The beauty of European
Sports or more specifically the beauty of the beautiful game (Soccer) is that
you pay a price for finishing on the bottom of the standings i.e. Relegation.
In European Soccer a team gets relegated to the next lower league if it finishes
on the bottom of the standing of the current league it is playing in. Relegation makes the game much more
interesting than otherwise because there is something to play for at both ends
of the standing. That’s why in European Soccer games you hardly ever hear the
term “Spoiler” as in American Sports. Because if you’re on the bottom of the
standings with no possibility of winning the Championship, then you’re also
fighting for your life to stay in that league. This unquestionably, gives you
more desire to win games than any championship game.
Meanwhile in the NBA,
once any mathematical probability of a team making the play-offs is crushed,
then there’s arguably no motivation for them to play, because there is no
punishment for finishing on the bottom of the standings, in fact isn’t there a
reward for finishing with a bad record in the NBA? I thought so, because the
worst teams get the first draft picks. As one New York Knicks fan told me “The Knicks should just intentionally lose
the rest of their games to have great picks in the draft”. I actually liked
the NBA’s idea of drafting system to give lower teams chance of recruiting top
prospects for the purpose of parity. But when this gives teams an incentive to
finish on the bottom once they know they wouldn’t make the play-offs, then the
whole purpose becomes questionable. I am not saying NBA teams do this but they
could. And personally I have my own reservations about whether the regulation
of many, if not all American sports is for the claimed parity or for the money
(For the league and the Franchise owners).
Like the title of this
post, “How about an NBA relegation”, where the bottom teams in the Eastern and
Western Conference gets relegated automatically. The question becomes, I guess,
relegated to where? I don’t know, make one up. That’s the problem with the NBA,
it’s the only league where you can play professional basketball as in most
other North American sports. But where is the room for development? The NBA D league?
I don’t think so, how do you develop in an uncompetitive league? As one NBA fan
told me “it’s not even a league bro” when I proposed that it could be used for
relegation. Take the British Barclays Premier League (BPL) for example, it is
an NBA equivalent with 20 teams. Every year the three bottom teams get
automatically relegated to the next bottom professional league, The Npower
Championship and the top two teams and one player-off winner from the Npower
Championship gets promoted to the BPL.
The bottom three teams in the Npower Championship also get relegated to
the next lower division called the Npower league one, giving opportunity to the
top teams in that league to also get promoted to a higher league. This process
continues to the lowest division, essentially offering all teams an opportunity
to compete in the top league based on performance.
This system of
relegation maintains the importance of the games played by the supposedly lower
ranked teams towards the end of the season, which might be at the risk of
relegation. “In contrast, a low-ranked US or Canadian team's final games serve
little purpose, and in fact losing may be beneficial to such teams, yielding a
better position in the next year's draft.” Relegation comes with a huge
cost to a team due to the different monetary pay-outs and revenue generating
potential from the different divisions e.g. ticket sales, Commercials and T.V
Viewing. As a result teams will avoid relegation and give their fans nothing
less than their money’s worth when they log horns with the so called top ranked
teams. No Championship game comes closer to the intensity of a game involving
two potential relegating teams or a potential relegation team and a Potential
Championship team. Because when two teams compete for a championship it is for
glory, but when two teams compete to avoid relegation, they fight for
their lives; They leave every single bit of energy in them on the pitch and I
swear I have seen this games, they’re nothing short of a “Soccer War” where
winning is the line between life and death.
If you make it to this
point you’re probably wondering, why would you implement relegation in the NBA?
Because for one it is going to expand basketball into untapped markets while
creating opportunities for players who cannot make it to the NBA directly.
Second it will be much more fun and interesting to watch the NBA because every
team is playing for something, albeit at the two extreme ends of the standings.
And finally because teams that are not good enough for the NBA will get
relegated to the appropriate level and get replaced with teams that are
prepared to compete in the league on yearly basis. Is the NBA ever going to
consider the system of relegation? No! or at least not in the near future if
you ask me. There is just too much politics buried under the so call
“Regulation” of North American sports that doesn’t just support the system of
relegation as in most European sports. The NBA specifically is too monetized
and they won’t just let the New York Knicks get relegated and the potential
loss of revenue that comes along with it, for example.
Love Sports.
Lives Soccer!
