Economist: Downturn Favors Good Systems

Tyler Cowen, noted economist who runs the blog Marginal Revolution, has a brief post about the NBA. A few key points: As so many players have guaranteed contracts, at a moment when the league presumably needs to reduce salaries, all the reductions have to come at the expense of those who are free agents. (One addendum, though, that's worth noting. Rookie contracts are actually negotiable. In the past, nearly every first-round pick has gotten the maximum allowable under the rookie scale. This year could mark the end of that.) Cowen notes a lot of the good free agents, like Ben Gordon or Ron Artest, have questionable elements of their reputations (I assume with Gordon he's talking about being a ball-stopper): "This favors teams with dominant players (Cleveland), strong systems (Boston), and strong coaches. All those teams can swallow the troublemakers without cracking up. It also favors teams which suffer from well-defined 'missing pieces.' It favors already...