Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

#151      
This makes it sound as though proven, established players who want security are the same as developing players about to enroll in college. I think it's just as likely that a college player over-performs as underperforms. If they develop, they're the ones who will look at their long term deal and want out.

I personally don't see multi-year deals working in college sports, or if they do, as an exception. I don't see either side being happy enough with multi-year commitments. And an unhappy player isn't worth nearly as much as when they're fully bought in (pun intended?)
For one, it's not just established players that seek out long term deals. Ronald Acuna is one example. For many players this is life changing money, and they'll happily take the guarantee.

The real question is, do you think the status quo serves players better?

Look at the cases of Matthew Sluka at UNLV or Jayden Rashada's lawsuit against Billy Napier, and tell me that a written contract wouldn't have benefitted the players. Right now everyone is operating on nothing but promises.
 
#152      
You fundamentally misunderstand what those lockouts were about.

At no point did the NBA players union want a system in which NBA players were basically always free agents and were not paid to play basketball, where their only income would come from sponsorship deals their NBA team would help facilitate. It's crazy you think this is what happened.
Speaking of fundamentally misunderstanding something, you're arguing against a strawman here because I didn't say that.

A lot of people are participating here, so I'll summarize:
1- 1-4 year deals signed on entry to the school before a player knows their value & buyouts which limit ability to seek further value (movement) are generally not a good deal for players.
2- League owners have fought against uncapped payment & unlimited free movement to the point of cancelling seasons, because it gives too much leverage to the players.
3- I don't understand why everyone in my replies is so vehemently siding with ADs/Coaches here.
 
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#153      
The point is that contracts are not stopping coaches from moving. If they're not putting buyouts on ACs why would they be putting buyouts on players.
Are you claiming that only 1/6.5 HCs would move without the contracts? I expect it would be much higher. I've had contracts with penalties for leaving early. They definitely altered my choices. They are called "golden handcuffs" for a reason.

Most of the HC moves are between low Div I schools. My impression (vs. having hard numbers) is that a many (20-30%?) of the changes are coaches that did not make it, and who may not get another Div I HC job. (On top of the 3-5% retirements.) Should we be counting any of the exits?

I'm not sure how many non-power contracts have significant buyout numbers -- a quick dig did not find many contracts. I did find that most HC's in non-power schools make 150-350/yr (~2/3rds of the contracts). 500k/yr+ is 95th percentile. Do you really want to argue about a buyouts in contracts at that scale? Maybe for the top 20% coaches.

Important ACs (the minority) have buyouts, often with outs such as "no buyout if you become a HC." I remember reading this in some of the UIUC AC contracts. Would anyone seriously expect Tyler's or Zhamer's contract to have a (significant) buyout? I don't know the cost of a typical AC leaving a program. Is it more or less than a rotation player leaving? If more, maybe they should have equivalent penalties in the contracts.
 
#154      
Speaking of fundamentally misunderstanding something, you're arguing against a strawman here because I didn't say that.

A lot of people are participating here, so I'll summarize:
1- 1-4 year deals signed on entry to the school before a player knows their value & buyouts which limit ability to seek further value (movement) are generally not a good deal for players.
2- League owners have fought against uncapped payment & unlimited free movement to the point of cancelling seasons, because it gives too much leverage to the players.
3- I don't understand why everyone in my replies is so vehemently siding with ADs/Coaches here.

1. This goes both ways. Teams also don't know player values. Currently, this leads to unenforceable verbal promises for NIL deals that sometimes don't get honored. Not sure how that's a better system for players. With the collective bargaining power of a union, and the negotiating savvy of professional agents, I'm sure players could negotiate safeguards that would prevent them from being taken advantage of.

2. And yet the response from players has never been to scrap guaranteed multi-year contracts. Curious.

3. They aren't. The fact that the current system is better for players than the previous one does not necessarily make it ideal. There are plenty examples of NIL promises being broken. A system where either side can just re-neg on an agreement the second a better one comes around undoubtably does help some players, but likely hurts just as many.
 
