So the inmates continue to run the asylum, smh

[ewing]

Yes. If the players existed in a vaccum, they could just switch leagues and new owners would be abound but the world doesn't work that way. Even if you bypass the players being under a current contract, where will these new teams be formed? Im sure the major cities have deals with the major sports teams already. Are you expecting these cities to supply new arenas? You don't think there will be blowback from disgruntled fans? There's 100s of unanswered questions in a real life scenario like this.

Donald Sterling could shoot a man in the middle of 5th Avenue and you’d support him


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[Wxlves]

“Best basketball players” is also relative to what’s being shown and produced. In the United States their is no rival to the NBA. So if the NBA kicked out it’s best players let’s say lebron, curry, Durant, embiid, etc. their would just be new best players. The league has long standing established fan basis that would not quickly abandon their teams for a handful of players that really currently have nowhere to go.

If Durant said f this, I’m starting my own league by the time it got up and running and wasn’t a complete crap product his career would be over. Take products like the ncaa, where most of our talent comes from. There is interest across the board without superstar players on most any team because the talent level in a lot of cases is even across the board making it relatively competitive throughout , loyal fan basis, and long standing product.

You wouldn’t miss the top talent if it’s not their because your only able to gauge what’s the top talent based upon what’s in front of you. A top euro team may be able to come in and demolish the top ncaa team because they have more talent. But do we care? No does that make us watch and seek out a euro league game over even the worst of a college game? No. Why? Because of long-standing fandom but most importantly because we have easy access to that product so that is what becomes of interest even tho their is probably better talent to be watched elsewhere.

Players come and go. Within the next couple years all of these current best players will be gone with a new crop already taking their place. Booker, Lavine, Mitchell, etc aren’t lebron, KD and Giannis but if those guys retired tomorrow that doesn’t not mean your going to stop watching the nba because the “best players” are gone.

[NYKalltheway]

“Best basketball players” is also relative to what’s being shown and produced. In the United States their is no rival to the NBA. So if the NBA kicked out it’s best players let’s say lebron, curry, Durant, embiid, etc. their would just be new best players. The league has long standing established fan basis that would not quickly abandon their teams for a handful of players that really currently have nowhere to go.

If Durant said f this, I’m starting my own league by the time it got up and running and wasn’t a complete crap product his career would be over. Take products like the ncaa, where most of our talent comes from. There is interest across the board without superstar players on most any team because the talent level in a lot of cases is even across the board making it relatively competitive throughout , loyal fan basis, and long standing product.

You wouldn’t miss the top talent if it’s not their because your only able to gauge what’s the top talent based upon what’s in front of you. A top euro team may be able to come in and demolish the top ncaa team because they have more talent. But do we care? No does that make us watch and seek out a euro league game over even the worst of a college game? No. Why? Because of long-standing fandom but most importantly because we have easy access to that product so that is what becomes of interest even tho their is probably better talent to be watched elsewhere.

Players come and go. Within the next couple years all of these current best players will be gone with a new crop already taking their place. Booker, Lavine, Mitchell, etc aren’t lebron, KD and Giannis but if those guys retired tomorrow that doesn’t not mean your going to stop watching the nba because the “best players” are gone.

Pretty much what this guy said.

There was a time roughly 15 years ago that the best European teams could challenge the best NBA teams and the US teams were literally spooked to play in the tougher grounds as they thought their players wouldn't handle the atmosphere and get humiliated in court as a result. Back then only a handful of scouts and a couple of GMs paid attention to the European game. Now you have more scouts involved because they realize that there's sufficient talent there and you can attract it with the new NBA riches while the top European teams can no longer afford their late 2000s budgets. Field day for NBA teams to poach overseas talent.

Remove the NBA or at least provide a 2nd option in the USA and you may pave the way for lots of 2nd tier players to move to Europe, more sponsors going over there. They're not going to win American fans, but they can win the Asian, African and South American market which is enough for them.

So breaking up the NBA doesn't really guarantee that all players will go to a new league. Some will. Some wil go to other existing leagues. And most would stay in the NBA because honestly they have it good.

Now if you're talking about contraction and 200 NBA player jobs lost and there are talks that the top 10-20 players will join those in another league as protest or whatever other fantastic scenarios one could think of, we're going to have a variety of possible outcomes.
Even if you think that the best players can go and set up their owj league, there are still too many options for everyone.

And as I said earlier, the owners from top to bottom, all 30 of them, are far more united and easier to get to a collective decision than the top players.

And since for some reason the question revolves around players vs owners, who has more power. The answer is that a handful of players have too much power but on average the players count themselves lucky to be in the league to begin with.

[crewfan13]

This is kind of a ridiculous discussion, but I think there's a few main points.

