The NBA, two-way contracts, and developing a farm system

[JCSunsfan]

The NBA needs to beef up the G-League and the ability of teams to develop a farm system outside of the NCAA track. To me, the way to do this is to expand the two-way contract in several ways.

1. Increase the number of two-way contracts available to each team. I think as many as 5 would make sense.

2. Allow second-round picks to sign two-way deals. If they get called up, those deals can be converted to a regular NBA contract. This would allow for second-rounders to get more development in G-League rather than sitting at the end of an NBA bench. It would also make second-round picks more valuable. An alternative to this would be to develop a special type of second-round rookie contract that allows for up to 100% assignment to G-league. The NCAA might like this too, since players might think twice about declaring if they have a chance of falling in the draft and not making a full-time NBA roster.

3. Beef up the pay scale for two-way contracts. The present salary structure for two-way deals is $75,000 for G-League play and up to $204,000 for NBA play if they get the max number of games in (45). Those should both be doubled probably.

With this, and a couple of developmental players on the regular roster (like Lecque this year) teams could professionally develop talented youngsters who are not NCAA material.

 

[Hoop Head]

The NBA needs to beef up the G-League and the ability of teams to develop a farm system outside of the NCAA track. To me, the way to do this is to expand the two-way contract in several ways.

1. Increase the number of two-way contracts available to each team. I think as many as 5 would make sense.

2. Allow second-round picks to sign two-way deals. If they get called up, those deals can be converted to a regular NBA contract. This would allow for second-rounders to get more development in G-League rather than sitting at the end of an NBA bench. It would also make second-round picks more valuable. An alternative to this would be to develop a special type of second-round rookie contract that allows for up to 100% assignment to G-league. The NCAA might like this too, since players might think twice about declaring if they have a chance of falling in the draft and not making a full-time NBA roster.

3. Beef up the pay scale for two-way contracts. The present salary structure for two-way deals is $75,000 for G-League play and up to $204,000 for NBA play if they get the max number of games in (45). Those should both be doubled probably.

With this, and a couple of developmental players on the regular roster (like Lecque this year) teams could professionally develop talented youngsters who are not NCAA material.

1. 2 Two-Way deals is fine right now. I think they will add another when the high school draft takes place. That is when a change will need to be made. Right now we're in the 3rd year of Two-Way contracts and I don't think there needs to be a significant change made.

2. Second-round picks can sign Two-Way contracts, the Suns signed George King to one last year after the draft. There is nothing stopping a team from doing that other than themselves. The downside is that Two-Way deals only last 1 year but if they don't know after a year if they want to offer a real contract then the player isn't an NBA talent yet, most likely.

3. The salary structure is weird. Two-Way deals pay more than G-League contracts and they allow a decent signing bonus to help make up for the lesser contract as well as paying the player like an NBA player while they're with the main roster for the first couple of weeks of the season and the last couple also because the G-League season starts later and finishes sooner. When they're with the main roster team before and after the G-League season is going they make NBA money, which does pay them a lot more.

Also just wanted to add that a player can be with the main roster team for 45 days and not games. That is a big difference. One of the changes they implemented last year is that travel days no longer count against a players time on a Two-Way deal. They don't get charged days until they show up, not while they're trying to catch the team, if they happen to be on the road.

Teams can send 2nd round picks down for a whole season if they wanted, it's their choice. I believe they're allowed to assign players for as long as they want through their first 3 season in the league. So long as the player's contract is being paid, it's not much of an issue. The Suns had Okobo on a real contract but had him down in the league for quite some time, for example.

I would like to see it turned into more of a farm system but I think we're at a standstill right now and will be until high schoolers are able to be drafted again. Once that happens, I expect we'll see an overhaul of how the G-League/NBA team relationships are handled.

They're really close to having 1 G-League team for each NBA team also. That will be needed for them to implement rule changes that are accepted more by the team's owners.