horatio81 wrote:The Rage Monster wrote:Good idea in theory bad idea in reality. Teams don't work together on a large scale basis, the moment a team sees an opportunity to improve they take it. A small market team under the cap will take picks and a bad contract to open up salary space for another team. Your idea doesn't work if even 1 larger market team has cap space, a team will never improve if its best players leave for nothing.
This short sightedness is precisely why we have a league of haves and have nots. The big markets leverage our desire for short-term gains into bad long-term policy. Meanwhile, we (the non-destination markets) continually create superteams we will never beat while securing "picks" that only ever turn into more disgruntled superstars... who then force their way onto the handful of teams that matter.
Remember, the ONLY route these players have to capped-out superteams is sign and trade. Take that route away, their options become limited to teams with actual cap space to sign them.
This is simply not true. How did Lebron and Bosh get to Miami? I know there were trades made but basically Miami had cap space to sign them. How did Stoudemire end up in NY? They had cap space to sign him. How did Howard end up in Houston? They had cap space to sign him. Again all it takes is one team and your star player is gone for good.
The reason you see sign and trades is because GM's aren't stupid enough to let someone go for nothing if they have the opportunity to get something decent back. It's a slightly different situation but how good/bad would Memphis be right if they would have got nothing back for Pau Gasol.
You're also missing another key piece that's pretty obvious. Where are these capped out super teams you keep referring to spending their money? On the star players they've traded for. Guess what, if they weren't paying big for these players then many teams would in fact have room to sign the very free agents you say they could not afford. There are so many flaws with this idea I'm surprised you continue to defend it.