Draft in the dark: How will the postponement of the draft affect Danny Abdia and Yam Madar? - Walla! sport

2020-09-11T13:07:53.697Z

End of June. Mid-October. Mid-November. Draft 2020 has finally found a date for itself. How did we get into this situation, how will the delay affect the young players from Europe, how much money is expected to be lost due to the damage to the league's revenues, and what a difficult dilemma does the young star of Hapoel Tel Aviv face?

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Danny Abdia's Race to the Top

Draft in the dark: How will the postponement of the draft affect Danny Abdia and Yam Madar?

End of June.

Mid-October.

Mid-November.

Draft 2020 has finally found a date for itself.

How did we get into this situation, how will the delay affect the young players from Europe, how much money is expected to be lost due to the damage to the league's revenues, and what a difficult dilemma does the young star of Hapoel Tel Aviv face?

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Abdia's place is guaranteed, but the question is whether Madar should go to the draft this season or wait until 2021?

(Photo: Danny Maron)

Besides, everything is fine

The 2020 draft was originally scheduled to take place in late June.

The Corona changed the Earth's plans and as part of the readjustment, October 16 was set as the target date - a few days after the last possible date for the end of the final series, October 12.

Only a few things have happened in the meantime, including a protest strike that stopped the league for three days and the cancellation of the test camps for candidates, so it soon became clear that the October 16 draft would no longer exist.

According to a report published on Wednesday morning on The Athletic website, the coveted moment was supposed to arrive sometime in October anyway.

Several hours passed, and ESPN reported that November 18, Wednesday, would be the target date.

So how did we get to the point where precisely in the league of the excellent commissioner Adam Silver, such a critical date as the draft selection of players for next year remains in the fog at such an advanced stage?

To understand why, we are going to start with something else that happened in the Far East, and this time for sure in October - October 4, 2019.

When Daryl Murray woke up during the Houston Rockets' tour of Japan and decided to tweet his support for protesters for democracy in Hong Kong, he probably did not imagine it would cause an international crisis.

Murray with Westbrook (Photo: AP)

The manager with the most analytical background in the league, whose every decision regarding a player's salary can determine the Rockets' economic future and how much they can strengthen, caused the league heavy economic damage - manifested in severing relations with some Chinese companies and entities that had commercial ties with the NBA.

Estimates have spoken of tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars being deducted from the account.

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The salary cap for the team in the 2020/21 season was supposed to be, according to the league's growth forecasts somewhere a year ago, about $ 115 million - an improvement of about $ 6 million per team - when it is possible to reach $ 139 million without paying a fine to the league.

And here we need to explain for a moment how the ceiling is set, so be with me: the league takes all the revenue it has, Basketball Related Income or BRI for short - and divides it by about half and half.

Half goes into the pockets of the team owners, and half is the maximum pile of money the players can earn that season.

This season it was about $ 3.8 billion.

This amount is taken, divided into 30 groups, and here is the average that a group can pay if all this amount is used.

Hence things like the salary cap, what is the maximum contract for players with a certain seniority (30, 35 or 40 percent of the team salary ceiling - for example, if the salary ceiling is $ 100 million, the maximum contract for a senior player can start at $ 40 million), minimum contracts , And even Rockies contracts.

The league has a large team that looks at the numbers each year to determine what the next salary cap will be.

Accountants calculate district advertising revenue, merchandising, broadcasting rights, hall tickets.

In this normal world it lasts about two weeks at the end of June, and on the eve of the new season, the magic number is published - the salary cap for next season - according to which all teams can plan strategy, offers for available players, and also a draft.

(Photo: Imagebank GettyImages)

Remember the Chinese money that was lost?

Who would have believed that in less than half a year it would turn out to be a small amount of money.

The Corona stopped the season with about one-fifth of the regular season games left and the entire playoffs;

Another $ 350-450 million was deducted from the general balance sheet on gaming revenue, and another $ 200 million on other revenue.

