Another anti-tanking idea - A good one IMHO.

[Kanyewest]

Here is the league's new anti-tanking idea.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48619907/sources-nba-eyes-new-anti-tanking-proposal-draft-lottery

[DukeLecker]

Somehow the spurs will win the lottery every year anyhow. It’s what makes them such a perfectly run organization.

[J-Ves]

Here is the league's new anti-tanking idea.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48619907/sources-nba-eyes-new-anti-tanking-proposal-draft-lottery

That seems quite punitive to any team with a build through the draft strategy. You might as well have just randomized draft order for the bottom 16 teams. The Young and AD moves make slightly more sense today than when they were made.

Something tells me this won’t be viewed positively in a few years. You managed to kill tanking but you also threw the only carrot for small market teams in the trash

[Tyrone Messby]

Yep it’s the final nail in the coffin for sorry ass franchises.

We seem to finally be out of the rebuild and hopefully we have a franchise altering run over the next decade similar to how golden state and Denver got out of the gutters.

[Dark Faze]

It would only benefit us for this to go through. Overall I don't like it, but I imagine it would see serious changes before we're looking to rebuild again.

[The Consiglieri]

Here is the league's new anti-tanking idea.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48619907/sources-nba-eyes-new-anti-tanking-proposal-draft-lottery

That seems quite punitive to any team with a build through the draft strategy. You might as well have just randomized draft order for the bottom 16 teams. The Young and AD moves make slightly more sense today than when they were made.

Something tells me this won’t be viewed positively in a few years. You managed to kill tanking but you also threw the only carrot for small market teams in the trash

What I've been arguing ever since the -----ing started. This is a short sighted fight for an OKC team that will forever suck once they spend out the rest of their tank capital from swindling the Clippers and others and this golden generation of talent ages out. I know literally zero people on earth who want to live in OKC, and for sure zero athletes want to live there. THey will draw zero free agents once this generation ages out, and there's no native attraction unless they pull a Spurs/Wemby, and win mega stars in the lottery. This is a gift to the flagship franchises who have received never ending gifts left and right (LA, Miami, Boston etc).

They seem bound and determined to destroy any hope whatsoever for Milwaukee to rebuild post Giannis, Sacramento will move, OKC will probably move in 20 years, maybe 15. This is a system basically to funnel talent, no salary cap NY Yankees for decades style to the Lakers and other flagship franchises and cities.

It's absurd, I ----ing loathe this league, and the only saving grace is no matter what we wanted to do, we were not going to be able to tank anymore due to the lack of quality in the next few classes anyway, so who knows, maybe this ups our chances in '29 and beyond, and even the next few years, but it absolutely breaks the league and I would 1000% argue they should fold about 5-10 teams tomorrow rather than expand lol. Expand in this environment? Seriously? Just move Charlotte, Milwaukee, Sacramento etc to your preferred cities (Seattle, Las Vegas etc). A joke and rigged league, much like Serie A. Just rigged, period.

[Zonkerbl]

lol so if you are a genuinely bad team that *can't* get out of the relegation zone because you truly suck, that is the kind of team that is *penalized the most* in this system. Yeah and like Consiglieri says, that punishes small market teams like Cleveland. I will say that Cleveland is a city of about 300k people and Columbus is closer to a million, and I would love for the cavs to move here, but Columbus has Ohio State and are absolutely not in the slightest interested in an NBA franchise. And I know the NBA would come in here and try to squeeze $2 billion in subsidies out of Columbus to do it, so absolutely not. Let the Cavs stay in Cleveland. Get rid of this abomination of a system and admit that if you want to be able to exercise monopsony power over the players, *and* you're going to use the monopoly rents you extract from them to make the overall league more competitive, then you have to tolerate tanking. All this "solution" does is punish small market teams. Or crappy teams like the Zards. I guess DC is actually a big market and in theory would benefit from these new rules.

[pcbothwel]

It would only benefit us for this to go through. Overall I don't like it, but I imagine it would see serious changes before we're looking to rebuild again.

- End up with pick 3/4
- Pick Boozer/Caleb
- Play really competitive basketball with high SRS despite ~.500 record
- AD is healthy & paying great, but wants extension and to compete for title
- Trade AD for expiring salary and future pick(s)
- Young guys look Great, but we lose Play-In and end up as the 9th seed
- Be a '2-Ball' team and get pick in the top 5.
-
- Chip?

