First off I change the cap rules.
1.) No longer a soft cap around $52 million, luxury tax at $65 million. I say make it a hard cap and push the cap to $70 million, with no minimum. You cannot go over the cap under any circumstances. If you exceed the cap with guaranteed deals then every player on the team gets a pro-rata reduction until you hit $70 million, plus tax of $2 for every $1 over the hard cap. This avoids teams signing players to below the cap in year one, and then give them guaranteed deals with raises so they are over the cap in year 2.
2.) No longer have a max contract. Let the best players get the most money. No longer will Damon, or NVE, or KMart, or Wally World et al get anywhere near as much money as Garnett, Duncan, Kobe.
3.) No longer limit the amount of raises from one year to the next.
4.) No longer require all deals to be guaranteed. If you want to guarantee you can, but no requirement. The non-guaranteed years of contracts become option years, and both the player and the team have the right to decline the option years.
5.) Limit contract length to 4 years for any contract guaranteed, or not. No more Bird rights, or Early Bird exemptions.
6.) Eliminate the trade rules. No more, must be within 25% plus $100,000, no more base year compensation. Make any trade you want, take on as much as you want, but you cannot exceed the hard cap. If you are taking on guaranteed contracts, you cannot exceed the hard cap in later years based upon what guaranteed deals you already have in place. In other words if you already have $65 million guaranteed for next year, you cannot add a player this year that will push you above the hard cap next year.
8.) Reduce the regular season to 65-70 games. Let every team make the playoffs. First round, best record in each conference gets a bye, and the remaining 28 play 5 game series. Round 2 remaining 16 teams play 5 game series. Round 3, 4, and 5 are best of 7.
7.) Simplify the lottery. Everybody is in the lottery, but team with worst overall record including playoff games gets 30 ping pong balls , and the champion gets one ball. Let the chips fall where they may. Only restriction is you can't get the #1 pick more than twice in a 5 year year period. If you do then you automatically have to drop 5 spots in the draft.
8.) Grade the officials, and make their scores be the determining factor for who gets the plum post season jobs. The grading will be done by a 5-10 person panel, and you set objective criteria for this score. Scores are tabulated in 25-30 game sample throughout the season. Publish the scores at the end of each year.
If you are in the bottom 20%, then you have to move up to the next 20% within the next 2 years or you are canned. If you drop down from a higher category, then if you have 2 years in a row at the bottom then you are done. Pay bonuses for scoring higher.
