Abolish the lottery. This instead.

[_s_t_u_r_t_]

On this, yet another disappointment of a lottery night among us Hawks fans, allow me please to resurrect this thought from the same time last year...


Some may recall some conversation a year or two or three ago (?) that centered on some ideas put forth by fivethirtyeight's writers:



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-stop-nba-tanking-tie-your-fate-to-another-teams-record/

Well...

How's this for an improvement on that improvement? (And yes, I ask because I'm always interested in troubleshooting, not just attaboys.)

Tie your fate to another team's.... not record, as-in regular season record.... but PLAYOFF RECORD.

So, it's this simple.

The 14 non-qualifying teams' lottery slot is set according to the success of that team that slots at their mirror opposite number based on the regular season finish.

For example... if implemented right now...

#30 NYK's draft slot would be determined ultimately by #1 MIL's playoff fate... and so on...

(#29) CLE = TOR (#2)
(#28) PHX = GSW (#3)
(#27) CHI = DEN (#4)
(#26) ATL = POR (#5)... etc, etc

More specifically...

After each round of the playoffs, the fate of the losers establishes their associated team in the draft order. So, conventionally-speaking, if you have playoff seeds #5-#8 in both conferences all go down to defeat, then CHA, MIA, SAC, LAL, MIN, MEM, DAL, and NOP are solidified in their current #7-#14 slots. If DET were to upset MIL, though, then NYK would be part of that first slotted group, and since they have the worst record of those 8, they would be slotted at #7.

The same model holds with each succeeding round.

And ultimately, the non-playoff team tied to the NBA champ is the team that wins the #1 slot in the draft.

Here's the real novelty of this from where the NBA sits...

It gives ALL OF US NON-PLAYOFF TEAM FANS new and significant reason to watch the NBA playoffs.

As an Atlanta fan, I'm going to be feverishly watching and cheering for those Portland Trailblazer all the way through... as opposed to maybe casually watching if nothing else is on, and maybe not even caring a whit until the NBA Finals.

[Dr Aki]

WHEEL

[RussellandFlow]

[Apz]

No. Just gives more reason to tank. Just give the 30th team 30 tickets, then down to no 1 team 1 ticket. In regular season ofc, shouldnt lose things if u play great in the playoffs and upsets teams. Also all got a chance to hit the jackpot. But it should never be rewarding to just tank

And then show the bloody lottery. Its not hard, even the champions league can show their playoff draws.

[jlokine]

one and done tournament for 14 teams is always my suggestion...

gives reason to not tank. 9th team gets top seed in said tournament. get a bye.

10-12 gets HCA.

10 vs 15, 11 vs 14, 12 vs 13 in round 1.

[KqWIN]

I say this as a small market franchise...I would prefer no draft. Teams can spend money on current talent or bidding on future talent. The idea that good franchise has to be bad in order to have access to preferred young talent is so backwards.

[CIN-C-STAR]

Why would this be a good idea again?
Just seems really arbitrary and random to me tbh...

[Basileus777]

The one and only solution is to just give the number 1 pick to the team I approve of.

[Sofia]

Lottery is fine. Get over it

[_s_t_u_r_t_]

The FiveThirtyEight solution is superior to the lottery system.

It just is.

There's no random odds assigned out of some subjective ambiguous top-down notion of what "ought" to be the odds at each draft slot. And yet, it significantly eliminates self-control over opportunity to draft #1.

interestingly enough, as cited in the article, someone here had come up with something very similar...

viewtopic.php?t=1103599

The difference is that assignment happens through a conscious choice, whereas what I've proposed tweaks that to say your team is assigned its "stake" by virtue of what the regular season records dictate (1 to 30, 2 to 29, 3 to 28 etc).

Debunking the claim that teams would still have reason to go to great lengths to try to have the worst record...

2019 TOR finished with the 2nd best record
2018 GSW = 3rd best
2017 GSW = 1st best
2016 CLE = 3rd best
2015 GSW = 1st best
2014 SAS = 1st best
2013 MIA = 1st best
2012 MIA = 4th best
2011 DAL = 4th best
2010 LAL = 3rd best
2009 LAL = 2nd best
2008 BOS = 1st best
2007 SAS = 3rd best
2006 MIA = 5th best
2005 SAS = 2nd best (tie)
2004 DET = 6th best
2003 SAS = 1st best (tie)
2002 LAL = 2nd best (tie)
2001 LAL = 2nd best (tie)
2000 LAL = 1st best

So... in 20 years, 65% of the time, some team other than the one with the best regular season record has won the championship.

So... applying this structure hypothetically in hindsight... the team with the worst regular season record would have had the #1 pick 7 times, the second worst record would have chosen #1 5 times, the third worst 4 times, fourth worst 2 times, and fifth and sixth 1 time each.

That appeals to me. As much as we don't want teams to tank, pure logic says, to keep the league's competitiveness healthy, you have to do something that benefits the weakest teams. It makes sense that the bottom 20% are the ones who would have a historically legitimate shot at the #1 slot. And again, the strength of the concept is that it creates reason for the non-playoff team casual fans to get behind an adopted team, which translates into viewership.

Last season, instead of the NOP (33 wins) choosing #1, it would have been CLE with the 2nd worst record (19 wins... tiebreaker over PHX, b/c TOR and CLE in EC). NOP was tied for the 7th worst record.

[Plutonashfan]

I feel really pissed as the rest of league is being punished by the 76ers and SamHinkie

[Richard4444]

I say this as a small market franchise...I would prefer no draft. Teams can spend money on current talent or bidding on future talent. The idea that good franchise has to be bad in order to have access to preferred young talent is so backwards.

