So then what you’re saying is the draft doesn’t really do anything to achieve parity, since teams can just buy players in their prime after theydo their four years of service?

Well, first of all:

Weird. If drafts increase parity, how could you point to teams like the Yankees and Lakers, who exist in leagues with drafts, as examples of long term dominance in sports?

San Antonio has done well in the draft despite not “earning” high picks since Duncan (and, they were legit contenders this year even without Duncan playing like a first overall pick). They win because they have a great front office, not because they are filled to the brim with lottery picks.

I don’t know if any of those particular players would have gone to the particular teams they went to if they hadn’t been forced to (I will note that LeBron James went back to Cleveland, so not sure you’re really making a strong point there). That doesn’t mean those teams would be irrevocably bad without the draft. And…

So that’s interesting. The NBA is a bad example of parity, yet the NBA is a very popular and successful league. So maybe Americans don’t care about parity as much as you think.

A couple things:

Weird. As I compare the histories of the Bucks and the Lakers, it looks for all the world like the Bucks already don’t have a chance against the Lakers, even though the draft exists. How’s that?

So they shouldn’t criticize a prominent figure in sports media because he’s happy and successful?

Literally preventing someone from speaking is an impractical rarity, which is why the First Amendment is broader than that. But, according to you, the government fining someone, or jailing someone, for what they say is not suppressing speech.

Oh shit! I didn’t realize I was talking to the Arbiter of Social Utility! (Although I would have expected such a distinguished person to understand what nuance means).

Ahhh....now I get it. It would be more appropriate to you if the headline was “It’s Not Fair What’s Happening to NBA First Round Draft Picks This Year, but Let’s Keep in Mind that Starving Somali Children are Getting Royally Boned.”

For nearly all of them, their maximum earning potential will be exhausted within 15 years, and for most of them it will probably be exhausted in closer to 5 or 6. With very little predictability for wear they will be able to make money over the next, oh, 40 to 50 years. And not to mention the fact that it is…

“I am a lifelong Warrior fan. I have suffered through a conga-line of indignities over the year.”

Then “suppressing speech” is a meaningless phrase. The government isn’t suppressing speech, either, when it fines someone for expressing a political point of view, or even when it jails them. Because they can still speak.

He used a double negative. That means he has plans to go somewhere, dummy. This stuff is always intentional with LeBron!

He’s literally trying to suppress it.

Okay. Was he not on the floor for two games that would have been enough to win the series?

How many of Cleveland’s wins was Green on the floor for?

Very courageous of you to write this.