competitive imbalance

carter, stop using lawyer tricks. the reason you can't A) keep someone in the 2nd round while simultaneously B) trading your second round pick for other picks/players is simple: you would wind up with more players/picks than you have. and i reject out of hand the expected response to that, which is, "when i get to X (maximum number of players) players on my roster, i will stop drafting." what you're talking about would effectively destroy the draft. we need protectionism in this case. you might be able to get away with buying on margin like that in the free market but this isn't entirely free -- everyone gets alloted X picks. that can be altered in limited ways (say, trading a pick for a cup of coffee), resulting in someone getting an extra pick at the end to fill out their roster. i'll reiterate my earlier rejection in different language: you can't trade your 1st round pick and keep a guy in the first round (by which i mean, have a first-round keeper slide to secnd). you need to keep your first round pick to use on the keeper. you can't spend the same dollar twice.