Can We All Admit...

[Jcity08]

Personally Im okay with the tanking structure as it is, but if I wanted to see a change this would be how I'd go about it.

Keep the tanking rules but create two divisions, getting below a certain number of wins puts you in the lower division, when you're in the lower division you can tank all you want and get stars in the lottery but in order to get out of the lower division and have a system of promotions & relegations like you see in the premier league, kinda like what the play-in is but different. So if you are in the lower division to start the season, your season is forfeit but if you're in the top 2 seed in the lower division by seasons end, the following season you switch divisions with the bottom 2 of the higher division.

So both divisions are incentivized to compete and the lottery teams still get their lottery. Also flatten the odds in the lower division so teams can compete for the top 2 without worrying about bottoming out.

Best of both worlds IMO.

[Indeed]

every major sport does the same when it comes to the draft, with the nba actually having a lottery.

the issue is more so the college game. every year their are only a handful of basketball players who can truly make an impact on a teams future trajectory.

you don't see blatent tanking in the nfl because you could draft a difference maker in the middle of the first round. hell, in the nfl you can get a difference maker in the third and fourth rounds.

in the NBA, finishing at the bottom of the lottery or just outside of the lottery is a curse. it means your team had a terrible season, and you're just drafting a player who probably won't ever become a starter for your team. but you're stuck paying him as a first rounder for 3 or 4 years.

That's just the nature of sport that basketball is. It's a team sport but it's also one where one singular player can have the biggest impact on winning on any given night in comparison to any other major team sport. That's why they call it star-driven league and saying goes, you are only as good as your best player.

Not sure I agree, others have minor league.
It just the NBPLA and owners being cheap in investing talent, neither allow budget for club transfer.

The low quality (having g league players) product is done by their greed. There are many ways to not have a single dominate player by having rules (eg. Handcheck rule completely changed the domination of bigs).

[YogurtProducer]

There are a lot of joyless regular seasons that lead to the playoffs, too.

The preferred aesthetics of basketball can vary by whatever the viewers tastes are.

The winning streak produced by the vets (Jak/Brown/Boucher/Davion) before the deadline was fun for some, but there were plenty of fans who hated not seeing the young players (Shead/Mogbo/Walter) get extended minutes of development.

Not sure anyone would be extremely jazzed about playing .500 ball with the vet lineups. Ws on their own don't guarantee entertainment without the proper context for a lot of fans.

Sure, but part of that is because playing .500 makes it hard to get out of that rut. Imagine if you could play .500 ball and then still possibly win the lottery.

There is also times where being .500 is okay. You can cheer for wins every night. Every fan discussion is about how to improve the team you have RIGHT NOW. If tanking had no incentive, you would not have miserable fans complaining about Ws or have any reason to bottom your team out.

To me that would just be better for fans of specific teams, but also the NBA as a whole. Right now the bottom 5-10 teams suck so bad because they have a reason to. Imagine if the worst team in the league was on the level of the Bulls or Nets right now. Some talent would move from top teams to the bottom. Every game would be more competitive

[YogurtProducer]

Personally Im okay with the tanking structure as it is, but if I wanted to see a change this would be how I'd go about it.

Keep the tanking rules but create two divisions, getting below a certain number of wins puts you in the lower division, when you're in the lower division you can tank all you want and get stars in the lottery but in order to get out of the lower division and have a system of promotions & relegations like you see in the premier league, kinda like what the play-in is but different. So if you are in the lower division to start the season, your season is forfeit but if you're in the top 2 seed in the lower division by seasons end, the following season you switch divisions with the bottom 2 of the higher division.

So both divisions are incentivized to compete and the lottery teams still get their lottery. Also flatten the odds in the lower division so teams can compete for the top 2 without worrying about bottoming out.

Best of both worlds IMO.

I don't love this because you are killing half the league. Imagine if just because the Raptors suck that means Jokic never plays a game in Toronto in his entire prime.

