Former NBA star Pau Gasol is gaining momentum to become the CEO of the NBA’s proposed European league, according to a report from Eurohoops. Citing Gasol’s “strong links” to both the NBA and European basketball, a league source tells Eurohoops that the idea of the Spaniard taking on the CEO role for the new league has “universal approval” among the NBA’s governors.
A six-time All-Star and two-time champion in the NBA, Gasol played for FC Barcelona at the start and the end of his professional career, winning Spanish League championships in 1999, 2001, and 2021. He also compiled a lengthy list of accomplishments in international tournaments, winning three Olympic medals (two silvers, one bronze), a World Cup title, and three EuroBasket championships with Spain’s national team.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- The Grizzlies and Kings currently employ interim head coaches and will be looking to name a permanent coach after the season. Tim Bontemps of ESPN breaks down the pros and cons of the jobs in Memphis and Sacramento, while Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report considers which other head coaches might be on the hot seat this spring, including Willie Green of the Pelicans and Chauncey Billups of the Trail Blazers.
- Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic is the latest NBA writer to propose suggestions for how the league could address its tanking problem. Vorkunov’s ideas include having the lottery determine the top eight picks (instead of four), further flattening the lottery odds, and automatically assigning the two worst teams the fourth and fifth overall picks.
- ESPN’s Bobby Marks highlights some incentive clauses in player contracts to keep an eye on during the season’s final two weeks, including Rockets forward Dillon Brooks ($1MM) and Timberwolves forward Julius Randle ($1.4MM) getting bonuses for their teams making the playoffs. Magic forward Jonathan Isaac must appear in at least four of Orlando’s final six games to reach the 70-game threshold, which would assure him of a $2.6MM bonus, Marks notes.
Pros of the Grizzlies job: Extremely talented roster
Cons: No matter how much success you have, you will be fired midseason
Still getting paid for not working… so win-win for an average HC, right?
Tanking
Five worst teams should be auto assigned to 6th-10th picks
If the 2 worst teams were assigned picks 4 and 5, I don’t think that would be much of a tanking deterrence.
1) The 4th or 5th pick is still a respectable consolation prize.
2) If you’ve made it far enough that you can’t be one of the worst teams, but are thinking about throwing the rest of the season away, this actually INCREASES the likelihood that you end up with a top 3 pick, since you’re competing against fewer teams for it. Therefore, I would argue you’d be more incentivized to throw in the towel
I agree. That is a bad idea mainly for the 2nd point you made…
Would increase more teams higher up in standings to tank.
The only thing that I can see working is reducing games by around 20.. so then the length of tanking is shorter…and not so many back to back games…the league needs to crack down even further on players sitting out games…is terrible
The tanking is demoralising as a fan. I watched Houston do that for 5 years and was wondering if they would ever be competitive again. I think expanding to 8 or even 10 teams for a top 3 pick and worst 3 teams automatically get 6-10th pick in the draft, would decrease the chance to tank. Adding more pressure would after 3 straight seasons of a team in the top 10 draft, following (4th year of finishing top 10 worst record) year they draft behind the championship team. Further speeding up tanking teams to improve the club by signing free agents or other means necessary. If finishing Top 10 losing records in the 5th consecutive year, forfeit of their first round pick (which will go into a hat for drafting teams of picks 10-20). 3 years of tanking is more than enough time to get some players to build around. Plus, the fans won’t have to struggle watching their team losing for 5-8 years.
For example, Washington Wizards have been top 10 draft for 6 years going on 7 years straight. Magic, Houston, Pistons, Spurs are other teams that have seen top 10 picks for 4-5 years straight. But the Wizards are the poster child of a team tanking and hurting the fans. It’s ridiculous and feel sorry for the fans. They seem like they may never see a winning club in the near future. As a Houston fan, it was very hard. As a Washington fan, it has to be depressing and demoralising.