LeBron James supports contraction of some NBA teams

[97 bulls]

NBA was still in its infancy back then in terms of popularity but it was still competitive. Bucks, Sonics, Blazers, Bullets/Wizards...all these teams have their one and only title from the 70's.

Yeah, there are enough talents in the league but there are also too many crappy players too. Some of these scrubs need to be working 9-5 jobs, not the in the NBA.

Don't you agree that guys like Gerard Wallace, Chris Paul, Kevin Love, etc...are all wasting their talents on teams nobody care about? But if you combined their talents on a Wolves/Bobcats team or a Hornets/Wolves team, more people would start caring about their games.

Miami can't even fill their stadium and they have three allstars and are 22 and 8 I believe. The bulls were shitty for over 10 years and they still had a packed house every night. Its not the players, its the owners. The hornets were one player away from being a contender a few years ago and their FO wouldn't do what it took to put their team over the top. I mean not everyone can win. Go back and look at all the greats that never won. And there were great players that were on crappy teams. For their career even more. And this was in a mid 20 team league.

[Mamba]

The good players would still get a shot. There would still be more than enough teams to support the good players. The scrubs at the end of the bench are the only ones who would be gone.

and so they should, they get paid millions of dollars to clap every game, im sorry but i agree with lebron, if it wasn't for the watered down teams gm's wouldn't have to overpay crap players.

larry hughes would of never recieved that fat of a contract.

[yeaaaman]

We're not looking to add more than 82 games here so injuries will happen whether it's 82 games or 66 games or 50 games.

82 is too much in terms of quality basketball when you have teams like the Bobcats, Nets, Wolves, Hornets, etc...but 82 would be fine if a few of those teams are eliminated and their talents are on one roster.

8 teams, less games = less money. 24 is actually leaning in favor of your POV but like 97bulls, you're trying to go extreme with 8 team just to try to shut down my view even though mine isn't extreme at all. It's actually reasonable for fans who still want the games and talents to be displayed.

If you reread I didn't say 8 teams total I said 8 per conference, that shouldn't necessarily be extreme 16 teams, or maybe 10 per conference for 20 teams. Because if you want to contract to 24 I'd say there are lot more than 6 sh*t teams if we're going down that route.

[CMsam]

I disagree with the person who said every team entering the playoffs is bad. I think it's alright because in the end not every teams going to win a ring or be in the finals atleast but two. The chances of the players turning into sixth men if this does happen will not really effect the team it'll effec them because their tempo players who control nothing but that. We see what happens when there's two superstars needing the ball it's either off the ball offense or quality plays one or the other.

There does have to be adequate incentive to win regular season games. You can't have everyone make the playoffs. Otherwise why would they play a regular season? And there has to be enough teams competing for playoff spots to keep teams from being able to coast basically from the start of the allstar break.

That's why I think 28 teams is a good number. 16 teams will make the playoffs, 12 will miss them. But competition will be tighter so race for the spots will be closer. Would you rather have 6 teams who are all out of it by February, or 4 teams who are in it till the end? Quality over quantity, I say.


Altho it's definitely true the league would have to make a short-term financial sacrifice for long-term good. But the NBA is not the only basketball league out there, and it does not have a monopoly on global talent. Foreign leagues are eating into the NBA's pool of talent, and the NBA needs to understand that and adjust its size accordingly.

[Sarcastic]

and so they should, they get paid millions of dollars to clap every game, im sorry but i agree with lebron, if it wasn't for the watered down teams gm's wouldn't have to overpay crap players.

larry hughes would of never recieved that fat of a contract.

This is pretty much why the Knicks had an awful decade. They tried to just be good enough to make the playoffs, and continuously paid semi decent stars tons of money, and it destroyed them. They were never bad enough to get an early pick in the draft, and they were saddled with huge contracts.

[DeronMillsap]

Miami can't even fill their stadium and they have three allstars and are 22 and 8 I believe. The bulls were shitty for over 10 years and they still had a packed house every night. Its not the players, its the owners. The hornets were one player away from being a contender a few years ago and their FO wouldn't do what it took to put their team over the top. I mean not everyone can win. Go back and look at all the greats that never won. And there were great players that were on crappy teams. For their career even more. And this was in a mid 20 team league.

If we get rid of the scrubs then the owners wouldn't have to make so many bad deals and signings. They see a "star" player putting up all-star stats so they'll assume he's a great player but in reality he, at best, is an average player on a championship contending team.

