Pat Riley stole me idea to fix lottery tanking!

[Profound23]

The issue with that is the teams closer to the playoffs will win.

There is a point to the worse teams having a the best chance for the highest pick- they need it!

Tanking sucks, but I would rather have it than the worse teams having less of an opportunity to improve.

Not only that but it would start other kind of tanking.

If my team (Bucks) was good enough to make the playoffs but I knew they couldn't compete for it all. Once there is a generational all star coming out.......I'm going to have them play just well enough to be in playoff contention then tank right at the end.

Knowing we now will face the worst team in the "lottery playoffs" makes it even easier.

Also, if I'm a star player who doesn't even know if I'm coming back to said team....or worse I know I'm leaving what do I care what pick we get?

[Profound23]

The way to fix tanking is to have every team that missed the playoffs have an equal chance of getting the top pick

I like it....but again if my team is on the cusp of the playoffs but I know we aren't good enough to win it all or one of my best players is lost for the year.....and a Lebron draft is around the corner.....I'm tanking the last month of the season.

I still think this is the best way to fix it and wouldn't mind the NFL taking this on.

[SelfishPlayer]

This idea would never be approved because it will expose too many front office types as being beneficiaries of knowing the right people at the right time. These types would become two time losers every season because they will get beat by better front offices that actually have the talent for their front office position and not just great connections. So a guy like Sam Hinkie would have been fired much faster because he has zero skill/talent in building an NBA franchise. Hinkie would put together weak teams that couldn't compete in the lottery playoffs. So his teams would lose the regular season and lottery post season. He and guys like him would be cleaned out of the league, but the majority of front office staff consists of this very type of human being. So they will never vote themselves out.

[KingDavid]

Give lottery teams even odds for the top 3 picks, then worst to first of the remaining.

[JGOJustin]

The veterans on the team may have little incentive to play hard- the younger players coming in from the draft are just going to take their jobs- especially if they are top picks

Right. This wouldn't work for this reason. Also, financially how would you pay players for this

[Loneshot]

A great idea that should be implemented at some point in the near future.

[Kalela]

I think the system works just fine the way it is right now.

[knicksup19]

Pat Riley just came out with an idea yesterday for a post-season tournament to establish the lottery order which looks pretty similar to something I suggested a few months back. See below:

Riley’s proposal: A four-day postseason tournament in which 14 lottery teams participate to determine the draft order. The deeper a team goes the higher the pick and the team that wins the tournament gets the first pick.

He is calling it a “lottery playoff.”

Follow along.

“The season ends on Tuesday, the playoffs start on Sunday, and from Wednesday to Saturday, the lottery teams play a tournament for the pick,” he said. “Now, that’ll stop all that bull—- of guys tanking and all that stuff.

“The 14th team and the first team, there’s equality here now. So no more tanking in the end. I think you’d draw a tremendous amount of fans and great interest. … So play for it, let’s have a little playoff for the top pick in the draft, instead of working on ping-pong balls and all that stuff.”

http://heatzone.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/07/15/heat-president-pat-rileys-unique-solution-to-stop-teams-from-tanking/


My idea posted on RealGM back in March (which is a bit better, imo):

They should have a tournament between when the season ends and the playoffs start to determine draft order.

Take the bottom 8 teams and have them do a tourney where the winner gets the top pick, runner up gets #2, and so on until the worst team in the tourney gets pick #8. Teams #9-14 just pick wherever they end up according to record.

Day 1
Seed #1 (team with best record) plays seed #8 (team with worst record)
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
4 vs 5

Day 3 (one day off for travel/rest)
Winners square off
Losers Square off

Day 5 (one day off for travel/rest)
Final Game to set top pick
Final Losers games to establish picks 3-8

---

This model could work as it helps prevent outright tanking. Being the absolute weakest team in the regular season would give them the worst seed and set them up to get as low as the #8 pick in the draft. If the weak teams compete to the end of the season, perhaps even trading for players at the deadline to strengthen their roster for the tournament, then it's a win for fans who don't like to see their teams not competing.

