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The Qatar Investment Authority tried to purchase an interest in the Suns. LeBron was seen rubbing shoulders with dealmakers in Saudi Arabia. It’s clear that there’s some brewing interest in a basketball league in the Middle East, a la LIV for golf.

But what should that league look like?

It could never match the sheer quantity and quality of players in the NBA. It could, though, give players money and individual acclaim beyond anything previously imaginable.

The "L"eague

In this new league, players will no longer be tied to organizations–they only play for themselves. The league structure itself will produce a ranking of the greatest players in the world, including the GOAT.

Structure

  • The league will have 50 marquee players (10 at each position) and a rotating group of extras. All players will play in games at the same location for a week, and then move onto the next location, repeated for 15 weeks.
  • Teams are not determined until the day before the week’s games begin. A lottery-drawing ceremony will occur and teams will be selected at random via ping pong balls (while ensuring each team has each position filled).
  • Each player will play 3 games for the week, each with a different squad. Their records will be tallied (e.g. LeBron goes 30-15, Jordan Poole is 9-36, etc.).
  • After 45 games, the players will be split by record into 5 tiers: the Playoff Tier (Top 10 players by record), Tier II (#11-#20, etc.), Tier III, Tier IV, and Tier V. They’ll all play 15 additional games, except this time, each team will include 1 player from each of the tiers (so quality of play is similar to NBA playoffs).
  • The Playoff Tier players will be ranked #1-#10 again on this 15-game record. Only the Top 4 will remain for championship consideration.
  • Repeat system until two players are left.
  • With two players left, the two players face off in a best-of-7 with 1 other Playoff Tier player, two Tier II’s, and a Tier III (randomly chosen and different for each game).

The player who remains is the greatest player in the world.

Compensation structure

  • The top-50 NBA salaries of the year are summed up–it’s ~$1.9B for 2023. 1,275 purse shares are available. The #1 player receives 50 shares, #2 receives 49 shares, etc. Thus, the top players will wildly exceed the supermaxes available in the NBA (receiving >$70M) and get properly compensated for their impact on the court. I’m open to other compensation structures that provide better minimum payments, higher payments for the GOAT, etc.
  • Every player has the incentive to compete in every game. Last place gets ~$1.5M, second to last gets $3M and so on. Each place you go up is worth ~$1.5M.
  • No load management- players will be ranked by wins, not win-loss percentage. Players can buy injury insurance if concerned about it.

Ownership structure

  • To be discussed in a future post. The total compensation package, though, is similar to LIV Golf and could be viable for a large sovereign wealth fund. Lots of interesting routes to go.

Imagine a world where we can conclusively know who the best player is because they’ve played with every iteration of team imaginable and still come out on top. Whoever helps their team win the most is the GOAT. No more questions about “what if Doncic had a better supporting staff?” or “can hero ball win?”. No more contract holdouts, no more trade requests. We will know all these answers and more in THE 'L’EAGUE.

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