The NBA trade rules can be confusing at times. Rockets GM Daryl Morey, in a recent interview, wants to see the trade rules loosened, or to the average fan become more confusing.
Morey said he talked with NBA commissioner Adam Silver about his idea, but the trade rules aren’t a subject that’s at the top of the NBA’s list right now.
“I actually brought it up with the commissioner, but there’s some practical reasons why the league won’t allow that, even though I think there might be a way to overcome them,” Morey said. “I think that could allow teams to not ever have fear. Like if that Harden trade had, oh, if he becomes an All-Star, you have to send yet another future first-round pick. Or if he fails, we get back a pick. I think that would grease a lot of deals.”
That idea is an automatic failure. Who determines if a player has “failed on a new team?” If a bad team trades their best player to one of the top teams but his stats drop, is that failure? There’s too many “what ifs” in that scenario. I guess they can use “analytics” (sarcasm)
Something that could possibly work is what Warriors general manager Bob Myers proposed, that the NBA follow baseball’s lead in allowing a team to trade a player and continue to pay a portion of a player’s salary while he plays for a new team. Currently, teams can add just up to $3.3 million to trades in a season and receive just up to $3.3 million in trades in a season. Both amounts increase by $100,00 annually.
“The NBA, more than any other league I know for us, is most restricted,” Myers said.”
Myers idea is interesting, as baseball runs it’s business very successfully that way. However, In baseball a team “owns” more players and has no salary cap, so they have more flexibility when it comes to trading.