The player association dont want to allow spend more than 10 million on rookies. They want to limit the amount of money invested in rookies to save for money for vets. All teams would give the 10M to a FRP.

[planetmars]

Abandon the draft and make all rookies free agents. Have a max contract and limits on how many "rookies" a team can acquire at once. Sort of like a waiver system. If a guy is not "selected" by any team in the first waive, they can then be selected by a team that already picked a guy.

Sucks a bit for small market teams, but if there is a cap and a wire system like that.. teams can still "bid" on players. Plus some young guy who wants to prove himself might prefer to go to a bad situation where he can get more reps instead of to a good situation where he could be the 8th or 9th man off the bench.

[Stillwater]

This was the first time i didnt want CLE to win the lottery and **** it up... Cause they would have. I mean top 3 should have been the hope but 5 is where their greatest odds resided so not surprised at all.
Glad ChA finally got a shot at a legit prospect.
But no joy for Gsw getting 2, that is lame.

[KqWIN]

I say this as a small market franchise...I would prefer no draft. Teams can spend money on current talent or bidding on future talent. The idea that good franchise has to be bad in order to have access to preferred young talent is so backwards.

The player association dont want to allow spend more than 10 million on rookies. They want to limit the amount of money invested in rookies to save for money for vets. All teams would give the 10M to a FRP.

Yeah...it’s not realistic, but the idea is nice. In my head, teams would be able to use cap space to sign rookies in a similar fashion to free agents. I feel like good, competitive teams with a clean cap sheet should be rewarded. They aren’t getting much from the draft if they are winning, and FA is often a trap for non destination markets. You have to overpay or you don’t get your guy anyways.

It’s true, the best of the best would probably not sign up to ply for a team like the Jazz even if we’re the best organization/fit for the player and offered more money. But the only way for the Jazz to get that player anyways is to stink and that just doesn’t seem right to me. If there wasn’t a draft, maybe the Jazz could build from getting guys that might fall between 8-14 and are undervalued. It just opens up so much more room for smarter franchises to succeed.

[Coxy]

Lottery is fine. Get over it

Agreed.

[robillionaire]

i think they should cancel the lottery entirely and just go by record. whatever they have done has not prevented or reduced any tanking

[MrSparkle]

Well I'm happy CHI got #4, but I'm totally OK with flattening the odds for 1-14. I kinda feel like it's BS that playoff teams get screwed out of a chance too, but maybe reward playoff teams with extra salary exceptions.

[sule]

I've made the argument before that the lottery should not be contingent on the immediate previous seasons' results. But rather, a culmination of the results of the last 3 years. Teams like the '20 Warriors, the '97 Spurs, '08 Heat, would not be able to tank for a single year and acquire a top pick for immediate improvement of their team, while other teams languish at the bottom of the league.

Immediately, you solve tanking because it isn't completely worth it for teams to tank for 2+ years before even having a chance at the top of the draft. Teams that were bad for years would be able to acquire top picks and slowly begin improving their teams. If you get an immediate high-impact player and your getting a turn around, then it's likely the following year you'll probably get a mid-range lottery pick again and continue building young, exciting talent.

Missing on a top pick because the player didn't end up as good as everyone thought they'd be also wouldn't be as devastating a result either.

And I think in such a system, a strong argument can be made to just abolish the lottery system itself and just base the selection off the previous 3 years' record.


In such a system, slides up or down the standings would end up being more progressive as teams would have incentive to win. Teams like Charlotte or Sacramento or other bottomfeeder teams who would eventually get a top pick would be more attractive free agent destinations, since there'd be young talent to surround potential stars. And similarly, these teams would instantly be strong enough to make big trades for disgruntled stars.


Under this system, a team like the Warriors having the year they just had would only realistically move up maybe 10 or so spots in the draft, making the idea of wasting a year not worth the effort.

[CAE15]

I say this as a small market franchise...I would prefer no draft. Teams can spend money on current talent or bidding on future talent. The idea that good franchise has to be bad in order to have access to preferred young talent is so backwards.

The player association dont want to allow spend more than 10 million on rookies. They want to limit the amount of money invested in rookies to save for money for vets. All teams would give the 10M to a FRP.

Yeah...it’s not realistic, but the idea is nice. In my head, teams would be able to use cap space to sign rookies in a similar fashion to free agents. I feel like good, competitive teams with a clean cap sheet should be rewarded. They aren’t getting much from the draft if they are winning, and FA is often a trap for non destination markets. You have to overpay or you don’t get your guy anyways.

It’s true, the best of the best would probably not sign up to ply for a team like the Jazz even if we’re the best organization/fit for the player and offered more money. But the only way for the Jazz to get that player anyways is to stink and that just doesn’t seem right to me. If there wasn’t a draft, maybe the Jazz could build from getting guys that might fall between 8-14 and are undervalued. It just opens up so much more room for smarter franchises to succeed.

Sorry but this is a terrible idea. You'd have teams freeing all their cap space and then signing 3 promising rookies and suddenly the rebuild is over. You'd have so many wink wink shady deals. You'd have Lakers signing first overall picks with MLE money because it's similar to what they would get as a #1 pick. You're essentially paying for potential and crippling your cap space. You bet on one player you like that finally decides to join you because you overpaid and now you're capped out. It ends up hurting veteran players as well. As all the free cap space is going to a young unproven rookie and now vets are having to sign for the minimum or bi annual exceptions and because the money isn't great, now you'll have even more super teams stacking their roster. Bad idea

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