St Kilda President Andrew Bassat tees off on the AFL draft system, specifically father/son and the Northern Academies

[oak79]

He's right though.

The point system is so broken - getting a first round player in exchange for a bunch of late picks.

Get rid of points - if you have a f/s or academy nomination, you should have to use your next pick after a bid (or pick above if the bid is within 1 of your pick). You still get a bargain, potentially.

If you have 2 player nominated in the same draft round, you can use a F pick.

Nominations & bids should be done pre draft - and locked in.


If no one bids on your nomination, you can use your lowest pick (but you have to take them if you nominate)

That gets rid of scenario where the wooden spoooners 2nd pick is in the 30s.

(and get rid of compo picks completely)

 

[Sentinel]

There is very little tradition left in sport, and to some degree we bemoan it at every turn.

Cricket is suffering because so much of it is meaningless: players are traded like used cars to franchises, not states, and represent whoever will pay them the most money for the least work.

In the rugby codes a contract means next to nothing and players are forever leaving to go to another side, the English super league, or to play Japanese or French rugby union from the NRL. A club like the Penrith Panthers who continually funnel players into their side from development squads and local junior teams is a throwback to 40 years ago and as such they have a closer tie to their local community than most professional teams within Australia.

We whinge about how players move teams more in this era and how contracts are worth less, loyalty is less of a commodity.

How suburban grounds are no longer a feature of the game. Watching other sports from afar, we see that recently a player in the MLB started a game playing for one team and by the end of a rain delay was playing for another. That’s how little commitment is actually worth in many sports nowadays.

Meanwhile one aspect that AFL has tried to keep alive in what is one of the most tribally followed sports in the world is the idea that a son, more than likely raised in the shadow of the club his father played for, can grow up and play for that club and follow in his fathers footsteps.


We whinge about that but not the fact that teams are rewarded year upon year for being garbage by getting first access to the best players - usually because of their own mismanagement and shortcomings?

The argument from Bassat re father-sons was not about abolishing the system. It was about making clubs pay a fairer price for them. I don't think that alone should be seen as a particularly controversial view.

 

[The Jack]

Also a club that has had 1 father son pick in the last 20 years can’t expect to change everything because it’s absolutely their issue saints players kids haven’t developed.

For example the Bulldogs have been investing heavily in father son players in a junior academy for the last 25-30 years, we have taken 7 in that time. There became premiership players.

You don't think St Kilda have as well? I know for a fact they have.

Doesn't change good fortune. Just emphasises the fact it's pot luck.

 

[adammania9]

What!?!

Collingwood have had their fair share of draft stuff ups.

They have been bailed out by the quality of father sons that hasn’t hurt their assets or sides to claim.

Finlay Macrae over Max Holmes
Jaidyn Stephenson over Aaron Naughton
Matt Scharenberg over Christian Salem
Nathan Freeman over Dom Sheed/Patrick Cripps

BUT

they get gifted Nick Daicos, Darcy Moore, Isaac Quaynor for nothing

Imagine if they had to acquire a top 5 pick for Daicos. They probably don’t win the 23 flag.

Collingwood had pick 2 the year Nick Daicos was drafted but traded out of it because they were attached to him. He’d have still ended up a Collingwood player.

 

[Elixuh]

Such a weird argument. You can’t complain about a clear inequality if you’ve done anything at all that others perceive to be misguided?

You can, but many won't take you seriously and will point to all of these other things that are maybe the reason why the Saints aren't going so well. I mean you just told one of your players not to attend the B&F, that speaks to a rubbish culture. And putting it on the agenda as a key issue in the president's address of a B&F is important context as well.

 

[PhatBoy]

The argument from Bassat re father-sons was not about abolishing the system. It was about making clubs pay a fairer price for them. I don't think that alone should be seen as a particularly controversial view.

No and I agree with that to a reasonable degree. I’m referring to people who think the system itself is archaic and stupid and the very idea of it needs removing.

 

[RUNVS]

He's right though.

The point system is so broken - getting a first round player in exchange for a bunch of late picks.

This is not really accurate though.

Say Sydney had pick 15 and needed points for a player at pick 7.

Sydney could trade pick 15 for picks 29 and 32.

Then trade pick 29 for pick 38 and 40, and then trade 32 for 43 and 47.

