Interesting stuff on the WT about the lottery reform:
Sam Presti has attempted to warn other small-market executives that changing the system is a risky proposition for their franchises.
Uner the proposed new system, the worst four teams have a 12 percent chance at the first pick, No. 5 has an 11.5 percent chance, No. 6, 10 percent, and on down.
The changes have been triggered by a response to the 76ers' pursuit of high draft picks in successive seasons.
Presti's belief is that the changes would give big market teams another advantage.
"Everyone is too focused on Philly, on one team in one situation," said one sympathetic GM. "The only chance for a lot of teams to ever get a transformational player is through the draft, and eventually we are all going to be in the lottery, in that spot. The teams that'll drop from two to eight, or three to nine – that's just going to take the air out of those fan bases and franchises. They'll get little, if any chance, to improve.
"We are going to see more big-market teams who just missed the playoffs jump up and get a great young player at the top of the draft. And people are going to go "What the [expletive] just happened?"
We've seen multiple lotto jumpers and that is a major flaw, although the NBA may like it- they get more super-teams (like Cleveland) that are good for ratings, and they help teams get out of late lottery treadmill purgatory. As much as the league is addressing the Philly problem, they're not addressing the Cleveland problem. They need to keep tweaking the odds- these GMs are right that the four worst teams still have a sub-50% chance of having one of them get the top pick. There's a 52% chance that in any draft, one of the ten best teams in the lottery will end up with the number one pick. Even though a Philly isn't likely to slide past 3 or 4 (2 to 8 is extreme), it's still a problem.