Logistically, it's very difficult to start a new league. And it's very risky and the odds of basically all the top players joining the new league is virtually zero. So realistically, it's not going to happen.

But if we want to talk hypothetically and pretend there's a world where all the top players make the move to this new league, it absolutely could work.

I think people are so locked into the 82 game schedule with 30 teams and geographically based teams. Maybe that doesn't need to be the case. What if you have 16 teams. You could have them somewhat geographically located, but also essentially treat it like the PLL for lacrosse does.

You can put 4 teams in the greater Chicago area. 4 teams in LA area. 4 teams the New York area and 4 teams in Florida or Texas. Or maybe do 20 teams and do 4 in each. Those are your divisions and rivals. And you play a bunch of games around the area. So the Chicago teams basicslly barnstorm games in milwaukee, Minneapolis, st Louis, Indy ect but they can all be generally focused on the players and be in a big market.

But then you can barnstorm other markets too. Like 2 of the groups travel to Toronto for a week or two and play a bunch of games. And they do the same in Seattle. Play a few games in Charlotte or Memphis or Nashville or whatever and expose a bunch of markets to the league.

Heck, maybe you can even make the Texas pod a developmental pod. Draft some rookies to that group and some up and comers. Let them play each other and the big time teams a few teams then those players are eligible to be drafted by the big leagues the next year.

Not sure if something like that works. But if you get all the top players, you can get creative. If you focus the league to 16 teams or whatever it is, you consolidate talent and the games look better too. Plus, if you're creating the league, it's possible you can shorten the season and avoid veteran rest days. The pitch to TV networks is less games, but with less games comes guaranteed marquee matchups.

[warfelg]

This is kind of a ridiculous discussion, but I think there's a few main points.

Logistically, it's very difficult to start a new league. And it's very risky and the odds of basically all the top players joining the new league is virtually zero. So realistically, it's not going to happen.

Agreed.

But if we want to talk hypothetically and pretend there's a world where all the top players make the move to this new league, it absolutely could work.

I think people are so locked into the 82 game schedule with 30 teams and geographically based teams. Maybe that doesn't need to be the case. What if you have 16 teams. You could have them somewhat geographically located, but also essentially treat it like the PLL for lacrosse does.

I'm not sure that would work to do a PLL like travelling show. I like the 16 team idea with 4 "divisions" and tighter geographic distances. Although rather than do a PLL singe city thing, I think that they would be better off doing a "series" of playing an entire division multiple times.

Like I could see Divisions opening with a 9 game in division series to open the season. 2 teams get 2 home and 1 road, and 2 teams get 1 home and 2 road. Then you have the inter division travel. So Division A would play all of Division B in 2 game sets. Then you get the round robin of DA playing DC then DD in the same way; alternate years of which divisions you meat on the road and at home. Then close the season with the same 9 game division set but inverse of the home and away games. That's a 36 game season.

Playoffs happen with all 16 team games in a NHL like division series first. 1v4, 2v3 in a 5 game series; then winners of that in a 7 game series. Then re-seed based on the regular season records. Best of 7 series for semi's and finals. Meanwhile all the lowest seeds eliminated play for the 1st overall pick.

You can put 4 teams in the greater Chicago area. 4 teams in LA area. 4 teams the New York area and 4 teams in Florida or Texas. Or maybe do 20 teams and do 4 in each. Those are your divisions and rivals. And you play a bunch of games around the area. So the Chicago teams basicslly barnstorm games in milwaukee, Minneapolis, st Louis, Indy ect but they can all be generally focused on the players and be in a big market.

But then you can barnstorm other markets too. Like 2 of the groups travel to Toronto for a week or two and play a bunch of games. And they do the same in Seattle. Play a few games in Charlotte or Memphis or Nashville or whatever and expose a bunch of markets to the league.

I think targeting cities that don't have NBA teams will work out better for them, while at the same time going to big population centers.

Division A: Pittsburgh, Hartford, Virginia Beach, Buffalo
Division B: Ft Meyers, Tampa, Jacksonville, Charleston
Division C: Austin, Kansas City, St Louis, Nashville
Division D: San Diego, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Jose

Heck, maybe you can even make the Texas pod a developmental pod. Draft some rookies to that group and some up and comers. Let them play each other and the big time teams a few teams then those players are eligible to be drafted by the big leagues the next year.

I would do this if you wanted to do a 6 team "relegation pod", where the teams are based in 6 super regional college towns and travel to these towns to do a 4 day 2 games a day travel.

NE - Syracuse
MidA - Greensboro
SE - Birmingham
MidW - Iowa City
West - Lubbock
Pacific - Fresno

Every other year these home bases change. They are also the cities that the teams travel to for the relegation league.

