SSBA

Should I give the teams an option of adding a third year to 2nd round draft picks, helping them retain them by giving them bird rights?

(This would begin for next years draft class)

Absolutly. I'm set up to lose 3 members of my team last year that were going to be important members of my team this year, all because I don't have bird rights.

Why should a team be punished for finding a 2nd round gem? Doesn't make sense.

I would say yes, but it would be great if the third year was for the MLE...  (like early bird rights)
And if you had to make that decision from the start, it would be a tough call to make.

*sigh*

Do you listen when we have these arguments?

It's part of the risk/reward of a 2nd round pick.  The reward is that you don't have a 4 year guaranteed contract for a 2nd round bust.  

The last pick (29th of the draft) of the first round has a guaranteed contract of 7.6 million over 4 years.  The very next pick (first pick of the 2nd round) has a guaranteed contract of about .7 million over 2 years.  Substantial more risk for that one draft slot.

If you add a 3rd year of 600k to the 2nd round pick, it's still only a 1.3 million dollar commitment over 3 years.  6 million less than the pick before him.  Then to top it off, you can give him the maximum contract.

This makes late first round picks virtually worthless.  And early 2nd round picks worth 100% more.  There's no balance whatsoever, and I hate the idea.

I agree.  Something to make it a tough choice.  Something to make it a risk.

Simply adding the third year adds no risk, and offers a great deal of reward.

yea i agree too make it a tough choice for the gm who wants to add a third year.

yes

I added a third option to the poll.

Well, my vote just changed to option 3. But I already voted option 1.

So if you think you found a gem, then you add the year from the start.  You can get his bird rights, but your cap space is likely screwed if the player does not work out.
Although, it does create a whole lot of expiring contracts, unless you are unable to trade the player while he is in his third year...

If not, and your players still gets better, you still have the option of using the MLE on the player.  You have the advantage, since the players loyalty is in the favor of the team who drafted him.

I don't really see much reason not to pick up the third year if you are going to be over the cap... there's little risk involved there... This still inflates the value of early 2nd round picks.
Plus, many people have traded away their second rounders based on the current rules.

I say if you want to resign them, use your MLE. Tough luck if they sign with someone else, but you should have a decent shot at them with the loyalty factor.

That's why I won't do it until next year, to minimize this affect (we couldn't negate it unless we wait 3 years).



I agree.



I agree.

First, the loyalty factor plays in only if you assume it is higher than the greed or play for winner factors.

Second, if you have to add the third year right after the draft & before TC then how do you know if you found a gem?   You might as well just add a third year to all second rounders.  It would take at least the first TC to know if the player is a gem or not.

I would suggest that managers have the option after the first TC but before the first sim to offer an extension.   Also I think the 1 year contract should be substantially more than the MLE.  More in line with 75% of the max allowed.

i voted for the first option because when you have a steal in the second round...you deserve a reward... :D if his performing well in his playing time then there should be an option to extend his contract...

The option makes sense when it can be used after the 2nd year during the resign period - thats when teams in any sport make such decisions.

The salary for the third year should not be more than the LLE. Why punish a team who finds a gem there ? You have 1st rounders for much less in the 3rd and 4th year as well (from 2.0 to 3.5 mio in the 4th year) - so why charge 4.5mio for a 2nd rounder ???



Overall it would value the 2nd round A LOT MORE since teams would not only try to get rid of 2nd rd picks (especially below #35) but really start to scout people and also keep them on rosters for development.

But in the NBA there are provisions that declare what you can and can't offer.  This isn't a re-signing.  That's possible now.  We're talking about extending bird rights.



Because first rounders have guaranteed contracts.  

If you make 2nd rounders 2 year deals starting at 300k with the team option on a third year at such a low price, the 30th pick in the draft becomes infinitely more valuable than the 29th pick in the draft.

You are completely right. But everyone knows - in real life and in the sim - that the 30th pick IS much more valuable than the 29th pick since you dont have to carry the contract for so long and get roughly the same talent.
(except for San Antonio officials but they live on another planet anyway aka Parker/Gino picks) :wink:

But in real life I think its easier to resign those players since the are often grateful for getting a chance making the team and have more "team-based" loyalty than the sim would ever allow.

Now it would be interesting to compare NBA resigns of 2nd rounders who developed good and Sim 2nd rounder swho played good - if there's a significant difference to see. Otherwise i'd approve to keep the system as it is - life is hard sometimes, but so is it in the real world, too. And we sim this real world ...

That depends on the teams preference.

There are reasons why some teams might value the 29th pick in the real nba more than the 30th.  There are reasons why some teams might value the 30th pick more than the 29th pick.

In the NBA there are pro's and con's for each.  The pro for the 29th pick (outside of drafting earlier) is that you get him, guaranteed, for 4 years, and have unlimited resources to re-sign him after that.   The con is that you do guarantee that money if he's a bust.