[HangTime]

It's an easy fix, force everyone to compete from the start.

Your record for the lottery odds doesn't start until you're officially eliminated from the playoffs.

After that the team with the best winning percentage of those teams gets the better odds.

The four teams that lose in the play-in are slotted into the 6, 7, 8, 9 spots, with equal odds (tie breakers, post lottery based on thier head to head matchups)

So it's possible to get eliminated after game 81.
Win game 82, and have the best odds at the lottery, with a 1-0 record after elimination.
Or you lose, and are 0-1.with the worst odds.


You make the back end of the season even more interesting, no fan will ever "want to lose."
Players are still auditioning for new teams as well.

There's probably less load management as well.

[DG88]

I think we need to come to terms that teams will cycle through being really good to really bad. It's just a part of the process of being in the NBA.

Do we need to come to terms with cheering for losses though? Is there not a system that can be made in which teams can rebuild and not need to remove all winning players and sit down their good ones they keep to pray for ping pong balls?

To me, you can design a system in which teams can still rebuild but don't need to bottom out to do it.

The NBA as currently constructed we mock teams who finish from 6th-10th in a conference and hail those that tank for 15th. That makes NO SENSE from a business standpoint. To me the best possible system is one that you never ever ever are happier with a loss than a win.

Yes it sucks but I will say that I haven't been this invested in college ball since my University days. You get to watch the next generation coming into the NBA and one of those players will be on the Raptors next year.

Sure, but IDK how great of an argument is that you care more about a different league is for keeping the NBA system as it is. I am sure the NBA would rather you caring more about the Raptors right now and tuning into Raptors games and not Rutgers.

Cheering for loses is more of fan thing than and NBA teams thing. I don't see NBA teams cheering for loses but they have come to terms that the long term goals have a higher priority than short term goals. For me as a fan it has allowed me to focus on players that would look good for the future of the Raptors, but that's just me. Would in a normal year would I cheer for loses, no. Yet knowing that this is going to be one of those years where we have a chance to get some high-end I'm willing to endure short-term pain at that opportunity to add that talent to this team.

Unless the draft system is removed for free agency system for entry level players. Then you have a system that gives non free agency destinations a leg up, so you don't have players like Flagg just going to LA or Miami every year. There will always be pros and cons to any system that's established.

[ConSarnit]

What're you talking about? I'm having a grand old time on here, rehashing the same tanking debates, instead of watching meaningful games.

This doesn’t go away if we’re winning. “Tanking debates” are just the new “FVV is selfish”. There will always be a contingent of 4-5 posters who will b*tch to no end about something. Tanking isn’t the cancer of this board, it’s a few specific posters.

[canada_dry]

I'd like to see teams play each other for the top pick. Or lottery odds. Something.

[ItsDanger]

I don't understand the obsession some people have against tanking. These situations allow teams to develop, experiment, ditch bad contracts, try out unestablished players, etc. I'd rather watch a young team that's hungry than established mediocrity. All the sports leagues teams have typical up and down patterns until they get a good core together.

It's disturbing that some want to punish bad teams from improving from draft but are perfectly fine with top markets having other advantages.

[ontnut]

Regardless of where we sit on the TWO vs Play-in spectrum (although I hope by this point of the season there is very few cheering for W's), I think we can all agree that watching/cheering for this stuff sucks

The fact that the NBA has created a system in which teams are incentivized to simply be bad is just horrible for the NBA product. This isn't a "DOES TANKING WORK OR NOT" thread, but rather a "**** me, wouldn't the end of this season be a lot more fun if we could play the youth and not feel conflicted about winning a game?"

Making a run at the play-in would legitimately be fun to cheer for if it didn't have the negative consequences going forward.

Personally, I would love to see the lottery odds flattened more. Maybe every non-playoff team and play-in team gets lottery odds. Anything to stop teams from pulling the plug for 25 games a year (or 82 - looking at you Washington).

