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Stupid question

OrlandoHawk

By OrlandoHawk
in Homecourt

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NBASupes Grand Master

NBASupes

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Is there a reason why the NBA holds it's draft before free agency? I'm not sure how often sign and trades occur but it sure would make them more relevant and attractive if it affected the calender year they occur.

They don't. You can't do SnT till Free agency starts.

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They don't. You can't do SnT till Free agency starts.

He asked if there is a reason why they don't have FAcy before draft? Edited by JayBirdHawk
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Diesel Grand Master

Diesel

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I think it arised when there was no rookie cap. Teams could be unable to sign their own rooks if FAs were signed. IN Basketball, there's a soft cap and Rooks don't come in with any kind of bird rules. Now that the salary is determined by the pick, it should be easier to do that way.

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DJlaysitup Newbie

DJlaysitup

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I would guess its because rookie contracts represent a fixed cost. Even at their most out of hand you didn't have to bid against anyone. Then you could deal with the fluctuations in the FA market later

Hmmm...so it's planned logic eh? Wouldn't have thought of that Posted Image

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AHF Grand Master

AHF

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Argh. Post just got fried.

Short answer: Stars are more important in basketball and players are less interchangable. You can make much more intelligent FA decisions if you know what you have from the draft and your ability to attract FAs may be significantly impacted by the draft. Football is more of a team game and the parts are more interchangable so the timing works for them.

If you had the #5 pick in the 2006 draft, for example, it would make a huge difference which FAs you targeted whether you got Lebron, Darko, Carmelo, Wade or Bosh. You can't afford to have mismatched parts like signing Carlos Boozer when you end up drafting Bosh and the harm from being forced to pass on a superior rookie because you signed a FA would be very harsh.

To me the timing for both leagues works fairly well because drafting of individual players is more critical for the NBA than for the NFL and the talent pool is deeper in the NFL than the NBA.

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AHF Grand Master

AHF

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I do not see how this follows and it does not make much sense to me. Passing up on a superior player because you signed a free agent? You have me lost because as a team you know particular options you have in drafting while you are making free agency decisions.I am guessing in your 2003 draft example (not 2006), whoever signs Boozer (he wasn't even available then) is implicitly saying they would prefer to have Boozer over the possibility in Bosh. If they did not, then they would wait to sign Boozer. If you counter with a team is scared to miss out on Boozer, well then that is just markets adjusting to expectations.I think the answer is more similar to Diesel's but not exactly. Most likely it is from inertia, it was this way in the past and has just continued to stay that way. Free agency did not happen until what, the 70s? The cap was not implemented until the mid 80s. I imagine the draft just always started before free agency began and has stayed that way. Diesel's answer is not fully right because with rookie scales after the Glenn Robinson fiasco each team has a rookie exception that can be used as a way to exceed the cap. So there is a mechanism for teams to exceed the cap for draft picks.As an alternative explanation, having the draft before free agency is one way to keep aggregate salaries down, but I am skeptical that this is the reason because I believe the draft has simply always started before free agency. Why change it? Sometimes inertia is too hard to overcome.

Unless you have the #1 pick, you don't know who you will end up with. The Boozer example was not meant to be a literal one - just a representative dilemma but in the NFL you can find impact talent deep in the FA pool and even end up with undrafted players ending up as league MVPs. In the NBA, the pool of impact players is much more shallow. You can be certain that the top FAs will have offers to sign immediately from teams with room but if you have a pick like the #5 pick in 2003 (you are right - wrong year), how do you know which of the top 5 players you will get? You can probably bet that season you won't get Lebron, but that leaves a SG, SF, PF and C as your options and you know that barring a miracle you won't get to choose between them - you will only get the one left over. So if you end up with Wade, do you really want to have just signed a Joe Johnson type of FA or do you want to end up picking TJ Ford or Chris Kaman because they mesh better with JJ?

Now neither system is perfect, but I foresee more dilemmas in the NBA with an NFL style FA then draft system because the impact of individual players is so much greater and the ability to balance out the roster is so much more limited.

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MaceCase Grand Master

MaceCase

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Because small market bad teams already had to suffer through watching the Finals. Throw them a bone to nibble on so they don't notice getting overlooked yet again in free agency. B2B playoffs and free agency might just be too much torture to endure before the first sign of hope.

Semi-sarcastic.

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thecampster Grand Master

thecampster

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Because you guys want things done too fast.

In the case of a sign and trade. There is no functional difference between signing a player on July 9th and trading the draft rights to "insert name here" and a draft night sign and trade for a pick. You can't / don't sign your rookies right away for a number of reason (most important of which is the rookie hold is less than the hold +20% a rookie can sign for.

So teams close on the cap/LT sign their players first then sign the rook. Therefore the rook is a rights, not a player and functionally you trade his rights.

Also, with rules against trading picks in subsequent years, those rules don't apply once you own the rights. I remember vaguely a deal a few years ago where there was a trade that couldn't be consummated until after free agency began but the commissioned clarified at the podium team X was drafting for team Y (might be getting my sports confused).

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