The lockout finally ended 149 days later, a bunch of games were cancled that nobody really cares about and my (I use this term very lightly) Clippers are playing on Christmas day.

I a stroke of semi brilliance I came up with a few improbable changes the NBA should make the league that much better.

Before I start I want to emphases the fact that I know very little about the NBA, here is all I know in one paragraph:

Blake Griffin is a beast and has insane dunks. Kobe, LeBron, The Decision, Metta World Peace (apparently he sounds like a better player than he really is). Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Oklahoma City Thunder = Tampa Bay Rays, ridiculous contracts to average players, David Stern, lockout, ball, net, etc.

That’s pretty much it, when it comes to basketball I can barley name off the starting positions let alone breakdown the triangle—at least I knew there is such a thing as the triangle offense?

So who better to write about the NBA than a person that knows very little about the sport?

First, move the Clippers back to San Diego.

Surprisingly they are in the top half of the league in attendance (#14), but LA will always be the Lakers town and San Diego is in desperate need of a up and coming sports team, trust me, we are dying down here.

The Clippers would have the entire market to themselves—to be fair at first they would have a legitimate competition with SDSU hoops, but that wouldn’t last long.

The Clippers have a bright future ahead of Image Courtesy of sportslogos.net  them with Black Griffin and they have only 4 guys over 22 on their roster.

San Diego could rally around a team that has a legit chance of making the playoffs, unlike the Chargers and Padres.

Second, terminate two teams.

A few day ago New Orleans point guard Chris Paul announced to the world that he wanted to play with Carmelo Anthony in New York, this after LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined forces with Dwayne Wade in Miami the elite athlete no longer wants to win a championship alone, they want to win period.

With the elite talent no longer spread out over many team and concentrate on just a few teams, there are going to be more really bad teams.

Two candidates would be the league owner New Orleans Hornets, 26th in the league in attendance and the last few years they have been around .500, but with the eventual departure of Paul, that would decrease dramatically.

The other team would be the Memphis Grizzlies who are 27th in attendance and have a record below .500 the last three years.

You could also put the Indiana Pacers in this category as well.

Third, move a team to Las Vegas.

For a league that is all about publicity, attendance, and making money a move to Vegas makes sense. A town that has zero professional sports teams, none, in all of the different leagues.

The immediate and most pressing issue with the move is the gambling aspect of the town that was essentially built on games of odds.

For the guys that already gamble, it won’t matter where they play ball they will find a way to avoid punishment. As for the temptation to gamble when they are in the city put in a stiffer penalty in the player code of conduct.

As for potential teams, any of the teams mentioned above that were eliminated any one of them could be moved, even with a team moving to Vegas you would still do the previous two steps.

Rules

Can we bring back a little contact? I could score five points playing in an NBA game simply by being fouled.

Make the guy earn the free throws, it seems like if a player even remotely tries to guard LeBron they foul him.

Let them play, then if a fist fight breaks out then blow the whistle.

Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the point.

Amnesty Clause

This was introduced in the new collective bargaining agreement, a team gets to get rid of one players contract off their salary cap and luxury tax, but they still have to pay the guy.

Since we are dealing with ridiculous ideas give each team one complete do over every three years. Completely eradicate a players contract, that player is now a free agent, the team owes him no money unless is isn’t able to sign with a new team and the contract is taken off the salary cap and luxury tax.

It’s like playing on the franchise mode on Madden, if you are smart enough you can pretty much manipulate contracts and salary cap however you want.

This would further help teams that made a poor decision because of a limited market.

To get this in there the owners would have to give a bit in BRI, but it would be well worth it to pretty much every team.

My rambling on a topic I am not well versed in is over. All of those ideas above won’t happen, but just think how much better the NBA would be if David Stern was stupid enough to take this seriously.