Take from that another small unexpected $ 150-180 million expense on setting up the bubble in Orlando;

Take down a lot of games that weren't aired because of series that ended early (in the East, for example, only 29 of 42 potential first- and second-round games were played);

And in the end, the wage ceiling was supposed to go down significantly instead of going up.

Just what to do, the groups already have commitments years ahead that were based on the old growth forecasts, so a drop in the wage ceiling would have put almost all the groups in economic prosperity.

The solution, as reported at the end of June by numerator John Hollinger - a statistician who also worked for years in a senior position at Memphis Grizzlies' management - would probably be "smoothing" the pay ceiling, and detaching it from the half-and-half format so that the ceiling does not fall too much. In contrast to the opposite situation in 2016, thanks to the new TV agreements, where the players refused to "skate" - and the ceiling jumped by $ 24 million).

In such a case, the players will receive more than 50% of the revenue in the coming season;

In return, in the years to come, when the corona disappears and the crowd returns to the plots, the owners will deduct a larger share of the proceeds.

"The current labor agreement was not built for a global epidemic," Commissioner Adam Silver explained.

So in terms we are all familiar with: The NBA is also trying to flatten the curve.

"New American players are not joining teams in Europe right now, and young European players are getting a bigger opportunity. But for those who do not have an exit clause, there is no choice."

Regnetovich (Photo: Imagebank GettyImages)

Sign the check, less than a million dollars

So far a nimble lesson in economics and math - admit it was at least faster than trying to connect the kids to three zoom classes in parallel.

Now for the implications for the draft.

The salary cap was also derived from the Rockies' salary, which was also set to grow, with first-team pick in the 2019 draft, Zion Williamson, knowing he was going for a $ 8.1 million salary, and the first-choice pick in 2020 was already set to earn $ 8.6 million.

If the wage ceiling is frozen here too, it means that if Danny Abdia is elected fourth, for example, the economic crisis will cost him a million dollars in wages (18.5 instead of 19.5 million) for the next three years, and if he is elected Friday, it will cost him about 800,000 dollars (15.3 million instead 16.1).

But we are not talking about Danny here.

The bank will smile at him anyway.

The story is the groups that are squeezed under the wage ceiling, the owners have no patience because of the size of the local market or the size of the market they have snatched from the economic crisis.

Suppose you are Chicago, next season you are already committed to $ 106.8 million, and you have no special interest in one of the top players in the draft, but you really want to take a player who is supposed to be selected in the 20-25 place.

Giving up the fourth pick in exchange for the 20th pick, for example, saves about $ 3.5 million just for the upcoming season.

"Although the current draft is not star-studded, stars are not the only part of a champion team," Kevin O'Connor explained in The Ringer, "is it worth betting on a top-3 player when there are better scenes with less risk and less money?"

But in the end it is not just about numbers but also about people.

Beyond the inability of some college players to prove themselves in canceled end-of-season tournaments, or to attend personal training and physical ability tests, the mental wait is no less difficult.

And for some, when uncertainty reigned, it was no longer worth it.

On August 21, the league announced that nearly 100 players had given up their registration for the 2020 draft, including first- or early-second-round candidates such as Isaiah Joe who played in Georgetown, Mack McLang Markenso, and seven international players, most of them anonymous.

All of these have gone back to the NCAA (not where they know what the upcoming season will look like) or to Europe.

The number itself is not much unusual compared to previous years, only this time quite a few players cited the uncertainty as a reason to return to colleges.

"Players like Abdia, Killian Hayes, Theo Maldon - they will not be affected. Their place in the NBA is guaranteed."

Hayes (Photo: Imagebank GettyImages)

"For the guys who have an exit clause for the NBA, the situation is even better," explains Walla!

