Let's Get Nuts: The NBA Should Put The Forfeited Clippers Picks Up For Grabs During The NBA Cup

As we know from yesterday's bombshell, Adam Silver and the NBA dropped the hammer on Steve Ballmer and the Clippers for circumventing the salary cap by essentially nuking their future and taking their 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 first round picks. When you look closer, things get even worse when it comes to which picks they're taking

Steve Ballmer, your future....WOOF!

So what happens to those picks? As of now, they just disappear. Nobody gets to use them and in each of those Drafts there would only be 29 picks. That's lame. Why should a potential prospect get screwed just because the Clippers cheated? 

Surely we can come up with something much better than simply removing the Clippers' pick from the Draft and calling it a day. Where's the fun in that? The good news is there's a much better out-of-the-box idea staring Adam Silver right in the face should he choose to accept

Now, stay with me here. Before we begin, let's all get on the same page. This is just a starting point. I wouldn't even call it a half-baked idea just yet. This is like when you make homemade pizza and you have some 72-hour cold-fermented dough, and we're on Day 1, minute 1. People much smarter than me will have to figure out the details and how to make this all work, but for the sake of this blog, let's assume all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. 

If there's one thing I know, it's that Adam Silver has a raging hard on for his NBA Cup idea. He wants that thing to be a massive success and attract eyeballs. As of now, for the most part people still don't really give a shit about the NBA Cup. That'll take time. So how do you inject a shit ton of interest? You get nuts

Think about it. You don't think the NBA Cup would have more juice to it if in each of those seasons, the Clippers' pick was added to the winning pot? That would be electric as hell! I'm not sure if you've realized this, but the Clippers are about to suck ass for a very long time. Those picks have extreme value, even with the new Lottery rules. 

You want teams to care about the NBA Cup? Well, dangling that type of asset in front of them will certainly have them taking it more seriously. There's so much talk about how the NBA Cup was intended to encourage teams to try in the early/middle stages of the season, well I think we can check that box off with this idea! I would also have it so that the Clippers could win their picks back should they win the NBA Cup. You're telling me you wouldn't watch that? Liar! They think this punishment is bullshit and completely unfair? OK, go out and win your pick back. 

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Of course I'm sure some people would hate this idea if a good team won the NBA Cup, but so what? You should have beaten them when you had the chance. As fans, we want real stakes, and if a team like the Knicks or Thunder or Spurs or whoever else is fortunate enough to win the NBA Cup, well then that's how the cookie crumbled. Maybe your favorite team should have tried harder. 

Admittedly, there are hurdles to this idea. The biggest one in my opinion is one of the issues that came up when the league was creating the new Lottery reform. 

How do you convince NBA players to play hard and try just so the team can acquire an asset that would be used to potentially replace them one day? 

My solution?

Giphy Images.

Up the prize money even more. As of now, when you win the NBA Cup, each player gets $530K. Bump that up a few hundred thousand and call it a day. The incentive for them won't change, if anything it'll increase with the higher price. But by also including the Clippers pick, that's the incentive for the teams to actually give a shit as well and not just punt on their NBA Cup games or sit stars, etc. Boom, you also address load management at the same time, another win for you Adam! Under this idea, you have motivation for the players (even more money) and the teams (a potentially extremely valuable pick). I dunno, that feels like a win/win for everyone, including the fans right? Isn't that what Adam Silver wants? 

The beauty of the NBA Cup is it's a completely made up idea, so why can't the NBA decide to change it however they want? You hear all the time about how the NBA should change their season to 60 games and all that stuff, but that's tough because of NBA history/records etc. The NBA Cup? It's new. There's no history. You can do whatever you want. Just make it a rule that from here on out, any time a team loses picks, it gets added to the NBA Cup pot. If multiple teams cheat and lose picks? Even better. In my world, there's no limit to how big the pot can be. I'd even be open to the idea that if there's a combination of 1st and 2nd Round picks, the winner of the NBA Cup gets the 1st Round pick and the runner-up gets the 2nd Round pick. Similar to how in the current system the winner gets $530K and the runner-up gets $212K.

The more I think about this idea, the more sense it makes. You find a way to not screw over a potential prospect, you get eyeballs on your precious NBA Cup, teams and players have incentives to care, the Clippers could win their picks back and save their future, it seems like a no brainer.

Will Adam Silver do this? Of course not. But I think we can all agree that he should.