[closg00]

Watch on YouTube

[DukeLecker]

Imagine the NBA “punishes” Washington for tanking and gives them the 5th pick. They end up with Brown.

Davis sees the team isn’t going to compete so he sits out until traded.

The Trae Young lead team continues to have the worst defense known to man and the Wizards legitimately have the 2nd or 3rd worst record in the league.

I think this is more likely than becoming a top 4 team next season. The revised lottery selection process gonna screw this team.

For people saying they’ll be better than 2nd or 3rd worst, who is Young, Johnson, Coulibaly, George, Sarr obviously better than? Brooklyn, probably. Sacramento, maybe. The bucks if they trade Giannis? Who else?

[nate33]

Imagine the NBA “punishes” Washington for tanking and gives them the 5th pick. They end up with Brown.

Davis sees the team isn’t going to compete so he sits out until traded.

The Trae Young lead team continues to have the worst defense known to man and the Wizards legitimately have the 2nd or 3rd worst record in the league.

I think this is more likely than becoming a top 4 team next season. The revised lottery selection process gonna screw this team.

For people saying they’ll be better than 2nd or 3rd worst, who is Young, Johnson, Coulibaly, George, Sarr obviously better than? Brooklyn, probably. Sacramento, maybe. The bucks if they trade Giannis? Who else?

Well yeah. That's more likely than becoming a top 4 team next season because there is virtually 0 chance we are top 4 team next season. However, I think it's quite likely that we will not be a bottom 3 team next year, which will put us in the sweet spot between 4th-to-last and 10th-to-last. Either that, or we finish better than that and are in the play-in tournament while still having a 5.4% chance at a top pick.

Read on Twitter

With Trae, AD, and an incrementally improved Sarr, Bilal, Kyshawn and Tre, we will be better than Brooklyn, Sacramento and Milwaukee. And I'm reasonably sure that at least one mediocre team like Chicago, Memphis, Golden State or Dallas could have a major setback and find themselves in the basement of the standings as well.

That said, I really don't see why they had to make the odds worse for the worst teams. Why not just flat odds from 1-10 but also have a lottery for all the picks (rather than defaulting to order of record after the first 3 or 4 drawings). You don't need to disincentivize losing. That's just cruel. You just need to avoid incentivizing it.

[doclinkin]

I think the new lotto system significantly enhances the value of pick swaps. Which may enrage teams that traded these under the prior system, if they end up losing a pick thru this method.

To suddenly to double your chances from 8% to 16% is a nice bump. Where previously a team could shave the chance of this to a negligible risk simply by winning more. Pick swaps were an oddity that felt unlikely if you bet on yourself playing better. Now there’s a real chance that a middling team surrenders a top pick despite fighting their way to the play in games. Or just falling short.

I can see a litigious owner filing suit if they are forced to cede a top pick to a team they traded with 5 years ago under the former system.

Likewise what is the protection on traded picks under the ruling where a team cannot pick top 5 in 3 or more years. Yeah? What if they traded for the pick that wins a top spot. Is it suddenly negated just because their own draft picks hit high a couple years in a row?

It’s a fustercluck. But one that could benefit the Wiz if we claw up thru the ranks of mediocrity.

[willbcocks]

Winger and Dawkins playing 4d chess: not tanking eegregiously enough to get fined, but tanking just eegregiously enough so the draft gets changed in a way that benefits us next year. Clearly intentional.

[doclinkin]

I think the new lotto system significantly enhances the value of pick swaps. Which may enrage teams that traded these under the prior system, if they end up losing a pick thru this method.
...
It’s a fustercluck. But one that could benefit the Wiz if we claw up thru the ranks of mediocrity.

That said it also flattens the value of draft picks. It makes it that much harder for cellar dwellers to climb in yet another way. Their picks are no longer any more valuable than anyone else's. So they have even less ammo to actually improve.

I think it shifts many trades until after the lottery every year. Less action at the deadline because you want to see what that upcoming pick may be worth. Previously you could estimate the value, or gamble on a top pick based on the likely fortunes of your trading partner. Now, it doesn't matter. All picks have the same worth.

Bad teams will stay bad. They have no leverage to induce trades. They already have bad players. No good players will push to join them. They may be a small market without the ability to draw top free agents -- or top GM candidates for that matter.