Sporting Mishko Reznatovic, the Serbian super-agent, "because new American players are not joining European teams right now, and young European players are getting a bigger chance. But for those who have no exit clause, there is no choice. On the teams' side, big clubs can not give these players "To leave, they have important frameworks to compete with; small teams that part of their budget comes from payments from NBA teams will benefit more."

"For these players, it is very difficult to leave a team in the middle of the season," adds Emiliano Carcia, editor of the sports news site Sportando.

"If they are selected in the first round then there is another guaranteed contract for at least two years, and then it still makes sense to leave. For players selected in the second round, it is a big risk to leave their team in December, go to training camp and hope to be accepted to the final squad. It is not clear at all if and when next season will be played. "

Between shooting practice to the sounds of Kobe Aflalo and working out in the gym, he and his good-sign agent are waiting for updates at the P3 training facility in Atlanta.

Abdia (Photo: Danny Maron)

Memoirs of a catapult

For Abdia, thoughts of giving up probably did not cross her mind.

His place in the lottery seems guaranteed, and these days, between shooting practice to the sounds of Kobe Aflalo and working out in the gym, he and his good-sign agent are waiting for updates at the P3 training facility in Atlanta.

The final date for the draft takes into account that the league needs to give the accountants enough time for all the calculations, which this time are more complicated than ever.

Only when they understand how much money will be lacking for the league this season compared to the original expectations, and after talking to the players' organization, will the salary cap be set.

"Players like Abdia, Killian Hayes, Theo Maldon - they will not be affected. Their place in the NBA is guaranteed," says Carcaria. "The main problem for some - not for Danny - will be that if the NBA starts in the winter of 2021, they will almost close. A year without competitive basketball. On the other hand, take a player like the Italian-Cameroonian Paul Aboua, who was rumored to be selected in the second round. He still decided not to sign anywhere, remained a free agent, and wanted to decide only after the draft - then suddenly postponed the draft again for a month. "Second, because of all the retirements, there is a chance that in the draft 2020 you will be chosen in a higher place than you were supposed to be chosen."

But the thoughts of the Israeli basketball fan from the age of 35 and up, naturally, travel back to a time when Yam Madar and Avdia were not yet born.

In the 1990s, Maccabi Tel Aviv managed to intercept - in quotes or not - two Israelis who could fly a blue and white flag in the striped and star country.

Doron Sheffer was selected in the second round of the 1996 draft and when it became clear that there was no paved way for the NBA, as he had to go through the oppressive Clippers' training camp at the time, Maccabi Tel Aviv rushed and offered him a similar contract - about $ 400,000 - for what he could earn in America. Without a training camp and with an environment close to home.

Three years later, reports spoke of an imminent deal between Oded Katash and the New York Knicks - then the league was shut down due to a dispute between team owners and players, and Katash also remained yellow and blue.

"If I am a European player and selected in the second round of the draft - I would rather move on to the upcoming season in Europe."

Madar (Photo: Danny Maron)

This time, the Reds are gaining a captain, at least for now - if Madar is selected in the draft, a chance that has risen both thanks to his good ability in the playoffs and the retirement of a double-digit number of second-round candidates, will be a reassessment.

So far the seven Europeans who have retired from the draft are not really superstars and most of them were not candidates for the second round either.

Indeed, players who do not belong to colleges have been given an extension - until October 6 by the date of October 16, a date that may also be postponed - to make a final decision.

For Madar, this is not a simple decision - although he has an exit clause, and in the current situation he may slip into the second round thanks to the resignations of some of his competitors;

On the other hand, a strong season in Israel and perhaps also in Europe can improve his status and put him in the first round of the 2021 draft, so the possibility of retiring from the 2020 draft and saving the theoretical headache still exists.

"Obviously, every situation has to be examined on its own merits," concludes Nevan Spahija, a former Maccabi Tel Aviv coach and in recent years an assistant coach in the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks and now the Memphis Grizzlies.

"But by and large, if I am a European player and selected in the second round of the draft - I would rather move on to the upcoming season in Europe."

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Source: walla

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