Not sure if something like that works. But if you get all the top players, you can get creative. If you focus the league to 16 teams or whatever it is, you consolidate talent and the games look better too. Plus, if you're creating the league, it's possible you can shorten the season and avoid veteran rest days. The pitch to TV networks is less games, but with less games comes guaranteed marquee matchups.

I think the hardest part you would have of convincing the top players on is a single thing: 16 teams, 5 top players per team would be 80 top players. But once you get to player 81, who's still a starter in the NBA, they would be a bench player in this league. Plus maybe player 40 and lower guys wouldn't want to go to be the 4th best guy on the team when they could be the guy on a competing team league.

[Scoots]

This is kind of a ridiculous discussion, but I think there's a few main points.

Logistically, it's very difficult to start a new league. And it's very risky and the odds of basically all the top players joining the new league is virtually zero. So realistically, it's not going to happen.

But if we want to talk hypothetically and pretend there's a world where all the top players make the move to this new league, it absolutely could work.

I think people are so locked into the 82 game schedule with 30 teams and geographically based teams. Maybe that doesn't need to be the case. What if you have 16 teams. You could have them somewhat geographically located, but also essentially treat it like the PLL for lacrosse does.

You can put 4 teams in the greater Chicago area. 4 teams in LA area. 4 teams the New York area and 4 teams in Florida or Texas. Or maybe do 20 teams and do 4 in each. Those are your divisions and rivals. And you play a bunch of games around the area. So the Chicago teams basicslly barnstorm games in milwaukee, Minneapolis, st Louis, Indy ect but they can all be generally focused on the players and be in a big market.

But then you can barnstorm other markets too. Like 2 of the groups travel to Toronto for a week or two and play a bunch of games. And they do the same in Seattle. Play a few games in Charlotte or Memphis or Nashville or whatever and expose a bunch of markets to the league.

Heck, maybe you can even make the Texas pod a developmental pod. Draft some rookies to that group and some up and comers. Let them play each other and the big time teams a few teams then those players are eligible to be drafted by the big leagues the next year.

Not sure if something like that works. But if you get all the top players, you can get creative. If you focus the league to 16 teams or whatever it is, you consolidate talent and the games look better too. Plus, if you're creating the league, it's possible you can shorten the season and avoid veteran rest days. The pitch to TV networks is less games, but with less games comes guaranteed marquee matchups.

The problem with this is the limited money. More games equals more tickets sold and more tickets is more money. 4 teams in LA would mean 6 teams in LA which means cheaper tickets to be able to sell out games most likely.

I think it could work short term but the NBA would react by offering bigger contracts that can't be matched by the new league, and looking to lock up more players and more areas and their marketing would step up a ton. I just think it would be near impossible for the players league to win long term.

I think the vast majority of the young players coming in would choose the NBA because they would be getting told that they will be the new stars and they would be paid a lot more, and how many kids have been dreaming their whole lives about playing in the startup league vs playing in the NBA?

[Scoots]

Agreed.



I'm not sure that would work to do a PLL like travelling show. I like the 16 team idea with 4 "divisions" and tighter geographic distances. Although rather than do a PLL singe city thing, I think that they would be better off doing a "series" of playing an entire division multiple times.

Like I could see Divisions opening with a 9 game in division series to open the season. 2 teams get 2 home and 1 road, and 2 teams get 1 home and 2 road. Then you have the inter division travel. So Division A would play all of Division B in 2 game sets. Then you get the round robin of DA playing DC then DD in the same way; alternate years of which divisions you meat on the road and at home. Then close the season with the same 9 game division set but inverse of the home and away games. That's a 36 game season.

Playoffs happen with all 16 team games in a NHL like division series first. 1v4, 2v3 in a 5 game series; then winners of that in a 7 game series. Then re-seed based on the regular season records. Best of 7 series for semi's and finals. Meanwhile all the lowest seeds eliminated play for the 1st overall pick.



I think targeting cities that don't have NBA teams will work out better for them, while at the same time going to big population centers.

Division A: Pittsburgh, Hartford, Virginia Beach, Buffalo
Division B: Ft Meyers, Tampa, Jacksonville, Charleston
Division C: Austin, Kansas City, St Louis, Nashville
Division D: San Diego, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Jose



I would do this if you wanted to do a 6 team "relegation pod", where the teams are based in 6 super regional college towns and travel to these towns to do a 4 day 2 games a day travel.

NE - Syracuse
MidA - Greensboro
SE - Birmingham
MidW - Iowa City
West - Lubbock
Pacific - Fresno

Every other year these home bases change. They are also the cities that the teams travel to for the relegation league.



