Why Professional Sports Drafts Are Evil - Part II

My good friend Rob has told me many times that blog entries should be short and to the point. While I respect his opinion on publishing matters, this is one of my entries that does not follow his formula. I can't help myself. Sometimes I get fired up and I just keep talking. Or typing. So, to the four of you that will read this, I salute you for your patience and your time.

Tonight, the NBA Draft Lottery will be conducted during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The futures of many a franchise will be determined...by ping pong balls. Millions will tune in to see where their team will draft this summer, and I have to ask, how does this make any sense whatsoever?

Who does the draft system hurt? I told you earlier that some of my answers might surprise you. The most obvious answer is the players. I made the case in Part I that the entry draft system is unfair to players. There is no need to rehash here.

Who else is hurt by the current draft system? American sports franchises themselves are often hurt by the archaic system they embrace. John Q. American has been duped by a notion even more insidious than that of playing pro sports being a privilege, one that has provided the backbone of the unfair draft system since it's inception. That would be the competitive balance argument. I was once a big proponent of the competitive balance argument, but no longer. Why? It is an argument that simply does not stand up to logic.

The first problem with the competitive balance argument is that you can not force competitive balance. Yes, the NFL has achieved its much-desired parity, but not all leagues have seen the same "success". One reason? City and market size discrepancies between franchises. To put it simply, a team in New York has a financial competitive advantage over a team in Cleveland. Why? Large-market teams are able to lure players due to the additional income that can be earned through endorsements in a more populous metropolitan area.

A second problem with competitive balance is that of limited resources, particularly players talented enough to play at a high level, especially when necessary physical characteristics are taken into account. For instance, there is a very short supply of very tall people with NBA-caliber skills. The NBA cannot snap their fingers and create more Tim Duncans or Shaquille O'Neals. So, if a team is lucky enough to have the ping pong balls bounce their way so that they acquire a player of this caliber, they have an advantage over everyone else whose ping pong balls did not bounce in a fortuitous fashion.

The competitive balance argument has been used for decades to justify the draft systems employed by the American sports leagues. The worst teams from a given season are given the first choices for the next entry draft. The thought being that the worst teams get first dibs on the best new players. There are a couple of problems with the logic behind this policy.

First, leagues reward franchises for futility. Rewarding franchises with the best players, especially franchises that languish year after year in last place, makes no sense in any other system. It only makes sense in the closed cartel system of American professional sports, because logic dictates that there is only one direction to go from the bottom. However, there are franchises in every league that show that the draft system doesn't help them. If it did, they wouldn't be the dregs of their sport every year.

In a few of the leagues (NFL, NBA) the system also fosters a culture of tanking - just one example of how the current system hurts fans. What is tanking? Tanking occurs when a team realizes it has no chance of competing, and knowing that having a terrible season means a better chance at a higher draft pick, the team does not do everything in its power to win. This is often done with no regard whatsoever for season ticket holders who pre-pay for their seats and are stuck having to watch an inferior product. This can actually affect a team for more than one season, which brings me to...

Rebuilding. Under the current system, in most of the American sports leagues, it takes time for a team to acquire enough talent to compete at the highest level. Under the current draft system, teams get to select one player in each draft round (barring trades), during which each team in the league gets to make a pick. In a league with 32 teams, a team is theoretically going to be able to acquire one of the top 32 players in the first round, and so on.

Here is the problem: not all drafts are created equally. You have heard the phrase "a once-in-a-generation talent". Let's go back a few years and look at the emergence of LeBron James. James was the consensus #1 pick coming out of high school, and any team in the NBA would have drooled at the prospect of signing him. However, only a select few teams that had terrible seasons that particular year had any shot at him due to the draft system. So, if a team was bad, but just not quite bad enough, tough luck!

