Imagine a JBL boys night around October 1st, when off season trading finally begins. Teams are starting to think about upgrading their keepers for the 2011/12 season. We, the JBL owners, gather at a discreet location to hold the 1st ever rookie draft. Not everyone comes because of personal commitments - but the usual JBL crew is there.
I arrive with a mysterious looking large black box. Why? Because every man dreams of sticking there hand in a large black box at some point in their life. Yes, I went there.
I can imagine Rick and Phil in attendance discussing the TENDEX rankings of LaMarcus vs. Garnett and who has more value to a JBL team. Anthony would of course be in attendance trying to convince someone that Sonny Weems for $1 dollar is a stellar keeper. Crikker, Timmy, Hildy and others have also made the journey. For we are about to reverse draw for the rookie draft order.
One by one we would stick our mitts into the black box to pull out ping pong ball after ping pong ball. And of course, all the ping pong balls have been decorated to represent their JBL teams. The first ball out is 13th, then 12th, then 11th and so on...The drama would increase as we approach the #1 selection. And ultimately, our rookie draft order would be set. Looking at the calendar, I'm thinking Saturday night, October 1st is the perfect night for this. Off season trading opens and we set the order for the rookie draft.
Crikker's rookie draft idea goes a little further and allows the team with the #1 pick 24 hours to make their selection. They could post a short article on the JBL website announcing who they are taking with the #1 selection. Once the pick is made, the 2nd team is on the clock and has 24 hours to pick or pass or even trade. So, the rookie draft can actually take place for 13 days possibly as we approach the JBL draft (October 29th this year people).
Imagine the excitement and options of being able to pick a potential stud rookie...very cool.
Some things I've thought of that would need to be addressed. My idea of the rookie draft would be for the upcoming season. So, whatever your protection allotment from the previous year was - the rookie draft would be extra to that. Example - if you were allowed to protect 4 players - you can do so - plus, you would be adding a 5th player in the rookie draft (assuming you make a rookie pick).
Other things...can a rookie draft spot be traded for a current NBA player - my thoughts on this would be 'no'. Example - let's say I have the #1 pick in the rookie draft and I am only allowed to protect one player based on my previous years results. Yes, it will be Kevin Love. Could I trade the #1 pick in the rookie draft to Bangkok for LaMarcus Aldridge. Again, my thoughts on this would be NO. The rookie draft option would be to add a rookie to your team from the previous year.
Now, that being said, once the season started, I think that trading your future rookie draft spot for an established NBA player would be allowed. I will have to check with CBS to see if we can do this. And we would have to log all trades involving rookie draft spots to keep track.
Another potential issue - what about setting a limit of how many rookie picks a JBL team can acquire in one season?? Let's take Belgrade's team from last year. He finishes last and has no keepers but in the final days heading up to the keeper deadline he starts to trade his established players for rookie selections. Let's even say he trades 12 players for everyone else's rookie spot in the rookie draft. Belgrade could now draft 13 rookies (for a total of $118 dollars) and then buy 2 more players at Auction (one at say $60 and another at $82). That would be 15 players (13 rookies) for $260 bucks. Should we allow this? My initial thoughts would be 'NO'. I would propose that a JBL team could not have more than 2 rookie draft picks (their own and one other). This would mean that JBL teams, yet again, would have to use some strategy about when they would make that one trade to get another rookie pick. Would Belgrade have traded Boozer to Golden for my pick? Or Greg Monroe to Phil for his pick? If he could only make one trade for a pick - which would it be? And would his choice be different if the chances of securing a higher rookie pick was different?
So, there's a lot to think about here. I'm still not totally sold that this is a good idea, but at least it got a couple of articles out of me. Anyone have any additional thoughts on the matter? I'm all ears....
Next up - I think I'll conduct my own rookie draft lottery with all the JBL teams and see how it looks - then try to make some rookie picks for each JBL depending on their JBL team needs.
That's all for now...signing off.
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