#155      
Speaking of fundamentally misunderstanding something, you're arguing against a strawman here because I didn't say that.

...
3- I don't understand why everyone in my replies is so vehemently siding with ADs/Coaches here.
You do appear to be presenting a pretty hard core "players should be totally free" argument, so any reply saying that some restrictions may be needed will come across as siding against.

I'd generally go for "people should see through their commitments". We have found people are not doing so. So should we accept the societal change, or implement contracts that strongly encourage people to keep their word? That contradicts the "players should be free". Does is mean I vehemently side with ADs/Coaches? I don't think so.
 
#156      
So pretty much the exact opposite of how we have operated and succeeded in the new hoops world? We have been 'the one who knocks', the last thing we want is agreements incentivizing staying put. We've got a top-5 recruiter in OA, let's please not hamstring him.

It seems like the new norm is for a school to experience 75-100% roster turnover each year. I'm not sure in general that's good for college basketball. I'm just suggesting that if player salaries could somehow be tied to the teams success as well as player performance, there would be a little more motivation and loyalty to the program....I would love to see Morez play his entire collegiate career here at Illinois....an incentive or bonus for years played at the same school could help make that happen....just not sure how this would be hamstringing anyone.
 
#157      
You do appear to be presenting a pretty hard core "players should be totally free" argument, so any reply saying that some restrictions may be needed will come across as siding against.

I'd generally go for "people should see through their commitments". We have found people are not doing so. So should we accept the societal change, or implement contracts that strongly encourage people to keep their word? That contradicts the "players should be free". Does is mean I vehemently side with ADs/Coaches? I don't think so.
So why are you not proposing coaching contract reform?
 
#158      
Speaking of fundamentally misunderstanding something, you're arguing against a strawman here because I didn't say that.

A lot of people are participating here, so I'll summarize:
1- 1-4 year deals signed on entry to the school before a player knows their value & buyouts which limit ability to seek further value (movement) are generally not a good deal for players.
2- League owners have fought against uncapped payment & unlimited free movement to the point of cancelling seasons, because it gives too much leverage to the players.
3- I don't understand why everyone in my replies is so vehemently siding with ADs/Coaches here.
This is all true, but the worst of all possible deals for college athletes is one where the fans (the exclusive and total source of money to the system) walk away.

So why are you not proposing coaching contract reform?
NIL is going to be coaching contract reform, you just watch.

Who needs a cow when you can buy the milk directly?
 
#159      
Not sure how I f'd that up 89...looks like my response to your post, somehow became your response to your own post....:oops:
 
#160      
1. This goes both ways. Teams also don't know player values. Currently, this leads to unenforceable verbal promises for NIL deals that sometimes don't get honored. Not sure how that's a better system for players. With the collective bargaining power of a union, and the negotiating savvy of professional agents, I'm sure players could negotiate safeguards that would prevent them from being taken advantage of.

2. And yet the response from players has never been to scrap guaranteed multi-year contracts. Curious.

3. They aren't. The fact that the current system is better for players than the previous one does not necessarily make it ideal. There are plenty examples of NIL promises being broken. A system where either side can just re-neg on an agreement the second a better one comes around undoubtably does help some players, but likely hurts just as many.
1- Ok
2- The focus is maximizing contract value, length only has value becuase most leagues negotiate that.
3- I still think you're overvaluing contracts. The re-negotiations youre talking about regularly happen in major sports.
 
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#161      
1- Ok
2- The focus is maximizing contract value, length only has value becuase most leagues negotiate that.
3- I still think you're overvaluing contracts. The negotiations youre talking about regularly happen in major sports.
Length has value because teams value it, and are willing to give more $ for more length. Why is that wrong? I value having a player on my team for 4 years and am willing to offer more money for it. Why is that bad for the player? Player can still say no and draw the line at a 1 year deal.

Give one recent example in which a pro team in the US has just not paid the money it promised to a player. No "for cause" justification or anything - just completely re-negged on a promise where they signed a deal for a certain amount of money and then decided not to pay it. Because that is a thing that has happened in NIL.
 