The downside is that the worst team in the league could end up not getting a clear difference maker since they are picking #8, but it does put pressure on them to improve so that they aren't stuck in the same position next year. Maybe they sign a couple players that look like they could fit with their plan and bring more wins so they can set themselves up for a better pick in next year's tourney.

Another downside is perhaps teams around that #8 seed could tank the rest of the season to try to get in the tourney and get the #1 seed, but I believe most years that teams in this range believe they can get into the actual playoffs until at least the last few weeks of the season, so they'd most likely still want to compete up until the end.

The big upside is there would be much less chance to have godawful teams tanking year after year as a strategy. They have motivation to make real improvements each offseason or else get the #8 pick each year.

It also gives a little extra fun for fans watching the drama of a season ending tournament, which gives game exposure to teams and players that most fans might not care about. The televised games mean more money for teams and players, so it's something the NBA and players union should support.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1540168&hilit=tournament&start=100

I'm not saying that Riley took the idea, as I'm probably not the first person to consider this idea of a tournament to establish lottery order, but I've also never heard anyone suggest it before either.

What do you think-- just a coincidence or is there some chance that NBA guys come on Real GM and cherry pick ideas?

Anyway, feel free to discuss the idea of a draft tournament as well, as I think it's kind of cool.

terrible idea teams like the miami det por and denver will get the first pick every year until there good enough to make playoffs, basically the western conference teams that barerly miss the playoffs will get the first pick every year

[LakersLegacy]

There would plenty of tanking... by 7th and 8th seeds that want to dominate the draft tournament for #1 overall. That's a much better prize than to play the Warriors or Cavs and get their butts kicked!

Im starting to think the solution is to speed up the rebuild process. Help the worst 7 teams in a major way. 4 1st round draft picks each. The same team can't be helped in consecutive years. Give a young core on rookie contracts to build around. The core should stay together for 4 years. It's not fair. But it would work for those teams.

The problem is the 11th pick isn't going to fix the team vs the 19th pick. That's too subtle. And it turns into a tanking rerun. These crappy teams need real help.

[zimpy27]

Small markets need to be able to tank to kick start their franchise. System is fine.

Ofcourse a guy from a tax haven is going to want to change it.

The real inequities of the league are created by teams in places with beaches, large cities and low taxes. Punish that before you punish losing teams.

[draftnightsuit]

The issue with that is the teams closer to the playoffs will win.

There is a point to the worse teams having a the best chance for the highest pick- they need it!

Tanking sucks, but I would rather have it than the worse teams having less of an opportunity to improve.

If it's a March Madness style tournament then couldn't lower seeds pull of an upset just like in college?

[HotTubMike]

This is a really dumb idea

[DarkAzcura]

As usual, some are looking at this the wrong way. You don't take away good picks from bad teams. That's silly. If you really want teams at the bottom to try a bit harder, the NBA has to find different ways for bad teams to improve. The draft is the only way out for some of these teams.

Bad teams can't compete in free agency because players don't want to go bad teams. Bad teams also can't trade that often because their players generally have poor value because they are on bad teams. The draft is the only way teams can really improve. Taking that option away will add to the never ending cycle. I don't know why everyone here is always trying to 'fix' tanking by changing the lottery. The way to fix the lottery is to give more incentives for good players to join bad teams in FA (like a hard cap and maybe a franchise tag). Unfortunately a hard cap or franchise tags isn't happening any time soon so 'tanking' isn't going away.

The only type of draft reform I would like to see is not allow teams to draft in the top 5 three years in a row. Limiting that would make sense to me. Otherwise giving 9 and 10 seeds a path to getting the number 1 pick in a tournament is a bad idea.

[draftnightsuit]

So what happens if bad teams have already traded their pick? Are the Brooklyn Nets gonna go play this tournament on behalf of the Celtics? Wouldn't the Nets just lose on purpose out of spite?

[BadMofoPimp]

Pat Riley just came out with an idea yesterday for a post-season tournament to establish the lottery order which looks pretty similar to something I suggested a few months back. See below:

Riley’s proposal: A four-day postseason tournament in which 14 lottery teams participate to determine the draft order. The deeper a team goes the higher the pick and the team that wins the tournament gets the first pick.

He is calling it a “lottery playoff.”

Follow along.

