Who Shouldn't Have A Team?

One word fixes so many things...

So I spent my MLK Day Night watching the Association on TNT, and the studio conver- sation turned, as it must, to the ongoing travesty in Sacramento vs. Seattle, in re the eventual destination of the Maloof franchise.

Now, there are a few things that I think everyone can agree on here. (And since we're taking Maloofs here, it's going to get crude. You've been warned.)

1) The Maloofs are, even by NBA owner standards, relentlessly regrettable human beings that deserve to be bathed in excrement whenever they make an appearance in public. (I realize that this might require public coordination to limit the risk of lawsuit and arrest, but dammit, people, this is what mobile telecommunications technology is for. I'm kidding. Yes, quite.)

2) The people of Sacramento are getting done without lube, over a period of several years, in public.

3) The people of Seattle were done without lube before, and can't feel completely good about stealing another town's team, especially since their new team is going to stink.

4) No one can point to a city and say that town doesn't deserve a team.

I put that last one in bold for a reason. Because no one who watched the NBA playoff games from Memphis or Oklahoma City last year thinks those teams should lose their teams. Just like no one thinks that Brooklyn shouldn't have a team. Or that the Lakers weren't a good move.

And this is where, and you will forgive me for repeating myself over the years, English Premier League Football (only we call it soccer) has it over the American major leagues in spades. Because they don't have any towns without meaningful ball, because they've got the one word that would change everything, and take the power away from the scumbags who have abused it for over 60 years. (I'm going back to the Brooklyn Dodgers here, but you get the point.)

That word is... Relegation.

Simply demote the worst franchises to the NBDL, and promote the best from the same in an even swap, and We Fix Everything.

We make the NBDL matter. Right now, I doubt you can tell me any city where it's located, unless you happen to live there. (Why am I so certain? Because *I* can't tell you where those teams are. And I love the Association more than anyone I know.)

Tired of watching teams tank? Watch the sweat as the Wizards do everything possible to stay in the bigs.

Find it tedious when an ownership continues to hire a wildly incompetent general manager? You'll get to watch Michael Jordan take Charlotte into an officially minor league.

Want to prevent the next Donald Steling, Chris Cohan, Ted Dolan or Larry Gilbert? Relegate, relegate, relegate.

(Oh, and if you'd like to use this to relegate Jeffrey Loria to the dustbin of history, or push the Bidwells and Al Davis's family into irrelevance, or any figurehead that's made hockey in Phoenix even more of a joke than the phrase 'hockey in Phoenix' deserves... be my guest. Please. With speed.) 

Because there is never -- not ever, not even Newark or Vancouver or Kansas City or Anaheim or Buffalo or Fort Wayne or Syracuse or any other town that the NBA has pillaged and burned -- a town that deserves to lose a team.

Or an abusive owner that deserves to keep it.