#162      
Length has value because teams value it, and are willing to give more $ for more length. Why is that wrong? I value having a player on my team for 4 years and am willing to offer more money for it. Why is that bad for the player? Player can still say no and draw the line at a 1 year deal.

Give one recent example in which a pro team in the US has just not paid the money it promised to a player. No "for cause" justification or anything - just completely re-negged on a promise where they signed a deal for a certain amount of money and then decided not to pay it. Because that is a thing that has happened in NIL.
the NFL cuts players all the time.
 
#164      
But they still get any money that is guaranteed under their contract. You see, the contract is the protection. The NFL unfortunately has weaker contracts because it has a weaker union. But imagine how bad it would be with no union and no written contracts...like the NCAA right now.
So, contracts aren't a silver bullet, particularly when one party has significantly more leverage and will likely still allow for movement.
 
#165      
So, contracts aren't a silver bullet, particularly when one party has significantly more leverage and will likely still allow for movement.
I don't think anyone is arguing that allowing players and programs the freedom to contract will magically fix any and all potential problems facing college athletics.

I think people are arguing that the current system is not ideal and allowing the parties to form negotiated, legally binding contracts, will improve the situation in many ways. And I haven't seen any compelling arguments to the contrary.
 
#167      
D-1 scholarships can already be guaranteed for 4 years.

Ohtani is a hilarious example here. Him and the Dodgers gamed the luxury tax system to have him be ridiculously underpaid in the short term and then overpaid for a decade. It's the exact kind of contract shenanigans I'm talking about that I think will make any contract not under a full semi-pro league with collective bargaining mostly symbolic (and even then there will be tricks).
Every player in pros has a contract. Take any one of them. I just can't understand how you would deny it to college kids. You're a nice guy though. You pat yourself on the back for letting them contract four years of scholly money but not even two years of NIL.
 
#168      
For one, it's not just established players that seek out long term deals. Ronald Acuna is one example. For many players this is life changing money, and they'll happily take the guarantee.

The real question is, do you think the status quo serves players better?

Look at the cases of Matthew Sluka at UNLV or Jayden Rashada's lawsuit against Billy Napier, and tell me that a written contract wouldn't have benefitted the players. Right now everyone is operating on nothing but promises.

I still don't see it, and that last bit is a strawman. Contracts, especially standardized contracts would be a win-win IMO.

The issue that I think gets in the way of longer term deals is the variability for the recruit. There are maybe a handful of sure-fire players, and those guys are going to the next level anyway. The rest are guys that can be in any one of three camps, which are on a very broad spectrum. Guys who do well relative to expectations, guys who do about as expected, and guys who do worse. The parties would need to take the opposing side of the risk, and that strategy seems broken to me. Imagine a team that signed a bunch of 3 and 4 year deals that didn't go well and had dead weight for their collective for a couple years before they could even attempt to rebuild. Seems like that could crater the program in a spiral. Imagine Groce signing his kids back in the day. Year to year just makes more sense from an economic standpoint.

Not saying I'm right, just that I'm seeing more issues than solutions.
 
#169      
I still don't see it, and that last bit is a strawman. Contracts, especially standardized contracts would be a win-win IMO.

The issue that I think gets in the way of longer term deals is the variability for the recruit. There are maybe a handful of sure-fire players, and those guys are going to the next level anyway. The rest are guys that can be in any one of three camps, which are on a very broad spectrum. Guys who do well relative to expectations, guys who do about as expected, and guys who do worse. The parties would need to take the opposing side of the risk, and that strategy seems broken to me. Imagine a team that signed a bunch of 3 and 4 year deals that didn't go well and had dead weight for their collective for a couple years before they could even attempt to rebuild. Seems like that could crater the program in a spiral. Imagine Groce signing his kids back in the day. Year to year just makes more sense from an economic standpoint.

Not saying I'm right, just that I'm seeing more issues than solutions.
This happens in the pros all the time. The teams release the players, pay them what they are owed under the contract. Teams free up their roster space and players get their money, plus the opportunity to find somewhere they can play. Win-win.
 
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