The pro's for the 29th pick is that there is considerably less guaranteed money (as I said, something to the tune of 7.6 million vs .7 million).  The con is that it's much harder to re-sign this player after two years.

That's the way 2nd round picks are built.  If we remove one of those checks, it throws everything out of whack.

I tend to agree here. We would give 2nd rounders way too much emphasis and build an artifical hype that's simply not appropriate for the one or two 2nd rounders each year who make it ...

Bad for the Spurs with a great talent like Bird, but so was it for the real Warriors and Arenas back then ...

And Boozer with the Cavs

The biggest detriment I see with the re-signing of 2nd round picks is not being able to offer multi-year MLE offers.  But that's a "bug" that's simply not coded into this program that we can't get around.

The one advantage the NBA has, and it has been seen more and more often, is that players picked in the mid to high 20's can be stashed somewhere else.  Players stay on their national or league teams, until the drafting team is ready to bring them over.
I think we have seen that more and more with picks in the 20's...

i vote that we have an option on the second round picks for a 3rd year, and it should be decided on by the end of free agency the year their drafted.(wheather or not the 3rd year would be picked up.

But i dont think that teams should loose their MLE for that year.

There should be a set amount for that 3rd year (2.5 mil?, 3 mil?) that would make it a little difficult of a decision for teams to make, but at the same time the teams that decide to do so,would still have their mle to use if needed.

just my 2 cents

Again, I want to reiterate that my vote is for #3 and not for #1.

#1 wasn't an option when I first voted.

What I think should be done is just that the salaries for 2nd rounders be changed. Keep it just a two year guaranteed contract, but for something like a total of 2.5 million. So this way, after they expire, in free agency you can offer them at least a decent 2 million or so using the 120% rule.
Is any of this possible?

Alright, executive decision time.

My original Idea would have been to be able to add a third year at 6 million.

But for teams over the cap, this would have been a no-brainer.  there are inherent risks for a 2nd round pick.  for a team over the cap, you exercise the 3rd year option, and if it works out, you have his bird rights, if it doesn't, you have a 6 million expiring to trade and it didn't hurt your FA at all.  It also wouldn't be in line at all with what the real NBA did, what our "founding fathers" wanted.

So I'm not going that route.

What I'm going to do is a variation of what CavsGM suggested.  Right now the biggest impediment I see to re-signing your 2nd round picks is that you can't offer multi-yeared MLE contracts.

So what I will do is give you the option of changing the 2nd year of a 2nd round draft picks contract to 3.75 million (instead of the 465k it is now).

This will mean you can offer them contracts after their second year of 120% of 3.75, or starting at 4.5 million, the price of the MLE.  However, for this benefit, it will cost you nearly 10x what the 2nd year of the contract would have cost.

So you either get the option of paying him 3.75 million his second your or 465k.  This will start with the 2009 draft.

IMO by making the decision due immediately at draft time, as opposed to after the first TC, gives those teams that are significantly over the cap a definate edge.  The difference between $3.5 mil & 465,000 doesn't matter to teams 20-30 mil over the cap.  But for teams trying to manage their future cap it is a killer....you need to see them go through thier first TC to know if you found a gem or not.

For example...I would never have offered the higher 2nd year to Bird up front.  And I don't think anyone else would have either unless they were so far over the cap that it wouldn't matter.  It wasn't until he improved 4 levels in TC that anyone knew he was a diamond in the rough.

That's part of the give/take in the thing though, spurs.  There has to be pluses on both sides.  It's supposed to be a tough decision.  Yes, for teams over the cap it's not a tough decision, but the answer to that isn't making it an easy decision for everyone else as well.

Besides, for teams under the cap, you CAN offer multi-yeared contracts starting at 4.5 million anyway, since you're not bound by the MLE restrictions.  So this doesn't really affect you anyway.  This whole problem was for teams over the cap not able to re-sign their own FA's because they had no clear advantage from every other team in the league, because the "benefit" of being able to offer them 120% of their prior salary really meant jack.

And the reality of the situations is that in the NBA you have to have the terms of the contract stated so from the getgo.  You aren't able to go, "well, we're going to pay you 400k.  But if you work your ass off, we'll change your contract".

Well, let's change the example using my second from this year, Billy Gates (I just loved that name also).

At this point I am not willing to commit to $3.75 mil because that would seriously eat into my cap next year which I am trying to conserve.  However if he blows up during TC then I would consider giving him the money.  But it would still be a tough decision.....next year's cap vs ability to resign Gates in 2 years.

But if you were to give the same option to, say the Pacers, it is a no brainer.  They are so far over the cap next year that they can take the risk before TC and if the player doesn't develop then it is no skin off their ass.

Most likely this will just be one of those areas where we will have to agree to disagree.

