NBA may consider eliminating draft-lottery

Report: NBA considering proposal to eliminate draft lottery
By TheScore.com December 23, 2013
http://www.thescore.com/home/articles/2 ... ft-lottery

One of the largest talking points early in the NBA season has been tanking, the process of teams systematically being bad in order to improve their draft position and thus, hopefully, improve their future outlook.
It's led to several teams with ugly rosters and, most importantly, fans openly rooting against their teams in the hope of more hope (in the form of "ping pong balls," or better lottery odds).
This is obviously something the league should be and is concerned about, because it's terrible for the on-court product and completely abhorrent from a moral perspective.

The proposal would "eliminate the draft lottery entirely and replace it with a system in which each of the 30 teams would pick in a specific first-round draft slot once — and exactly once — every 30 years." That is, a team would select first, second, third...28th, 29th and 30th every 30 years, in a predetermined order.
The order would also shuffle so that teams don't pick high multiple times in a short span (something more like first, then 30th, then 19th, then 18th and so on). And most importantly, "Teams would know with 100 percent certainty in which draft slots they would pick every year," which would, in theory, completely eliminate the incentive to tank.
(It would also make the trading of draft picks incredibly interesting, but that's a very minor point unrelated to the core issue.)
Each team would receive a top-six pick every five years and a top-12 pick every four years, thus eliminating situations of teams picking high year after year.
And again, it also completely eliminates any incentive to be bad, since your draft position is pre-determined. This is the huge benefit and the main selling point; it would kill tanking, period.

benji help.

It's easier to understand if you link/read the source article itself from Grantland.

I'd prefer the lottery to that system, which could see the top picks going to teams that are already strong and strikes me as being a bit contrived.

I still think the problem of tanking is a bit overblown. Nothing lasts forever, basically every team is going to go through a rebuilding phase at some point and that usually means bottoming out along the way. If a mediocre team that's heading nowhere wants to cut their losses and pull the plug, trimming their payroll and starting over by enduring a tough season because getting a lottery pick will potentially help jumpstart the rebuilding process...I think that's perfectly legitimate.

Now, if you've got teams actively trying to lose games within the games themselves, a line has been crossed. I don't think that actually happens all that much, though. Even the teams that are supposed to be tanking this year are having some competitive games and occasionally beating teams that they shouldn't have much of a chance of defeating.

It's not as though the lottery system guarantees anything, anyway. If we look back at the lottery winners, it's not like the team with the best odds (and thus the most losses) is winning year after year. On top of that, you've still got teams making bad or less-than-stellar choices.

and how do you account for expansion? i think 7 teams have joined in the last 30 years. this was not thought through

That too, along with the fact that teams can't be expected to plan out the next 30 years, there could be multiple changes to the CBA during that span and they've got to wait until all the upcoming picks that have been involved in trades have been used.

The whole thing seems more complicated and contrived than it needs to be, with no guarantee that it will work out any better for the league than the current system, which has its problems but I believe works better than it's often given credit for.

This.

..teams can't be expected to plan out the next 30 years...

Bad teams can't even plan out one season properly, more so with 30 seasons.

did i just read a post from the onion?

Oh Miami, you just won three straight championship. Congratulations! Here's Jabari Parker!

The whole thing seems more complicated and contrived than it needs to be, with no guarantee that it will work out any better for the league than the current system, which has its problems but I believe works better than it's often given credit for.

Seems like the media blows small situations like this (Elimination of Conferences, NFL playoff restructuring) when one or two teams are slighted. I think that the systems in place work well for the most part and don't need major overhauls. They come up with stuff like this when they have nothing better to write about

Absolutely. As far as the NBA is concerned, it doesn't help that the divide between the West and the East is much wider than usual, for which there are many reasons besides supposed tanking (injuries in particular). Every now and again, there are going to be results that make the system look more broken that it is, but it's the kind of stuff that will happen no matter what system is in place.

the problem is, tanking is not really a big deal. they should be more concerned with super teams than trying to prevent teams from getting better the only way they can because all the good free agents go and play together

Big market teams like Lakers, Clippers, Nets or Knicks will always have the advantage of being more attractive to some players compared to many small market teams.
If you want to avoid the forming of super teams, my solution would be: Any team can only have one max contract player, or two earning ~20 mio or three with contracts around 15 mio.
Players could still sign contracts far below their market value, but this is something most guys wouldn't do in their prime...

the problem is, tanking is not really a big deal. they should be more concerned with super teams than trying to prevent teams from getting better the only way they can because all the good free agents go and play together

I guess we'll find out over the next couple of years, but the new CBA might make that a little more difficult...or at the very least, it'll make it tough to put together a solid team around two or three superstars unless everyone takes a massive paycut.

it'll make it tough to put together a solid team around two or three superstars unless everyone takes a massive paycut.