So Sydney would use pick 38, 40, 43 and 47 to get the player at pick 7 but ultimately we paid the pick 15 as that is the intial pick we had before we started trading downwards.

 

[stavro#4]

Collingwood had pick 2 the year Nick Daicos was drafted but traded out of it because they were attached to him. He’d have still ended up a Collingwood player.

Collingwood traded its 2021 first rounder (pick 2) the season earlier for picks in the 2020 draft. It had nothing to do with Nick Daicos and it was in noway paying fair market value.

It was a bad trade that would have blown up in most clubs faces that had nil impact on the pies due to the fact you could match the Daicos bid with BS picks - which was the entire point of Bassats argument.

 

[bergholt]

You can, but many won't take you seriously and will point to all of these other things that are maybe the reason why the Saints aren't going so well.

Sure, I guess that means the Saints can't say anything publicly until we've won a couple of flags?

 

[stavro#4]

This is not really accurate though.

Say Sydney had pick 15 and needed points for a player at pick 7.

Sydney could trade pick 15 for picks 29 and 32.

Then trade pick 29 for pick 38 and 40, and then trade 32 for 43 and 47.

So Sydney would use pick 38, 40, 43 and 47 to get the player at pick 7 but ultimately we paid the pick 15 as that is the intial pick we had before we started trading downwards.

That isn’t 100% accurate as the trading down also then requires compensation to the swans in the following draft.

Hence the double dipping argument and how it’s BS that a club can match p7 with nothing picks and gain something for the following season.

 

[adammania9]

Collingwood traded its 2021 first rounder (pick 2) the season earlier for picks in the 2020 draft. It had nothing to do with Nick Daicos and it was in noway paying fair market value.

It was a bad trade that would have blown up in most clubs faces that had nil impact on the pies due to the fact you could match the Daicos bid with BS picks - which was the entire point of Bassats argument.


View attachment 2127884

They traded the future pick because they were attached to Daicos, who was one of the best junior players to come around in years. If there’s no Daicos to Collingwood attachment, the club takes the pick into 2021.

 

[Altum Volantes]

To St Kilda’s credit, the fact that they didn’t go out of business decades ago is a miracle.

They exist to…exist.

 

[bergholt]

I would suggest that for a club president, teeing off about academies and FS acquisitions from other clubs being a reason for your own club's lack of success, at a B&F dinner no less, probably isn't going to instill the players and supporters with a lot of confidence.

The supporters of every club love to feel like victims, like the world is against them. Read every game day forum from every club about how the umpires are biased against their club specifically. The President of a club is the ultimate voice of the fans, makes sense to me that he channels the frustration that our fans are feeling about a club winning a flag then getting the number one pick in the draft at a ridiculous discount.

He should be using that opportunity to lay out how the club has a plan to win premierships in the near future and what that looks like.

Literally every club does that every year. You wouldn't be reading about it in the media because they don't bother reporting it, which means that 95% of the club's supporters wouldn't hear it. Instead, he's gone with a message which has cut-through, which speaks to Saints fans who are feeling hard done by. You can disagree with the strategy but saying an anodyne "here's our plan blah blah blah" isn't clearly better imo.

 

[Philhawk]

Victorians underestimate how much easier it is for them to draft than it is for non-Victorians.

Go on any non-Victorian draft discussion thread and it will be filled with "we can't draft this guy as he is a huge flight risk" and we see on draft day, especially in the first round non-Victorian clubs avoid Vic Metro players whenever possible.

Is there data to back this up? How many players have Swans and Lions lost to “go home factor” under their current coaches - and is that more than Victorian clubs?

 

[stavro#4]

They traded the future pick because they were attached to Daicos, who was one of the best junior players to come around in years. If there’s no Daicos to Collingwood attachment, the club takes the pick into 2021.

The point was that it wasn’t some genius trade because of the attachment. Any other club who tried that trade would have had it blow up in their face.

You didn’t know it would be pick 2 (or whatever it was in 2021) so it wasn’t to accumulate points for Nick.

Which is the basis of this argument. It isn’t fair that clubs can do this whilst others need to sit back with their one back each season and hope for the best.

You gambled. Lost and still won the ****ing jackpot because of the Father son rules/academy rules are significantly stacked one way.