I think the hardest part you would have of convincing the top players on is a single thing: 16 teams, 5 top players per team would be 80 top players. But once you get to player 81, who's still a starter in the NBA, they would be a bench player in this league. Plus maybe player 40 and lower guys wouldn't want to go to be the 4th best guy on the team when they could be the guy on a competing team league.

I think targeting the biggest cities without teams makes obvious sense ... whether the star players who left to get control of their careers would want to play in Kansas City or Buffalo is certainly an open question.

[valade16]

“Best basketball players” is also relative to what’s being shown and produced. In the United States their is no rival to the NBA. So if the NBA kicked out it’s best players let’s say lebron, curry, Durant, embiid, etc. their would just be new best players. The league has long standing established fan basis that would not quickly abandon their teams for a handful of players that really currently have nowhere to go.

If Durant said f this, I’m starting my own league by the time it got up and running and wasn’t a complete crap product his career would be over. Take products like the ncaa, where most of our talent comes from. There is interest across the board without superstar players on most any team because the talent level in a lot of cases is even across the board making it relatively competitive throughout , loyal fan basis, and long standing product.

You wouldn’t miss the top talent if it’s not their because your only able to gauge what’s the top talent based upon what’s in front of you. A top euro team may be able to come in and demolish the top ncaa team because they have more talent. But do we care? No does that make us watch and seek out a euro league game over even the worst of a college game? No. Why? Because of long-standing fandom but most importantly because we have easy access to that product so that is what becomes of interest even tho their is probably better talent to be watched elsewhere.

Players come and go. Within the next couple years all of these current best players will be gone with a new crop already taking their place. Booker, Lavine, Mitchell, etc aren’t lebron, KD and Giannis but if those guys retired tomorrow that doesn’t not mean your going to stop watching the nba because the “best players” are gone.

We are talking about whether to watch inferior talent in the NBA vs superior talent at another league. I think people are drastically under estimating how many people want to watch the best players.

[NYKalltheway]

We are talking about whether to watch inferior talent in the NBA vs superior talent at another league. I think people are drastically under estimating how many people want to watch the best players.

I know times have changed but you're also underestimating how people are not very eager to get out of their comfort zone to watch something else. They're still going to look for the best players available and if their options remain the same (ie NBA vs WNBA vs college) they'll stick with the NBA.

The new league has to be widely available and cheap to follow if they want to win the crowds.

At the same time, it's true that a lot of people will turn off their subscription if they only got it for the NBA with the condition that the best of the best would feature and they know that the top 30 players have left for another league.

[valade16]

I know times have changed but you're also underestimating how people are not very eager to get out of their comfort zone to watch something else. They're still going to look for the best players available and if their options remain the same (ie NBA vs WNBA vs college) they'll stick with the NBA.

The new league has to be widely available and cheap to follow if they want to win the crowds.

At the same time, it's true that a lot of people will turn off their subscription if they only got it for the NBA with the condition that the best of the best would feature and they know that the top 30 players have left for another league.

This is the age of people being able to watch whatever they want on whatever platform they want.

[Scoots]

I know times have changed but you're also underestimating how people are not very eager to get out of their comfort zone to watch something else. They're still going to look for the best players available and if their options remain the same (ie NBA vs WNBA vs college) they'll stick with the NBA.

The new league has to be widely available and cheap to follow if they want to win the crowds.

At the same time, it's true that a lot of people will turn off their subscription if they only got it for the NBA with the condition that the best of the best would feature and they know that the top 30 players have left for another league.

That wouldn't be as true for the 25 and under crowd, but the old guys who still just have cable TV and want to switch on the NBA show and watch whatever game is on are not likely to go searching for the new league.

Where it becomes more difficult is after several years are new stars choosing the players league or the NBA? If it's the NBA then the show will quickly swing back to the NBA.

[NYKalltheway]

That wouldn't be as true for the 25 and under crowd, but the old guys who still just have cable TV and want to switch on the NBA show and watch whatever game is on are not likely to go searching for the new league.

Where it becomes more difficult is after several years are new stars choosing the players league or the NBA? If it's the NBA then the show will quickly swing back to the NBA.

The money isn't with the 25 and under crew.

Lots of teens and children would miss out because their families won't have this service. That's where you build some unconscious loyalty.
And the 25-34 demographic is far more wealthy than the 18-24 demographic, so sponsors and investors are more likely to target the former.
Higher income, higher spending as it includes people starting a family, building a household and generally have better jobs than the u25 kids.

There's still going to be some migration from that population, maybe owning both platforms, but it won't be significant.

You can see this with the various streaming services. People are slowly backing down from multiple services after the lockdown. Pretty sure it applies to tv provision as well.