Wouldn't a better system be to have an open signing period? All potential entrants to the leagues would be free agents. Sound crazy? It is a system that works in Europe and it could work here. Under the current system, middle of the road franchises exist in a type of limbo, and I argue that they are punished for doing the right thing. How? Let's look at the Philadelphia 76ers of recent years. They have had just enough talent in most seasons to eke into a playoff spot (not so much this year, but I digress). They try hard to win as many games as they can, which is the ethical thing to do, since people are paying (save your jokes!) to see the games and expect an honest effort. They have had a zero per cent change of winning a title and have very little chance of landing impact players in the draft due to their middling draft position. The only way the Sixers can acquire the talent necessary to compete is through free agency, or by tanking.

A better system would be to allow a true free market for entrants to one of the respective leagues. It would be better for players, it would be better for teams and it would be better for fans. One big roadblock to change is that the drafts (mostly the NFL) themselves have become big business. However, it would not be difficult to make an open signing period an event on par with the draft.

As a fan of the Sixers or another middling team, wouldn't you relish the idea of being able to go after multiple missing pieces from the newly-eligible rookie crop? Don't you think the Sixers, if they had the salary cap room, would like the option of making offers to the players they like best instead of hoping a player they like will drop to them on draft day? Don't you think the players would like to have the ability to have some control over their destiny and career path? An open system would be better for everyone involved - players, teams and fans.

One For the Diehards

On Friday May 27th, I was headed to South Philly with my family for the Phillies game. It was Teacher Appreciation Night, and since both my wife and Mother-In-Law are teachers, this has become a bit of an annual tradition for us. All week, I was dreading the traffic to the game. Not only were the Phillies playing, but the Flyers were set to host Game 4 of the NHL Eastern Conference semifinals at the Wachovia Center. After the Flyers went down 3-0 to the Bruins in the series by mid-week, I found myself allowing cautiously optimistic traffic thoughts to enter my head as we made our way down the Blue Route towards I-95.

Upon our arrival to the sports complex, I saw a ton of Flyers fans making their way across the parking lots towards the Wachovia Center. NHL playoff games are very exciting, and have provided some of the most fun I have ever had at a sporting event. But with the Flyers in a 3-0 hole, I did not envy my fellow Philadelphia Flyers fans who were holding tickets, not one bit. Something about watching dozens and then hundreds of Flyers fans making their way to Game 4, most dressed in their orange and black Flyers finery, filled me with a mixture of sadness and pride.


I felt pride because I knew the sea of orange wouldn't give up without a fight, and that they would, at the very least, send the Flyers into the offseason with a much-deserved positive sendoff after upsetting the Devils in the first round with a team depleted by injury.

I felt sadness because of what appeared to be sad devotion to what seemed like a lost cause. I wondered what kind of energy would be in the building with the Flyers facing a seemingly insurmountable deficit to a team that it really should have been showing better against. I felt sad for folks who might have scored tickets for their first ever playoff game, as the game's outcome was destined to be rendered meaningless in the near future. My sadness was misplaced, because boy, was I wrong.

There is a contingent of Flyers fans who have been accused through the years of being incapable of dealing with reality, whose undying devotion to the team has earned them the moniker "Stepford Fans". These fans believe in the Flyers ability to overcome any obstacle or deficit. There were a couple radio personalities who believed, as I did, that it was not impossible for the Flyers to come back against the Boston Bruins. Though, as I walked into Citizen's Bank Park for the Phillies game, I was just thankful that I hadn't paid to sit through the Game 4 to find out.

As everyone knows by now, the Flyers won Game 4 in overtime, and didn't stop winning until they earned a berth in the Eastern Conference finals by beating the Bruins four games in a row. It was a comeback for the ages, and Philly fans will talk about it for a long time. But I am happiest for the diehards who pulled on their orange jerseys that Friday night. Those fans who had more faith than I did, whether they saw the game live in South Philly or at their neighborhood bars. This was a win for the Stepfords. It was a win for the kids who hold onto hope because they don't know how darned-near-impossible it is to win four games in a row while facing elimination.

To the Flyers, and to all Flyers fans who held out hope that our team could do what most thought impossible, my hat is off to you. Thanks for reminding me that great things can happen even when backs are placed firmly against the wall.