“The season ends on Tuesday, the playoffs start on Sunday, and from Wednesday to Saturday, the lottery teams play a tournament for the pick,” he said. “Now, that’ll stop all that bull—- of guys tanking and all that stuff.

“The 14th team and the first team, there’s equality here now. So no more tanking in the end. I think you’d draw a tremendous amount of fans and great interest. … So play for it, let’s have a little playoff for the top pick in the draft, instead of working on ping-pong balls and all that stuff.”

http://heatzone.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/07/15/heat-president-pat-rileys-unique-solution-to-stop-teams-from-tanking/


My idea posted on RealGM back in March (which is a bit better, imo):

They should have a tournament between when the season ends and the playoffs start to determine draft order.

Take the bottom 8 teams and have them do a tourney where the winner gets the top pick, runner up gets #2, and so on until the worst team in the tourney gets pick #8. Teams #9-14 just pick wherever they end up according to record.

Day 1
Seed #1 (team with best record) plays seed #8 (team with worst record)
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
4 vs 5

Day 3 (one day off for travel/rest)
Winners square off
Losers Square off

Day 5 (one day off for travel/rest)
Final Game to set top pick
Final Losers games to establish picks 3-8

---

This model could work as it helps prevent outright tanking. Being the absolute weakest team in the regular season would give them the worst seed and set them up to get as low as the #8 pick in the draft. If the weak teams compete to the end of the season, perhaps even trading for players at the deadline to strengthen their roster for the tournament, then it's a win for fans who don't like to see their teams not competing.

The downside is that the worst team in the league could end up not getting a clear difference maker since they are picking #8, but it does put pressure on them to improve so that they aren't stuck in the same position next year. Maybe they sign a couple players that look like they could fit with their plan and bring more wins so they can set themselves up for a better pick in next year's tourney.

Another downside is perhaps teams around that #8 seed could tank the rest of the season to try to get in the tourney and get the #1 seed, but I believe most years that teams in this range believe they can get into the actual playoffs until at least the last few weeks of the season, so they'd most likely still want to compete up until the end.

The big upside is there would be much less chance to have godawful teams tanking year after year as a strategy. They have motivation to make real improvements each offseason or else get the #8 pick each year.

It also gives a little extra fun for fans watching the drama of a season ending tournament, which gives game exposure to teams and players that most fans might not care about. The televised games mean more money for teams and players, so it's something the NBA and players union should support.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1540168&hilit=tournament&start=100

I'm not saying that Riley took the idea, as I'm probably not the first person to consider this idea of a tournament to establish lottery order, but I've also never heard anyone suggest it before either.

What do you think-- just a coincidence or is there some chance that NBA guys come on Real GM and cherry pick ideas?

Anyway, feel free to discuss the idea of a draft tournament as well, as I think it's kind of cool.

I posted this idea on RealGM two years ago. I don't think either of us thought of it first as I am sure many people have thought about this including NBA personnel.

My idea was to just make the bottom 8 teams play a tournament for the top picks.

[ahartleyvu]

Top 4 worst teams play a tournament; winner gets 1st pick (2nd, 3rd, 4th)
5-8 play a tournament
9-14th lottery picks

[ahartleyvu]

With this new free agency frenzy of super teams, maybe they need to adopt something similar to the MLB where if you sign a top FA you lose out on draft picks and the team that lost the player receives a pick

[magnumt]

I'm not saying that Riley took the idea.

Thread Title: Pat Riley stole me idea to fix lottery tanking!



--Mags

[Marmoset]

So what happens if bad teams have already traded their pick? Are the Brooklyn Nets gonna go play this tournament on behalf of the Celtics? Wouldn't the Nets just lose on purpose out of spite?

An excellent question. How about this one - what happens if a team owns multiple lottery picks? Using the proposed format, let's say the first match has team #3 vs. team #6, but team #3 traded their pick to team #6. Would team #6 play against themselves?

Besides the logical issues such as these which I'm sure could be dealt with, the whole system is completely dysfunctional for reasons already identified, with one of the biggest reasons being that the players who would actually play have very little reason to care. None of these proposals ever seem to address this extremely important point.

[babyjax13]

It's a terrible idea regardless of who proposes it.