBA season as well. I mean no one wants to be demoted and on the other side, everyone is fighting for promotion. Thats competition at its finest level

[freshinthehouse]

Actually it would never work. NBA teams share arenas with hockey teams and other various functions(circus, ice capades, concerts, conventions, etc.). Scheduling is done a year ahead of time and coordinated with all the other entities that have events going. The logistics of trying to leave the end of the season unscheduled and to be determined could never happen.

The differences between outdoor soccer in Europe where soccer has little to no competition for sports entertainment dollars and indoor basketball in America on a professional level with television rights, local broadcast rights, arena scheduling, and the competition of other sports for the entertainment dollar make relegation impossible here

A TP goes to Nick for dropping some science on everyone.  I don't think people realize how irrelivant nba basketball in most cities if their team became trapped in a cycle of losing w/o a solid chance at getting a top pick.  In most every market basketball is 3rd behind MLB and the NFL, and in some markets it is behind sports such as college basketball, college football, the NHL, and Nascar.  Teams would get stuck in ruts where there is no real chance of getting out.  Teams would fail.  Teams would fold.  That doesn't sound like a winning formula to me.

Bad teams need good draft picks to get better.  That's how sports work. 

[fitzhickey]

please keep your hands off European soccer. The farce that is American pro sports is best left in America.

Yeah, we don't have enough  stands collapsing, stampedes or hooligans here for it to work.  You would have one soccer team, Nazi Germany if not for us Yanks.

Well that was unnecessary

[hwangjini_1]

please keep your hands off European soccer. The farce that is American pro sports is best left in America.

Yeah, we don't have enough  stands collapsing, stampedes or hooligans here for it to work.  You would have one soccer team, Nazi Germany if not for us Yanks.

I suspect they could have up to three.  Germany, Soviet, and England.

With the soviet union playing the most prominent and important role in the defeat of Germany then. US history books don't like to speak to that very often.

[Kuberski33]

please keep your hands off European soccer. The farce that is American pro sports is best left in America.

Yeah, we don't have enough  stands collapsing, stampedes or hooligans here for it to work.  You would have one soccer team, Nazi Germany if not for us Yanks.

Well that was unnecessary

The thing I always appreciate about European soccer or soccer in general is that unlike the NBA they don't need Jumbotron's the entertain the casual fans.

[nickagneta]

Given that we already do it for the playoffs the logistics wouldn't be completely impossible. It would be a headache to coordinate but having a large number of teams involved gives you a decent margin of error. If 20 is too much, the # of post-split games could also be shrunk down to a point where it's easier to arrange.

We don't actually do it for the playoffs. The playoff schedule is worked out at the time of the regular season schedule and teams consult with their arena the possibility of dates and times they may need the arena if they make the playoffs. Arenas make huge money during playoff games and so accommodate by being flexible. Being that flexible for a portion of the regular season and the playoffs would be bad business and a logistics nightmare. Not to mention most arenas, especially for regular season games of bad teams versus bad teams won't make nearly the money they would for playoff basketball so there is no incentive for them to do it.

And as I have mentioned, the NBAPA would NEVER allow this to happen. NEVER. It could hurt the brand name of players that market themselves in other endeavors. Sooner or later the owners, who would also NEVER allow this to happen, would want to pay this players less when in the second division. The NBAPA would know this and strike the minute this became what the NBA was all about.

People need to realize that the professional sports model in America is different and has had no problem making gobs of money in a much more intensive and competitive market for sports dollars than European soccer. The anti-tanking agenda the league MIGHT someday have, because they really don't right now nor do they care to fix it, will be something that keeps their business model intact instead of completely ripping it apart and starting all over again. You rip up your business model and start all over again when the business model doesn't work. Everyone in the NBA is making huge cash. The business model is working fine and needs a tweak here or there, not a complete overhaul.

[LooseCannon]

Having a relegation system like the English Premier League would make the most sense if you also adopted the playoff structure of the English Premier League.