 

[bergholt]

To St Kilda’s credit, the fact that they didn’t go out of business decades ago is a miracle.

They exist to…exist.

The Saints exist (like all the other clubs) because the AFL and the AFLPA want them to exist. Everyone's in the same leaky boat. If the Saints and the Kangas and the Dogs and whoever else go bust, there's less money all around, because there are fewer games and fewer fans. Everyone involved in the game knows that's how the equation works.

 

[Harris Specter]

Not really competitively equal when the Hawks just took one of their only good players for less than what St Kilda allegedly were offering.

But I suppose if the Saints want to treat their players like this...

View attachment 2127838

Outright embarassing. Culture starts at the top, no wonder players are avoiding St Kilda like the plague.
Feel sorry for young talented draftees that are forced to play for this club under Lyon.

 

[Elixuh]

Sure, I guess that means the Saints can't say anything publicly until we've won a couple of flags?

No, Saints can say what they want. But we also don't have to follow along with the St Kilda president's pretend of - look over here guys academies. Don't look over there at how we draft and run the club or how we treat our players telling them not to come to B&Fs etc. Its the academies.

That is really a message for the Saints fans who want to have an external reason to blame for why their club falls over every year. Raising it as a focal point in the president's address of a B&F suggests the Sainters think it is one of the key problems holding them back.

 

[adammania9]

The point was that it wasn’t some genius trade because of the attachment. Any other club who tried that trade would have had it blow up in their face.

You didn’t know it would be pick 2 (or whatever it was in 2021) so it wasn’t to accumulate points for Nick.

Which is the basis of this argument. It isn’t fair that clubs can do this whilst others need to sit back with their one back each season and hope for the best.

You gambled. Lost and still won the ****ing jackpot because of the Father son rules/academy rules are significantly stacked one way.

It was a losing bet so I don’t get why anybody would be stuck up on it. The consequence of having Nick available in 2021 is we made a dud trade to draft Poulter and McMahon in 2020. Yeah, I suppose the rules put in place allowed for us to make that dud trade and still get the piece, but what I’m saying is it’s a microscopic thing to focus on as the Magpies got nothing out of that trade, and the following season that ensued would have resulted in Daicos joining Collingwood at pick 2.

 

[RUNVS]

In all seriousness though I know exactly what I would do to fix the draft.

I would introduce a blind draft auction.

So instead of receiving picks at the end of the year teams receive points, eg, something like this

18th position - 4647 points
17th position - 4088 points
16th position - 3740 points
15th position - 3478 points
14th position - 3263 points
13th position - 3077 points
12th position - 2913 points
11th position - 2765 points
10th position - 2631 points
9th position - 2504 points
8th position - 2388 points
7th position - 2279 points
6th position - 2174 points
5th position - 2077 points
4th position - 1983 points
3rd position - 1894 points
2nd position - 1809 points
1st position - 1726 points

and in the trade period two teams can negotiate points for players, so lets go with Bolton. Richmond could say "Bolton is worth 1000 points, and Fremantle could argue, "we will not pay more than 712 points for him" and eventually they agree and say Bolton is worth 850 points or something like that, so Richmond get the 850 points and Fremantle get Bolton.

Then we have the draft which is a blind draft auction, so Andrew Dilon comes on stage and says "the bidding for pick 1 is now open"

Every team submits how many points they are willing to bid on pick 1, and also who they want to draft with pick 1 should they win the bid.

For instance

Richmond (3200 points) - Jagga Smith
West Coast (3250 points) - Harvey Langford
Adelaide (3400 points) - Jagga Smith

So lets say all teams bid, and then Dilon comes out and says "With 3400 points Adelaide have won pick 1, and have selected Jagga Smith"

Bidding for pick 2 is now open, and again, all the clubs bid and the team that is willing to pay the most gets pick 2, and the player they want.

When an academy player is selected, so lets say Fremantle bid 2816 points on Ashcroft, Dilon comes out and says "with 2816 points Fremantle have won pick 4 and have selected Father/Son selection Levi Ashcroft. Brisbane have 2 minutes to match"

and Brisbane have 2 minutes to match, and they have to select Ashcroft with 2816 points, just like Fremantle wanted to, they don't get a discount, they pay as much as the highest bidder is willing to pay, but they do get first rights.

