One idea I have thought about is to allow for a 48 hr window where all owners have an opportunity to present a better offer to the owner that is on the bad side of a lopsided trade (the players/picks on the bad side cant change). If they can change that owners mind to take a different offer so be it. If they can't, well maybe it wasn't as lopsided as they thought. This way it isn't avote where people can just try to stop a trade where a good team is getting better...they have to put their trade offer where there mouth is.
I'd never be involved in a league that did this. So I'm supposed to go to the effort of fashioning a trade offer for someone, just so he can use it as a baseline for all other owners without even having to lift a finger to contact them? No way.
I don't disagree with you, but this is an idea as an alternative to league votes or dictator commishes to veto trades. My number one view is no veto's period, but unfortunately some feel the need to control. I think my idea is a better alternative. If no veto's isn't an alternative...What would be your view of the best way to manage "lopsided trades"?
In a group of leagues I'm in, we have this rule:
1.7 Approval/protests of trades...any owners not involved in a trade can protest up to 48 hrs of announcement from 2nd owner. If 1/3 (or 4) of the owners protest a trade, the nature of the trade would then be questioned by the league's Commissioner. A 3-person review board, made up of those not involved in the trade or protest, will examine the merits of the trade and will determine if the trade will stand. This decision will be final.
Showing collusion isn't required, because for all practical purposes collusion can never be proven, and if that were the sole criterion no trade would ever be overturned. Instead, it needs to be determined that the trade is non-competitive enough that it's not in the best interest of the league for the trade to be allowable; in essence, that it's not justifiable either short-term or long-term. Both parties to the trade are able to give their justification for the deal in writing to the league before the 3 man panel votes. So, it takes 4 owners willing to protest and another 2 out of 3 to uphold the protest as the review board. These are 14 team leagues.
We've had just a couple of trades overturned since 2003 and I'm in 6 of these leagues, so it really does only affect really horrible trades, not just trades in which one guy won and there is a grumbler or two in the league complaining about it. And certainly the Commissioner has no singular authority over trades. Simply having the title of Commissioner doesn't make his judgment better than that of other owners.