I was just talking about this to someone last night. It just feels dumb cheering for my team to lose. That doesn't feel in the spirit of sport.

I floated the idea of a win floor, like a cap floor. I didn't figure out the details, but something like, you must win 25 games or more in order to qualify to win the lottery. Can't make it for the whole lottery, or bad teams may never get better, or stuck in a cycle for 10 years. Maybe make 25 wins the minimum requirement to qualify for the top 2 picks. Call it the Lotto Max. Or even simpler, just make it so the bottom 2 teams do NOT qualify to win the top 2 picks. They are inserted to the lottery after the first 2 balls drop (lol).

There needs to be a punishment for failure in sports. But instead, there's a reward. Even if your team is bad, playing to not be a bottom 2 team would at least force teams to TRY.

[raps14]

Changing the draft to every 2 years would probably solve some of the tanking issues. That way in the year without a draft no one tries to lose and then in draft year you get twice the talent as well as the 4 year player gems. Now with the draft every other year you don't have to tank hard as you can possibly still get a good player even if you finish 8th. The NBA will never do this but yeah they should. Also the players constantly sitting out adds to the issues of the modern game

[ontnut]

I don't understand the obsession some people have against tanking. These situations allow teams to develop, experiment, ditch bad contracts, try out unestablished players, etc. I'd rather watch a young team that's hungry than established mediocrity. All the sports leagues teams have typical up and down patterns until they get a good core together.

It's disturbing that some want to punish bad teams from improving from draft but are perfectly fine with top markets having other advantages.

Firstly, I agree. Watching a hungry young team is great, and there should be a mechanism for bad teams to improve. But cheering for them/them trying to lose on purpose goes against every tenet of sporting philosophy.

Secondly, rewarding losing is worse than the sports infection that is the "participation trophy for all". Winning matters, winners should be rewarded. Losing matters, losers should be punished. This is PROFESSIONAL sports. What does the word mean? Be a pro. In no otehr line of professional work are people rewarded for being the absolute worst at their job. Athletes are millionaires, Owners are billionaires - they should at least TRY at their jobs, which are funded by the general public, most of whom will never see 1 year's worth of salary of an 18 year old rookie.

That's why I proposed that the top 2 picks in the draft should be out of reach for the bottom 2 teams. If we had a strong minor league, I'd be in favour of relegation, but that won't happen due to too much $$$ being involved, and the fact that even the worst NBA team would just destroy the G league. So instead, you want that consensus #1 pick? FIGHT FOR IT. Get to the 3rd worst record at least, to qualify for the top 2 picks lottery. If the team is just THAT bad, a 3rd-5th overall pick will still help them get better, but it prevents teams from just blatantly taking from the start of the season. There's an actual reason to win. With a 3-5th pick, you have to also draft well, which means teams will invest more in scouting, creating more jobs. This at least gives teams at the bottom SOMETHING to motivate them to WIN and fans can cheer for their team to WIN not LOSE. I don't see much downside to this type of solution.

[ontnut]

Changing the draft to every 2 years would probably solve some of the tanking issues. That way in the year without a draft no one tries to lose and then in draft year you get twice the talent as well as the 4 year player gems. Now with the draft every other year you don't have to tank hard as you can possibly still get a good player even if you finish 8th. The NBA will never do this but yeah they should. Also the players constantly sitting out adds to the issues of the modern game

This won't work because of contract lengths, expiring salaries, roster spots and such. It would also drag out the tanking process to 2 years, instead of 1, in some cases. Teams would have to bring in on average 4 new players every other year, that makes planning difficult. And then in the non-draft years, team with expiring contracts would be forced to either re-sign guys they don't really want to a 1 year deal (if they player even accepts it), or go basement FA shopping. It just makes a mess and doesn't solve the actual issues.

[DelAbbot]

The odds are weighted for the bad team because NBA is a business to make money.

It's not about rewarding winning but making sure every team has a chance to be profitable.