To me that would be better.

Also a blind draft auction gives far many more options in how a team builds a list. Makes it easier for West Coast for instance to target Western Australians as they don't have to worry about reaching too much if they have pick 5 but there is a WA kid who is expected to go pick 11.

It changes the system from a barter system to a currency based system and makes it much fairer for everyone.

 

[ltdamn]

You can't make it fair, so I say make it interesting. Change it back to clubs matching bids with some random 3rd round pick, until every club has been able to secure one Daicos or GAJ level of superstar player, then once this is done, it changes back to clubs having to hoard a billion points to match bids.

If a player wins Rising Star, Brownlow, reaches 250 games, is taken at Pick 1 or a poll on Bigfooty decides they are generational, this forces the switch.

Bidding on a player and forcing a club to match at Pick 1 switches a club back to the old method, provided they don't have any players meeting the criteria above on their list, just to keep it interesting. Applies to F/S and academy separately. Sydney, GWS, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Collingwood all start on the new system of matching bids.

 

[bergholt]

No, Saints can say what they want. But we also don't have to follow along with the St Kilda president's pretend of - look over here guys academies. Don't look over there at how we draft and run the club or how we treat our players telling them not to come to B&Fs etc. Its the academies.

That is really a message for the Saints fans who want to have an external reason to blame for why their club falls over every year. Raising it as a focal point in the president's address of a B&F suggests the Sainters think it is one of the key problems holding them back.

Saints fans know there have been many problems with the club over the years, and there's literally zero we can do about it as fans. Clear systemic inequalities, though? They can be fixed, if the AFL can be bothered.

 

[bzparkes]

The supporters of every club love to feel like victims, like the world is against them. Read every game day forum from every club about how the umpires are biased against their club specifically. The President of a club is the ultimate voice of the fans, makes sense to me that he channels the frustration that our fans are feeling about a club winning a flag then getting the number one pick in the draft at a ridiculous discount.

Of course supporters feel like the world's against them. It's a bit weird for a club pres to tee off about how his team is unfairly disadvantaged by a rule that relies mostly on luck(FS).

Only a few select clubs have significantly benefitted from it recently.

St Kilda have benefitted from the old academy rules by being able to match Sydney's bid on Owens, so it's pretty weird to complain about something they've benefitted from in the past, especially when they took our academy player(Collard) in a year we weren't allowed to match.

Literally every club does that every year. You wouldn't be reading about it in the media because they don't bother reporting it, which means that 95% of the club's supporters wouldn't hear it. Instead, he's gone with a message which has cut-through, which speaks to Saints fans who are feeling hard done by. You can disagree with the strategy but saying an anodyne "here's our plan blah blah blah" isn't clearly better imo.

St Kilda have come across as a club with a victim mentality for as long as I can remember. Such speeches simply reinforce that mindset.

It's fine to acknowledge the challenges your club faces, blaming inequities(which exist for all clubs) for your club's lack of success shows no desire to take ownership of said lack of success and appears to express a desire to avoid responsibility.

 

[oak79]

This is not really accurate though.

Say Sydney had pick 15 and needed points for a player at pick 7.

Sydney could trade pick 15 for picks 29 and 32.

Then trade pick 29 for pick 38 and 40, and then trade 32 for 43 and 47.

So Sydney would use pick 38, 40, 43 and 47 to get the player at pick 7 but ultimately we paid the pick 15 as that is the intial pick we had before we started trading downwards.

It is though - you gave a great example how they could use lower picks.

Pick 15 should have to be used on the player. By on trading it, everyone else in the draft got pushed back

If you want a player in the first round, you should have to use a first round pick.

 

[Pies No 1]

People comparing the Naicos to Lashcroft situation.

Collingwood finished 17th the year they got Naicos. The only team that could have taken him before us is North Melbourne. We were a basket case team getting the number 1 pick. Brisbane won the Premiership and finished 1st, and are taking the number 1 draft pick - This is where I agree with this guy that the system is broken.

Teams finishing in the top 4 should relinquish all father-son picks in the first round. And a similar rule should apply to academies - top 4, and no early academy picks for you. Top 4 teams are already good teams to make it that far, they don't need top ups of number 1 draft picks.

Matter resolved.