It already is and has been. Don't confuse Sauru's whining about "super teams" with the reality of there not being any assembled by free agency except the Heat. In which all the players took paycuts.

If you want to avoid the forming of super teams, my solution would be: Any team can only have one max contract player, or two earning ~20 mio or three with contracts around 15 mio.

This is basically the rule now with the extension changes. Designated Players + achievement boosts.

You can't sign players to $20 million to start max contracts anyway and can barely go above $15 million already.

Free agent "super teams" are a non-existent "problem" that even if it had the chance of happening has already been crushed by the luxury tax changes.

Yes yes, benji has it right. Super Teams aren't the problem anymore. New CBA has corrected the issue if there was one. It's the Tanking Teams that are the problem now, so we need to have another lockout again and come up with a reasonable solution.

Super Teams are no problem? What about the Nets? At least on paper they are a super team. But I agree, they won't be able to do it constantly over the years...
Tanking will not be that kind of a problem, which it is now. Tanking is interesting now because of the upcoming draft class, which is excellent.
Last year's draft wasn't that attractive and so was that the year before. This lead to a minimum level of tanking. I think with less interesting draft classes the problem of too many teams tanking will diminish.

Even this year, I don't think that tanking is truly all that much of a problem that desperately needs to be addressed. There are only a couple of teams that you could genuinely say are tanking and even then, they've scrapped rosters that weren't going anywhere or lost players who sought better opportunities elsewhere, thus finding themselves starting over. Like I said before, that's perfectly legitimate and those teams are also going out there and doing their best to compete despite their thin rosters, so it's not as shady as it's often made out to be.

There are only a couple of teams that you could say 'super team's every season, but people still whine about them. In fact, I find them fascinating. Anyone remember when Payton and Malone joined the Lakers? Also when Garnett and Ray Allen went to the Celtics? It makes people excited and watch the game. Is it a bad thing? Balance wise, it may be but I agree not because it makes the league just more fun whether you like the team or not. Heck, even this season's BKN has been interesting (as a failure tho) and got people pumped up before the season began.

On topic of tanking teams, I don't really know if it's possible to get rid of tanking and keep the balance in place altogether, but I am with a writer that it's a good thing that they're looking into it to see if they can improve it.

However early in the process or raw the proposal, however, it's an incredibly positive sign that the league realizes they have an incentive problem and are looking at ways to fix it.

You can't eliminate the incentives for tanking and still try to get bad teams good players through the draft.

If you want to do anything I'd argue that tweaking the odds of the lottery based on team record is the more sane thing to do. Leave the cap in place, but adjust them otherwise. If your worst team wins 29 games, then five more win 30 games, then eight more win 31 games, they should all have fairly similar odds, even if one of those 31 win teams is the "17th" best regular season team and the 29 win team is 30th. (Which the current system would do to an extent under these results, but does far less so if there's say a five or ten game spread.) This only seems like it'll make teams want to tank harder, but their advantage will be reduced with every other team that also tries to tank.

Super Teams are no problem? What about the Nets? At least on paper they are a super team.

With three starters 32, 36 and 37, a 29 year old point guard who seems to have given up on life, three other key rotation players who are 32, 33 and 36, and so far beyond the luxury tax they're paying the rest of the league for the right to scramble towards the playoffs in a year where everyone wants in the lottery.

And again, and most importantly, note that AK and REGGIE EVANS are the only players acquired through free agency.

Tweaking the odds like that does strike me as a far better solution than scrapping the lottery altogether, since it's a system that's already intended to prevent teams from guaranteeing themselves the number one pick through tanking. Again, it's not like the past winners have always been the teams with the best odds, so bottoming out carries no sure promises of the top pick and prospect.

All teams have a chance in lottery. Team with worst record gets 30 chances out of 465 (6.45%), 2nd worst record gets 29 chances out of 465 and so on. Team with best record gets 1 chance out of 465. Not as much point tanking when chances drop. You'd probably have it so that rather than only being able to move into top 3 like current draft lottery, teams can now move only into top 5, meaning the worst team in league at worst would pick #6, 2nd worst #7 etc if other teams leapfrogged them. Usually teams tank to guarantee themselves top 5 pick (but also clear salaries etc).

i also think people confuse rebuilding for tanking way too much. rebuild does not = tank

Try telling that to the 96 Celtics.

Theoretically, because of the tankers, it takes more effort for true competing rebuilders to rebuild. This encourages tanking all the more. Therefore, tanking = rebuilding in reality. But some teams are different like this season's Celtics.

i also think people confuse rebuilding for tanking way too much. rebuild does not = tank

Agreed, the term is thrown around too quickly and easily. One might argue that until relatively healthy starters begin to sit out games towards the end of a losing season, teams aren't actually actively tanking.