23 February, 14
Our family attended a UCAM Murcia pro basketball game today. UCAM is a basement dweller, number 17 out of 18 teams. They were playing Unicaja, which is 4th in the league. What should have been a blowout ended up to be a nail-biter, right up to the very end. We lost 78-76.
I have spoken about basketball in Spain before. It is a different game, played more horizontally, something like women's basketball in the USA. You could make the argument that this is a more pure form of basketball, requiring more passing and better defense than the NBA's run and dunk methodology, but really that would be nothing more than an excuse for not having big enough players to make it a vertical game.
Several years ago, the Spanish player's unions got together and bargained for a rule that would limit the number of foreign players allowed on the court at any given time. The measure aimed to give Spanish players more slots to play, thus protecting their jobs. On the surface this makes sense. Who doesn't advocate protectionism for their own personal interests? Go ask a farmer if he wants the market for lettuce or beef flooded with low-cost competition from a third world country. The problem, however, is that competition always improves a market and that protection always smothers a market. Competition forces costs to drop and quality to improve. Think about how much your computer cost today, versus 15 years ago, and how much more powerful it is. What used to be a luxury is now a high quality, feature rich commodity, thanks to competition.
In a totally open, free market, the customer dictates everything. Demand pulls products through the system. If your tomatoes are good and relatively cheap, buyers will show up at your stall to purchase all of them. If you insist on charging more for the same product as your competition, you will be throwing a lot of rotten produce at bad actors.
American sports models aim to create a level playing field for all teams in a particular sport by sharing revenues among the teams and imposing salary caps. Baseball is the exception to the salary cap rule. By sharing revenues, small market teams, like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Green Bay Packers, can be assured a chance to secure top talent and vie for championships. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have won a combined 33 of 71 championships. The other 24 teams share the balance. Many different teams have dominated in certain eras.
Historically, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have garnered 48 out of the 57 ACB championships. The rest of the 16 teams share 9 championships. The league is whop-sided and shows no signs of changing. Spaniards like to point to the Olympics and say that they have the most competitive basketball country, other than the USA. What they fail to take into account is that Olympic basketball is almost an afterthought for American players.
If they want to truly know their level relative to the NBA, I propose a championship tournament, representing every major basketball league in the world. This will accomplish several good things at once. The NBA is always looking to open markets to garner more fans and revenues. The other leagues will be playing against the best, creating opportunities to grow and develop players.
Spain also needs to develop a better farm system for cultivating young talent. Any Spanish 10 year old can outdribble an American high school soccer player. The reverse is true in basketball. Implementing a strong system would change the basketball culture here and elevate the game.
Everywhere I look, I see the need for free markets, free trade and free opportunities to exploit those markets. I am a Capitalist and proud of it. China doesn't scare me near as much as protectionism.
Now if I can just convince the ACB to let me run the league...
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