Expansion means more bad players

NBA should learn lesson from major league baseball's mistakes

There is something tidy about the decision to bring the NBA back to Charlotte, N.C.

The league will have 30 teams, giving its mad-scientist commissioner, David Stern, a perfect palate on which to re-color the league’s structure — expect big-time realignment, possibly even with six divisions. With the addition, the league restores itself into the graces of the good people of Charlotte, who supported the Hornets well until the wrangling between politicians and team ownership was too much to bear.

And the NBA finally brings Robert Johnson, the Black Entertainment Television billionaire, who has been trying to buy a slice of the league for nearly a decade, into the fold.

These are nice additions, as is the $300 million franchise fee Johnson paid, which will be divvied up among the other teams. Accountants around the league are smiling. But not many others are smiling, and with good reason. Already, the league has stretched thin its talent base, and adding a 30th team will mean more underqualified players wearing NBA uniforms.

“If anything, I think the league should be dissolving teams,” said Bucks coach George Karl. “I think the prudent thing would be to call a few teams back. There are a lot of mediocre players right now. There’s enough parity in the game already.”

In a 15-year span, the NBA has added seven teams, which translates into about 90 new players. With 30 teams, the league will have about 390 players, 23 percent of whom would not have been in the league before the expansion of 15 years ago. Still, there are adequate players out there to fill out the rosters — it’s not as if the league will be shaking down Sunday night leagues at the YMCA in search of decent players.

“You sit and watch games in the NBDL, in Europe and even in the CBA and you say, ‘If this guy only got a break, he’d be in the NBA,'” said Pistons vice president of basketball operations John Hammond. “You see a lot of guys in the league who have done that — who have had NBA careers after being in the CBA or wherever. So, as far as filling the rosters, there is no doubt that the league can find players every bit as good as the ones in the league now.”

But that’s the problem — do we need more players of the same quality? Already, there are too many young players getting more minutes than they are prepared to handle. On the flip side, there are too many aging retreads playing significant roles. Expanding by one team means only 15 new players, but this is not a time for the league to be dispersing its talent.

“The reality is — and everyone knows it — that at this point, you have a lot more talented players with potential and athleticism than you have basketball players,” said Bulls forward Jalen Rose. “You practice the craft, practice the trade, then become an NBA ballplayer. There are a lot of guys still practicing it who are being forced to play more.”

No matter how teams fill out the bulk of their rosters, there are only five guys on the court at one time, and for a team to be successful, one of those guys must be am all-star player. Quality role players are out there, but all-stars, the kind who serve as franchise foundations, are rare.

Hammond remembers his first job in the league, as an assistant coach and scout with the expansion Timberwolves in 1989. Minnesota shuffled along for six years before finally landing its marquee player, Kevin Garnett, and the wait was made more excruciating because the Magic, who came into the league at the same time, got Shaquille O’Neal after its third year.

“If you’re talking about the watering down of great players — I am talking about the super-supers, not the all-stars but the supers — then you’re right; there are only so many of those guys that go around,” says Pacers Coach Isiah Thomas. “I would doubt seriously that there would ever be 30 supers in the league. Here we are with 29 teams, and there are definitely not 29 supers.”

Of course, the league took its first step backward financially last year, when the salary cap was reduced from the previous season’s cap for the first time. Adding a team at $300 million brings an obvious financial windfall. If the league is expanding again as a means of adding revenue, though, it is walking a dangerous plank, one that already has been tread by Major League Baseball. When MLB had revenue problems in the ’90s, it simply added the Devil Rays and the Diamondbacks and let the franchise fees help the bottom line. But just five years later, the league realized its mistake and tried to contract teams.

As one NBA Western Conference general manager says, “Do we really need 30 teams? It’s just stupid. I really hope we don’t regret this. The $300 million is nice, for sure, but let’s be logical. That’s not going to solve every problem, and it creates a new one — more bad basketball players.”