penbeast0 wrote:The Consiglieri wrote:penbeast0 wrote:Make the top pick (or the highest lottery odds) go to the best record to fail to make the playoffs and prohibit trading picks more than 1 year ahead. The rebuilding teams give lower rated and drafted players a chance to shine and develop to the point where they can get a star and teams have an incentive to win even in a rebuilding year.
I wouldn't do it that way because that would typically reward teams like Boston and Indiana, or say San Antonio, that are loaded, lost a transformative star, and had the one bad year out of the past 6 like the Mavs post Doncic trade. That kind of set up is perfect for gifting top end talent to teams like Dallas (Doncic gone), Philly (Embid injury), San Antonio (Wemby injury), literally all 3 first rounders this year were gifted to playoff teams that lost their superstars, and suddenly had bottoming out seasons. The same could be true if Indiana and Boston had lost their stars in the fall instead of this spring, what would anyone think they'd do? They'd make a beeline for the best results for hauling in superstars just like San Antonio, Dallas, and Philly just did.
---- that.
Worst pick goes to worst team, 2nd worst to 2nd worst, like it's always been in every sane league. The NBA is a league that systematically has ----ed over cities that typical NBA stars have no interest in playing in: Salt Lake, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Orlando, Toronto etc, and rewards no state income tax states, and attractive cities for partying 20somethings....in such a set up, the only way to give a leg up to screwed cities is to guarantee them top talent in terms of draft picks and that edge in signing them to extensions.
The sad truth for cities like Milwaukee now, and OKC several years from now is that they won't have sustained lakers or Boston or Miami like success because who the ---- want's to live in OKC? Who wants to live in Milwaukee? Very, very few people....so eventually, unless OKC can run like a Swiss clock in terms of drafting for decades to come, the fall will be very hard.
Though, to be fair, what partying 20 something thinks of Boston as a prime destination? There is truth to your critique but I just HATE the incentive to tank.
It isn't, Boston's a flagship city because of its history and consistency of performance, other than. dark decade in the 90s, Boston's been relevant in virtually every decade. We all know DC is a sleeping city. It's not Milwaukee, Salt Lake, or Indianapolis. Players wouldn't mind coming here if the franchise hadn't had the stink of a 45 years dead corpse laying in the living room like something from 28 years later. The reality is, the wizards have literally zero cache for multiple generations of NBA players. You'd have to go back to guys like Hakeem, Jordan, and Barkley, to find guys who while growing up, might have watched a truly great DC team, except the NBA wasn't even on tv back then for the most part, beyond tape delay, so there are probably no living basketball players who grew up watching and admiring the bullets/wizards, other than locals to the DC tv market. That's how bad we are as a destination, despite not being a ---, boring as hell city, or worse. In that sense, as we were once glossed Clippers East, before they actually became contenders, the name really does stick. The Clippers didn't have to suck, they just did because they had an evil, idiot, cheap, racist owner, they were in LA, they could have been the Nets to the local Knicks, but instead they were a sleeping disaster, waiting for a tech billionaire to buy them, and ruin their future with one trade lol (at least they have a solid present though and have been relevant in the tv market of LA for a decade)....
But anyway, yeah, we're a sleeping market, if this FO can get some luck, and work some skill it could blossom in a way that OKC, and Milwaukee can't without massive lottery luck or trade luck because no FA's are going there ever, simply for the night life, or lol, culture.
As for rewarding tanking, who cares? Tanking is perfectly justifiable and perfectly understandable. I don't and never had any use for the argument that there's something wrong with it. FO's have a duty to build the best organization possible over the long term, period, and in many leagues, the NBA probably more than any other, tanking is essential (I'd say its true in the NFL too, but only for draft classes with franchise QB graded prospects, otherwise, it's non-essential). In this league, unless you're a tax free, warm state, preferably with a solid or better city, or just a great city for young men to live in, you're well and truly ----ed, for good, barring trade good fortune, so the draft is the only real way to find any hope whatsoever, so of course you tank, and you should. The Lakers get to extract whatever elite talent bubbles up elsewhere in New Orleans, Charlotte, Memphis, wherever, Miami's beach/nightlife draws in FA's galore, NY has been sleeping but has always been open for business and just ruined by its inept owner, but what are sad sack teams like Salt Lake supposed to freaking do? Nobody wants to move there unless they love snowboarding at Snowbird, Park City, or Solitude, and you can't snowboard and play NBA basketball, so seriously, what is there freaking option? I've been to Salt Lake, a bunch, I like it, but I grew up skiing and later snowboarding as an adult, that's not a thing for NBA players, and other than that, it's simply famous for Mormon culture....so, barring tanking, or getting monstrously lucky in a swindle trade like OKC did, they are totally screwed.
Why should LA be gifted perpetual good fortune? Same for Miami, same for NY if they had a better owner etc etc, and yet Salt Lake, or Milwaukee are totally screwed, Charlotte and Orlando (even no state income tax is not a sell for NBA players which tells you how bad it is there)....
No, absolutely reward tanking, it is a strategy to provide solutions for suffering fan bases in screwed cities. This isn't the NFL or the NHL, where players will sign for big money anywhere, no matter how tedious the city, if the team is worthwhile. Nope, this is the NBA, where the FA's always, always go to the same cities, and where when players clamor to be traded, they are always eyeballing sweet late night environments for partying, or warm weather cities that are enjoyable...that's a fundamental advantage that suits a handful of cities, plus cities in the Northeast, and Chicago, that have enough cultural, and night life to make up for the ---- weather....to wrest away the ability teams have to mine the draft for talent that they will NEVER be able to sign as FA's is beyond cruel, it's ridiculous, corrupt and an obvious rigging of the game.
I aint giving them Johnson.