I'm not what the Heat and Bulls attendance have to do with my previous statement. Fans will come out more when their teams are competitive. Chicago is one of those major markets that will sell-out no matter how their teams are doing. It's the Charlotte's, New Orlean's and Memphis' that suffers.
Heat fans aren't showing up but their season tickets were all sold-out so I am assuming a lot of the ticket buyers were scalpers.

[97 bulls]

The good players would still get a shot. There would still be more than enough teams to support the good players. The scrubs at the end of the bench are the only ones who would be gone.

Ok but who cares about scrubs on the bench. The 12th man rarely plays anyway. Even when there were mid 20 team leagues. I just saying, even if you move the teams down to 24, your always gonna have bad teams

[DeronMillsap]

If you reread I didn't say 8 teams total I said 8 per conference, that shouldn't necessarily be extreme 16 teams, or maybe 10 per conference for 20 teams. Because if you want to contract to 24 I'd say there are lot more than 6 sh*t teams if we're going down that route.

Yes, there are a lot more than 6 scrub teams right now but some of those teams have stars on their squad. Get them drafted(like an expansion draft) to the other scrub teams then half of those crappy teams would be reduced.

[97 bulls]

If we get rid of the scrubs then the owners wouldn't have to make so many bad deals and signings. They see a "star" player putting up all-star stats so they'll assume he's a great player but in reality he, at best, is an average player on a championship contending team.

I'm not what the Heat and Bulls attendance have to do with my previous statement. Fans will come out more when their teams are competitive. Chicago is one of those major markets that will sell-out no matter how their teams are doing. It's the Charlotte's, New Orlean's and Memphis' that suffers.
Heat fans aren't showing up but their season tickets were all sold-out so I am assuming a lot of the ticket buyers were scalpers.

Owners have been making bad deals for as long as I can remember. It ain't gonna change even if you disband a few teams. I mean its not like the league is gonna have a 50 win team in every city. It just can't happen.

[bluechox2]

teams i would remove: bobcats, clippers, hornets, grizzlies, warriors, kings (move them to las vegas) maybe move another team to seattle

[DeronMillsap]

Ok but who cares about scrubs on the bench. The 12th man rarely plays anyway. Even when there were mid 20 team leagues. I just saying, even if you move the teams down to 24, your always gonna have bad teams

But the bad teams weren't that bad compared to today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976%E2%80%9377_NBA_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_NBA_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978%E2%80%9379_NBA_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975%E2%80%9376_NBA_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974%E2%80%9375_NBA_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973%E2%80%9374_NBA_season

See how many 30+win bad teams there were in the 70's? Even the worse teams hover around 27 wins but it's only 1 or 2 teams, not 5-6 terrible teams like it is nowadays.

Now we get about five or six 10-20 win teams freakin' every season.

[97 bulls]

Let's take the suns for instance. Jared dudley who is a quality bench player would be relegated to possibly a 10th man. I just don't see how that makes the league better. Dudley would never get any burn as a 10th guy. You wanna make the league better, cut the season down to 60 games. So like yeaman said each game is more important. [CODE][CODE][/CODE][/CODE]

[bdreason]

You're going to have disparity regardless. Say you contract 6 teams and are left with 12 All-Stars to disperse (more like 8-10). So 12 of the 24 remaining teams gets an extra All-Star caliber player, and the other 12 teams stay the same (get worse).


Plus, whose to say the best players remain in the NBA? With the talent scouts on some of these teams, the NBA would probably just lose a bunch of quality players, and keep a bunch of athletic scrubs with "potential".

[Mamba]

Let's take the suns for instance. Jared dudley who is a quality bench player would be relegated to possibly a 10th man. I just don't see how that makes the league better. Dudley would never get any burn as a 10th guy. You wanna make the league better, cut the season down to 60 games. So like yeaman said each game is more important. [CODE][CODE][/CODE][/CODE]

if jared dudley works his arse off in practice and in the 20 minutes a game he would get u better believe he'd deserve playing time.

not any of this lets give t-mac another shot because hey he played great once, got paid started playing like shit, but he spent all his money that he earnt so lets give him another shot by paying him 5 mil a year and see if things can work out with him.

[lpublic_enemyl]

point is the nba is a business and if contracting will cost money and reduced profits then why shud they do it, but the idea of a better league is enticing