It's one of those issues where it's simply a matter of how much can we do.  It's never going to be perfect.  I think this is much better than the current systems.

That's why I think all it needs is a minor tweak....make the option decision after TC and before the first sim.

But you are the commish and have final say which I will live with.   8)

Like I said, making it no risk for anyone isn't better than making it no risk for some, so we're not going to agree on that.

Being over the cap is a thing that naturally has advantages and disadvantages.  The big disadvantage being you're essentially worthless in FA.  If this is the advantage it gets, I'm not worried about this tiping the scale.

And since free agency in this sim has a major advantage over the actual NBA free agency (the fact that you can use the MLE and LLE's in addition to your cap space, where in the NBA, if you are under the cap on a certain date, you do not get the MLE or LLE), this makes it slghtly more even for those over the cap.
Plus, if you have the cap space, just save some of it for the player you wish to sign...

But if I had to choose right now to give Gates $3.75 mil it would impact my cap space to resign Bird.  And I don't even get 1 TC to evaluate Gates.

Why would any team under the cap for the following year EVER elect to give a second rounder the additional money?   This rule only helps those teams that are already over the cap.

Well, like I said, not all choices in this are supposed to be easy.  And there aren't contracts in the nba that are allowed to be modified after a training camp.

The goal of this wasn't to rid you of decisions :)  Building a team through the draft has always been risky, and re-signing your own players is only one of those risks.

It's like me.  If I want to make a true run at Carmelo, I should offer him a max contract and not offer Battier a max contract, because if Battier signs first I can then not sign Carmelo.  However, if Carmelo signs first I can then still sign Battier.  But if I don't offer Battier a contract right away, I run the risk of losing him.  I have to make a decision, and sometimes a hard one.

Perfect?  No.  Better?  Yes.

Well, I don't believe it is better.  IMO it allows those who are maxed out a no-brainer option on the outside chance that they will find someone who will explode in TC.  Any GM who will be over the cap in 2010 has no excuse not to exercise the option in 2009.  For those GMs that will have cap space in 2010 it puts a terrible decision on them.  And the teams that fall into the first camp (maxed out in future years) tend to be the playoff teams.  The strong get stronger.

A terrible decision?  YOU DON'T HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE!   If you were going to be under the cap, you don't have the constraints of what contract you can offer 2nd round picks.  Just let the normal salar structure stay in tact and offer him your cap space.

Really, we're talking about 2nd round picks.  The rich get richer?  How many picks in the 50's turn out to be jack?  None.  It's usually the guy's picked in the top 10, which unless you traded your picks (and that's on you), doesn't affect the rich.

It could make the difference between being $8 mil under the cap or $4.7 mil under the cap in 2010.  That IS A TERRIBLE DECISION.  With no input other than looking at predraft ratings.

Whereas the difference between being 5 mil over the cap or 8.2 mil over the cap is a no brainer.  Add the extra salary what can it hurt.

As far as the trading of picks....I still have my second and the concensus here is that it will be a high second rounder.  I still say having to make a $3.2 mil decision on my 2010 salary cap is a terrible decision.  Where if I traded the pick to the Mavs, Raptors, or Pacers they would have NO decision at all.  Take the higher amount because they are already maxed out.

The decision then lies not on whether you should add the salary to the 2nd year of the contract, but whether adding longterm deals in the 2010 fa is worth risking the 2009 2nd round pick over.  Because if you don't add longterm deals in 2010, come 2011 when those 2009 draft picks are up for renewal, if you're under the cap, you didn't have to give the extra salary, as it doesn't make a difference if the last year of the contract was 3.75 or .465 million because you can offer anything.

As for your argument that it helps the good teams way over the cap, phooey.  Yes, it makes their decision easier.  But it doesn't help them.  Why?  Because good teams draft 45+.  Yes, the decision may be easy for them.  But maybe 1 in 50 players drafted at these late picks will have the decision BENEFIT them, most picks won't be good enough where having made that easy decision will be of any value to them.

This primarily helps non-playoff teams who are over the cap.  Teams like the Knicks, or the Cavs.  It also helps the bad teams under the cap.  Why?  Well, first, if you know you got a steal, you have a better chance of keeping them.  And it also raises the trade value of early 2nd round picks, so if you do trade them, you should see a better return on them.  And since bad teams get these picks, it will help the bad teams either way.

It does NOT help teams like the Mavs.  If what we are arguing about is a player who is drafted 57th, I'll take my odds that this will never become an issue.  The only other way the good, maxed out teams benefit is if they acquire an early 2nd round pick in a trade.  And if you traded them, after this rule, then you should have known that and gotten good value for them.

Just because it makes good maxed out teams decisions easier doesn't mean it helps them.  And just because you now have more choices, tougher choices, doesn't mean it hurts you.

well stated.