The NBA is an entertainment business. It is not an Olympic sports league / event.

[ontnut]

The odds are weighted for the bad team because NBA is a business to make money.

It's not about rewarding winning but making sure every team has a chance to be profitable.

The NBA is an entertainment business. It is not an Olympic sports league / event.

Most teams are profitable anyway thanks to revenue sharing. I don't think giving WAS the 3rd pick instead of the 1st, is going to change their profitability, do you?

[KL78192020]

I'd like to see teams play each other for the top pick. Or lottery odds. Something.

Why would the players care about this? A top draft pick coming in to take one of their jobs? They don't have an incentive. Makes zero sense.

[ill-Will03]

Thank you for this post lol.

cheering for losses should never be a thing.

[JB7]

Regardless of where we sit on the TWO vs Play-in spectrum (although I hope by this point of the season there is very few cheering for W's), I think we can all agree that watching/cheering for this stuff sucks

The fact that the NBA has created a system in which teams are incentivized to simply be bad is just horrible for the NBA product. This isn't a "DOES TANKING WORK OR NOT" thread, but rather a "**** me, wouldn't the end of this season be a lot more fun if we could play the youth and not feel conflicted about winning a game?"

Making a run at the play-in would legitimately be fun to cheer for if it didn't have the negative consequences going forward.

Personally, I would love to see the lottery odds flattened more. Maybe every non-playoff team and play-in team gets lottery odds. Anything to stop teams from pulling the plug for 25 games a year (or 82 - looking at you Washington).

The simplest way to solve the problem of a crap product for the year, easy, don't watch it. I watched the 1st game of the season, and by the fact that Darko used the entire lineup for decent minutes, it was clear the team was tanking from the start of the season. So at that point I tuned out from watching the games. I'll watch highlights from time to time, but the team is not worth wasting 2 hours of my time, when I have so many other things to do.

Hopefully this is a one season tank job, and we'll be back to watchable games next season.

Fans completely tuning out of tanking teams is the best way to stop teams from trying to use tanking as a way to build. They can't sacrifice their fan base with long term tanking.

[ontnut]

I'd like to see teams play each other for the top pick. Or lottery odds. Something.

Why would the players care about this? A top draft pick coming in to take one of their jobs? They don't have an incentive. Makes zero sense.

The players on the cut line would care, because it would be a chance to showcase a reason for them NOT to be the guy losing their job. The starters would care because it helps their team, making them look better overall, and thus potentially getting them a better new contract on this, or another team. Like, I'm sure our starters would rather have Flagg on their team, than not. Boucher might not, but everyone else would.

[ciueli]

Unless the draft system is removed for free agency system for entry level players. Then you have a system that gives non free agency destinations a leg up, so you don't have players like Flagg just going to LA or Miami every year. There will always be pros and cons to any system that's established.

There's a way to eliminate the draft, bring in a restricted free agency type system, and also prevent all the stars from being funnelled to big markets or desirable destinations.

1) Rookies are subject to a "rookie max" contract (equal to what the 1st overall pick in the draft currently gets). So any team can make that "rookie max" offer to any player they want, but they have to have cap space or use part of an exception to do it (MLE, for example). So taxpaying teams are at a disadvantage because they only have the taxpayer MLE to spend, teams with cap space are at an advantage.

2) A rookie MUST accept the highest offer they are given in free agency, if Team A offers $5M/year and team B offers $5.1M/year they are forced to accept team B's offer regardless of where they wish to sign. If all offers are exactly equal and NOT the rookie max, the player can decide where he wants to sign, if the offers are all for the rookie max the player signs with the team that used their rookie max slot the greatest amount of time in the past (essentially a wheel type system where teams that have been holding their rookie max slot for a long time get priority).

A system like this would solve all the problems the draft currently has, completely eliminate tanking while still addressing issues around big market vs. small market, it would also reward teams for clearing cap space which is really undervalued right now.