To Taze Or Not To Taze? Is That Really the Question?

Okay, so I am jumping in on this subject in a not-so-timely fashion. Sometimes I think it better to let the noise die down a bit on an issue that everyone is yelling and screaming about, and then weigh in when tempers have calmed and people are more willing to listen. They may not care anymore, but they are more likely to listen...


So, last week Philly sports fans were in the "spotlight" yet again after some young knucklehead ran onto the field and was zapped with a tazer for his trouble. I am usually the biggest critic of using excessive force, but not this time. Was it wrong to taze a 17-year-old kid who seemingly posed no threat to the players on the field? I will not call it wrong, though the tazing should have come much earlier in the proceedings.

The Philadelphia Phillies have achieved rock-star status in this town. This level of adulation is known to spur some crazy behavior from devotees (for more information on this, see any public appearance by Justin Bieber). Add alcohol to the equation and the likelihood of something crazy happening skyrockets. Pro athletes are well-paid, often coddled, but they are also very vulnerable while on the field of play to the aforementioned crazy behavior. Fans do not belong on the field. The potential for something bad happening is too great to turn a blind eye to the issue. If tazing people is what gets this dangerous trend to stop, then so be it.

I thought the tazing to be a bit extreme at first, but the more I thought about it the more okay with it I became. Attending pro sports events is not inexpensive, and I sure as heck do not pay my hard-earned money to watch drunken goofballs streak onto the field and elude ill-prepared security personnel for however long. I thought giving this kid the el zappo treatment would serve as a deterrent to other would-be idiots. However, the very next night, another genius does the same thing - but with no tazing. Talk about your mixed messages...

Instead of calling for an end to tazing of fans that run onto the field, I am actually going to expand the list of those deserving the tazer treatment. First, I would like unintelligent hecklers tazed every time they yell something vulgar, stupid or both. If you can't heckle without cursing, you get tazed. If you continue to scream at an opposing player, telling him that he "sucks" after he has hit a home run and made a diving catch in right field, automatic tazer.

Can we start zapping grown men who scream out a player's name repeatedly while they warm up hoping the player will toss them a ball? There is just something inherently wrong with guys in their 20's and 30's screaming like little girls for a warm-up ball. It's annoying, and not only should these clowns be tazed, but they should turn in their man cards as well. Please leave the pleading and begging to the young girls and kids.

I would also like to taze any scumbag who leaves glass bottles from their tailgates in the parking lot for people to run over after the game. In fact, this violation calls for a double tazing and a severe mollywopping. Having a couple cold ones before the game? Great. But clean up after yourselves. Violators deserve a couple extra volts for this offense.

Let's get a couple extra tazer darts ready for the ownership group of the Phillies. The club seems destined to allow Jayson Werth to leave as a free agent at season's end. Many fans are likely to go berserk when Werth ends up in Boston, and I do not blame them. Are there financial realities in place that keep the Phillies from spending like the Red Sox and Yankees? Yes. But this ownership group could bite the bullet for a year and go over their $140 million self-imposed payroll ceiling while waiting for other big-money contracts to expire. Now, whether or not Werth deserves the massive payday he is headed for is another debate. However, he is an emerging superstar and has a great rapport with the fans. Sometimes, that is worth digging a little deeper in order to keep something like that.

Lastly, can we have the Hollywood hotshots behind the new Karate Kid movie tazed? I am willing to perform this tazing personally. I hate the fact that Hollywood has seemingly run out of innovative movie ideas. I have been bemoaning the release of this movie since first hearing the rumors of its development almost a year ago. Why? The Karate Kid was a classic. After seeing the preview for the new version, the story would seem to vary wildly from the original. So why call it The Karate Kid?!? Are you telling me that you can't think of another martial-arts inspired name? It makes me sick. At least they waited for Pat Morita to be in the ground so he could spin in his grave before rolling this project out. Rest in peace, Mr. Miyagi, though I know it will now be harder for you to do so.