Basketball Bundesliga

If it's one things that irks fans, it's a team taking a dive at the end of the season to get the highest draft pick available. Not only is it against the ethos of sport and competition, but it's a mockery of the people who (for whatever reason) bought season tickets. New Jersey Nets, I'm looking in your direction. Without competition, there's no reason for people to go to games, watch the losers on television, and the whole sport suffers as a result. At worst, the owners are leeching goodwill off of good teams when the stars come to town.

Suggestion? The Bundesliga system.

The German soccer federation, from my limited knowledge of their particular rules, has one standing mantra for the top level teams: WIN, OR YOU'RE OUT. The system basically (and probably wrong) goes like this: In the upper league, the teams with the lowest rating at the end of the grading period get demoted to the B-league. The top team from the B-League gets promoted to the A-level. This system makes teams far less likely to ditch at the end of the season, because there's still something worth playing for (especially with incentive contracts). Teams from Big Cities sometimes don't make the cut, and they can mow down lower-level teams to buoy their chances to be Big Boys again.

Obviously the Bundesliga system wouldn't work with most sports in the United States. The infrastructure necessary to maintain NFL and MLB teams is huge (Thanks a lot, Dallas for raising the bar for everyone), and cities aren't going to fork over millions in taxpayer money to build stadiums for teams that may get demoted for incompetence (*COUGH* Oakland *COUGH*). And frankly, not enough people care about the NHL to begin with.

The NBA is different. Basketball arenas aren't all that big. Hold maybe 20,000. Most non-NBA cities have the facilities available and could support a team if it got to the big leagues. The NBA already has the D-League in place. If the D-League becomes the lower tier league, and the lowest NBA team switched with the highest D-league team, you could really shake up the NBA into playing competitively all year long, and executives wouldn't declare a fire sale (like the Knicks) to get a hold of free agents after contracts expire in the off-season.

One particular drawback: The Clippers would likely never reemerge from the lower league. Oh well. Sacrifices must be made.

Of course there's all sorts of profit-sharing rules and ownership deals in place for the D-league (Auction anyone? Maybe one day be an NBA team owner? Think of THAT money, Mr. Stern) preventing something like this easily falling into place. But consider the BIG money to be made. Happy fans, Cinderella stories from the middle of nowhere, compelling teams playing on the big stage because of team chemistry and not because of big bucks. If they fail at the big level, who cares? Then the next guy gets a shot.

Mr. Stern: A competitive sport year-round makes for a healthy league. Could mean international teams, untapped markets, and makes the pertinent NBA draft last longer than 45 minutes (which is how long, approximately, the Nets were competitive for the postseason this year). More talent. More exposure. More TV contracts.

Pittsburgh? Las Vegas? Another team from Chicago? Why not? I'd rather watch a competitive Cinderella team from Cincinnati rise up to the challenge of the big stage rather than endure a Nets team that would need to improve to be called pathetic. Don't give me this stuff about big city markets. If the Nets wanted to be competent they already have time and money to do so. They're ditching and ruining the rest of the leagues reputation.

Make the players and the team owners play for their money. Give me the Bundesliga for basketball.