St Knick wrote:awarding picks to the most talent-starved teams is a good goal, on the surface.
but how do you prevent teams from "throwing" games at end of season to ensure their position?
spitballing some scenarios:
what if the the first 2/3 of the season, your W/L recording counts towards your lottery position, just as it does currently... but then for the last 1/3 of the season, *IF YOU HAVE A LOSING RECORD AT THAT TIME* (or out of playoffs currently, something like that), you get to add a L to your total when you Win (and a W to your total when you lose). Essentially, we flip the incentives for final 1/3 of season. basically, incentivize the bad teams (as defined by first 2/3 of season) to try to Win in the final third of the year.
naturally, this may lead to teams tanking more up-front (first 2/3 of season), but will lead to better March/April games to end the year. this probably helps the cause, by spreading the tank over the course of the year, (and concentrating tankable games earlier in year, when some teams may not be ready to pull the plug yet) but maybe other ways teams engineer to take advantage (Which they will under any system where easily attainable Losses can be had by simply sabotaging your own efforts). You'll probably still achieve the main goal (best lotto odds going to "bad" teams, as defined by W/L record through 2/3 of season).
i think there is something to the above.
case study for simialr concept: in the NFL, I've seen late season games between 2 of the worst teams in the league, and its the worst football you'll ever see. i always thought, if you can identify 2 tanking teams palying each other... you could incentivize them to win by giving them an "L" for lotto/draft standing purposes for an actual victory.
another variant of my first example: as soon as a team is mathematically eliminated from the palyoffs, their Wins start counting as Losses for lotto purposes (and Losses count as W's; inverted). Once your out, your still incentivized to win.
There will always be ways to game the system, buti think the above example is more efficient in the sense of keeping more total games competitive, and less games where teams are hunting for L's.
I've thought of this in the past. The problem is that (as you mentioned) teams would know when that cutoff would be. They could cruise to a 20-30 start and then go 20-12 for the remainder of the season. You would have good teams bagging for lottery balls... particularly in the East.
The NBA needs to disentangle the Lottery and Playoff berth by reducing the number of teams eligible for the #1 pick. Teams should not be punished for winning the play-in. Right now MIA should have the 8th best odds at winning the lottery, but if they win the play-in they will get the 15th pick... That's a problem.
I'd put all 30 teams in the lottery. Start with 7 teams and add one team after each pick. That way any team could potentially move up seven spots but could potentially fall all the way to 30. The worst team starts with 7 lottery balls, the 2nd worst starts with 6, etc. After each pick, seven more lottery balls are added, one for each of the remaining 6 and one for the team with the next worse record. Draft night would be way more exciting!
