Sacramento Kings moving franchise to the OC, CA.

So although the NBA has a modified salary cap, allowing for SOME degree of financial planning, owners of "small market" teams (are they making money in Oklahoma City?, I wonder) must either receive public subsidies or lose money. Either the owners are blithering incompetents, are lying through their teeth, or the NBA needs to have maybe 16 franchises instead of 30. Actually, I believe all three of those things to be true.

 

Let the teams have a franchise player like they do in the NFL and almost overnight we'll see the parity in the NBA that might make it watchable again.

 

Have you been watching the playoffs?

However, if we go on the assumption that the top players will automatically go to the top markets, in part you can blame the salary cap for that. If you're a star, you're going to make the same playing basketball whether you're in Indiana or New York. But the potential opportunities for off-the-court income and status rise exponentially in New York.

 

I'm not sure how this has any effect other than to trap players where they don't want to be. There are lots of other factors that cause guys to move, but revenue and payroll was the last reason Lebron or Carmelo or Deron Williams would have left their teams. In fact the deck is stacked incredibly in the team's favor in terms of the financials, and all of their teams were willing to pay max salaries to keep them.

Besides, the franchise tag is almost never used in the NFL for an actual franchise player. It's just the guy they don't want to or can't sign long-term and instead want to jack around on a yearly basis.

 

Based on your post, it sounds like we agree.

 

I think the franchise tag, if used correctly, wouldn't necessarily prevent guys like Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams from changing teams, but it might help a team like the Cavs, so if someone like LeBron wanted out of town, he would have to ask for a trade and you'll see less teams go from one of the best to one of the worst almost overnight.

I agree about NFL owners abusing the franchise tag. I think you can also argue that it's not necessary in the NFL. There are few instances where a NFL team would be devastated by one player leaving.

That's not the case in the NBA though.

 

They're staying...

http://blogs.sacbee.com/sports/kings/archives/2011/05/kings-announce-1.html

 

Good. They should.

 

I'll be curious what attendance looks like. I'm not sure, if I'm a Sacto fan, that I'm shelling out more money with the idea that somehow it will make the Maloofs stay. If there's no new arena coming, and the Maloofs are still in the financial hole, then we're back to this dance after next season.

 

I think the NBA made it pretty clear to the Maloofs that they wanted to keep the team in Sacto. The Sacramento fans are pretty loyal, I think coming this close to losing the team will help get an arena built as long as the costs to the taxpayers are kept to a minimum.

 

It still all boils down to getting a new arena. They can talk all they want, but it doesn't mean a thing until the cement mixers start pouring a foundation.

 

The more likely scenario is that the Maloofs sell the team within six months. They desperately, desperately need the cash, and since they aren't getting Anaheim's $75M payment, the only way they are going to get it is by selling.

Sacramento ain't building them an arena. It wasn't going to happen in good economic times and it sure as shit isn't going to happen in one of the most foreclosed-upon and unemployed cities in the country.