[HitsterParticipant]

With people now talking about teams having their next available pick to trade being in 2029 I wondered if it is time to revisit the Stepien Rule whereby teams cannot trade away picks in successive years. A lot of contenders in the 20-30 draft range will get around this anyway by merely drafting a player with a possible trade already worked out if they so desire.

There is no way that I’d want a team to potentially trade away every draft pick for a decade but maybe they are allowed to do 2 or 3 in a row as part of a trade. The team receiving the picks gets them sooner and allows them to possibly rebuild quicker and the team sending the picks would potentially have more certainty over the next few years of where they should be draftwise if they have aquired a top player.

Say when Gobert was traded and T-Wolves could have sent picks for 4 of next 5 years they will have Rudy and the bulk of their current roster in that time so could have traded with more certainty where picks may full. Likewise when Nets wanted similar haul for KD teams didn’t want to send picks up to the end of the decade. But the next 3 years with KD on the team limits downside and the Nets get draft options quicker

[BKGingerSnapParticipant]

I mean there are all kinds of ways to get around the Stepien rule. Pick swaps in the in between years, trading the 1’st round pick after drafting him, etc. Stepien traded 5 consecutive 1st round picks between ’81 and ’85 and really many more teams would do it too so I feel like it prevents owners from acting off their worst instincts. The thing I’d rather see is the NBA change the rules on matching salaries in trades. Given the explosive growth of the salaries for top end guys, it makes matching salaries much harder and the range between ingoing and outgoing salaries should be loosened.

[HitsterParticipant]

If teams didn’t have to take so much salary back it would make trades more attractive maybe do something so total value of salaries being traded is considered or at least a percentage of future years.

I wouldn’t want Stepien type cases where you might get say the Lakers trading away a decade worth of picks to be win now but something like 3 consecutive years could be moved or 4 out of 5 but you have to draft a minimum amount of times with your own picks in a 10 year cycle say 3 times. So teams would really need to consider when to go all in.

[Author]

Posts