Incentive to not hold the NBA's worst record?

[GJense4181]

Giving an equal chance to all lottery teams simply gives incentive to border-line playoff teams to tank the end of the season.
If you were New Jersey or Philadelphia you would be better off barely being the ninth seed and having a 7% chance of winning Michael Beasley than getting swept in the first-round by Boston.

[Deepness5134]

Right...I did think of that...

But I wouldn't take any of the WC teams doing that. At all. Of the eight current playoff teams...
Phoenix
Dallas
Golden State
(in the 9th) you have Denver

Those four wouldn't bust trying to get out of the playoffs and going into the Lottery

However, of the East
Washington
Philly
New Jersey

I do see philly trying to tank or even new jersey now w/ J. Kidd gone....but the thing is, i think after a while most teams will be better balanced up and down the 1-8 seed and those teams that got in wouldn't try to get out. I obviously dont have all the kinks figured out...but i do think once there are 8 solid teams that make the playoffs, there wouldn't be teams trying to tank out.

Maybe with this idea...we should only have 6 teams that make the playoffs for each conference to make it more competitive.

[Mr. Savage]

Can't give the worst team less means to improve.

Why ? In every other sports league outside North America the worst teams actually relegate.

But since the NBA somehow is the McDonalds headquarter and the 30 teams are 30 branches of McDonalds, a relegation system will never happen unfortunately.

[Synciere]

Am I the only person who thinks the current system is doing an alright job? I mean, I think the Celtics tanked last year, but it didn't really get them anywhere... Having the lottery system gives each team a chance.

I like the idea that the team with the worst record can't get the first pick, but that would be unfairly cruel for bad teams that do compete and end up with the worst record.

Looking at the history of the draft lottery, very few times has the worst team in the league gotten the first overall pick. The current system works..

[shrink]

just make an equal probability of landing the #1 pick for every team that doesn't make the playoffs

That way you're not rewarding terrible management with great youngsters.

You'd have more incentive to try to win b/c you could be one good young player away from being on the cusp of perennial conference elite, rather than cellar-dwelling for years before you trade a bunch of crappy players for a disgruntled star.

There are problems with this on both ends.

I think we all agree that parity in the league would help. For example, if a team intentionally tanks, you get half a season of bad NBA competition from them. However, if they don't have a good chance of getting an impact player, they may be unable to compete for years. A top four pick almost always has far greater impact than a 14th pick. Seasons of losing with no hope for optimism can destroy ticket sales and kill a franchise.

On the other end, I think the current system gets it right that it should be a relatively rare occurance for a borderline play-off team to be able to add the #1 pick. In 1993, 41-41 Orlando had a 1 chance in 66 of getting the top pick (Shaq) and won the lottery. Next season, if I recall, they faced Jordan and the Bulls in the East Coast Finals.

TEAM RECORD CHANCES
Dallas 11-71 11
Minnesota 19-63 10
Washington 22-60 9
Sacramento 25-57 8
Philadelphia 26-56 7
Milwaukee 28-54 6
Golden State 34-48 5
Denver 36-46 4
Miami 36-46 3
Detroit 40-42 2
Orlando 41-41 1

http://aol.nba.com/history/lottery_probabilities.html

.. Incidentally, people felt this was so unfair, that in the very next year, it led to the new probability system we use today.


Synciere -- I agree a lot with what you said. I like the current system's bigger probabilities. I like, to some extent, that there are only three picks at the lottery, and the rest is determined by the order of the record (although this may cause late season tanking as one team tries to finish with a worse record than a neighbor. I like that the chances that a good lottery team has a smaller chance of winning the pick, and no team better than the seventh seed has won the #1 pick since the new system was created.

However, I do agree that tanking is bad for the NBA and bad for the fans. A modification needs to be added that penalizes tanking while maintaining the lottery's ability to help the bad teams.

[the7boss]

Shame and pride should be enough

[NetsForce]

I guess you could somehow reduce the monetary compensation the worst team in the league receives from the league by a slight amount, I don't know if that really does anything but penalize the worst team in the league for sucking so bad.

[Deepness5134]

However, I do agree that tanking is bad for the NBA and bad for the fans. A modification needs to be added that penalizes tanking while maintaining the lottery's ability to help the bad teams.[/quote]


Thats why i think giving the lottery pick to the boderline playoff team would be pretty good cuz it helps out those fighting to get into the playoffs...and the teams that are worse w/ worse records will get later picks. This way...the later picks could be used to build role players..and then you end up with a stud after your buildup of those role players. This way...that stud player won't leave after a few years bcuase the team was already preconstructed he just needs to do his job then.

Also...i have another idea in which the bottom three teams would still get most of the picks in general...but the 3rd to the last team would get the most picks. this way...you get some battling between the bottom tier teams to win against eachother and prevent the other's from moving up.

Of course...thsi could lead the 4th to last team trying to drop down to them and then keep that 3rd spot.