Of course billionaire owners would vote for this system. You punish the least to benefit the successful. And then cast scorn on them for their struggle. How very America.

[Zonkerbl]

I think the team's defense was excellent by midseason, except for the fact that Sarr had to leave his defensive rebounding position to play defense, and they didn't have a solid front court companion for him to collect the defensive rebounds he caused. George is not that guy. AD can be that guy when he's healthy. The zards might address that in the draft if they can get Dybantsa or Boozer or Wilson, or they might grab somebody in free agency. I'm fairly certain that problem will be addressed by next season, so I think the defensive rebounding gap that led to bad defensive results will be filled. I am worried that Young is just too small to play good defense, any time a team wants to it can just force a switch so that he's defending someone taller and have them shoot over him. The problem with being short and being good at offense is that to take advantage of your offensive skill you can't foul, so you can't play aggressive defense. So I'm kind of hoping the wizards get Peterson, give Young two or three seasons to mentor him, and then he goes on his merry way. The defensive rebounding problem is solveable in free agency, I don't think the need for an athletic pg who can play good defense can be addressed as easily outside the draft.

So god forbid I disagree with Nate, who pays attention to a lot more details than I do. But Nate seems to be leaning toward the Zards missing the playoffs again next season. I don't think that's likely. With the proper personnel gathering defensive rebounds resulting from misses Sarr forces, this team will run successfully, which is the key to a productive offensive - easy baskets. And Young will be leading that break. With a properly installed defensive system that compensates for Young's bad defense, and a lot more confident three point shooting from the young players because they are getting a steady diet of open looks from Young, I think this team makes the playoffs next year *easily.*

Now with this new lottery system that basically penalizes small market teams, *eventually* that's going to work out to DC's favor, because the DMV is roughly 20 times the size of Cleveland. Free agents are going to migrate from small markets to large markets and some of them will end up in DC. As a fan of both Cleveland and the Zards I'm torn. But I think the proposed changes are idiotic. If you want to penalize small markets for being small, just get rid of the draft. Or shorten rookie contracts. None of this smoke and mirrors stuff is necessary.

[nate33]

So god forbid I disagree with Nate, who pays attention to a lot more details than I do. But Nate seems to be leaning toward the Zards missing the playoffs again next season. I don't think that's likely. With the proper personnel gathering defensive rebounds resulting from misses Sarr forces, this team will run successfully, which is the key to a productive offensive - easy baskets. And Young will be leading that break. With a properly installed defensive system that compensates for Young's bad defense, and a lot more confident three point shooting from the young players because they are getting a steady diet of open looks from Young, I think this team makes the playoffs next year *easily.*

One reason I don't think the playoffs are a sure thing is because the East got a lot stronger this year with Atlanta making a leap and Philly successfully rebuilding on the fly with Maxey and VJ; plus Indiana is going to be back in the mix. The way I see it, there are 5 teams that are just too far ahead of us next year: Detroit, Boston, New York, Cleveland and Indiana. We won't catch them unless there's a major injury (coupled with us not having a major injury). And then there's a second tier of teams that will at least be on our level if not better: Atlanta, Orlando, Toronto, Charlotte, and Philly. And Miami might be in that group too if they trade for Giannis. That's 11 teams that could easily be better than us.

We can certainly break into that second group, but I figure things will really break right for at least one or two of those teams, and they'll be better than us, as will the 5 teams in the first tier. I also figure at least one of those second tier teams falls apart or has a catastrophic injury and finishes below us.

So that puts us in the 8-11 range in the East, even if we play .500 ball.

[payitforward]

This makes a lot of sense (sadly!). We are still a rebuilding team.

[Zonkerbl]

They need to gel immediately and get a 5, 6 win streak right out of the gate for my version to happen. If they start with another losing streak Nate's scenario is more likely. We'll know early on.

[The Consiglieri]

lol so if you are a genuinely bad team that *can't* get out of the relegation zone because you truly suck, that is the kind of team that is *penalized the most* in this system. Yeah and like Consiglieri says, that punishes small market teams like Cleveland. I will say that Cleveland is a city of about 300k people and Columbus is closer to a million, and I would love for the cavs to move here, but Columbus has Ohio State and are absolutely not in the slightest interested in an NBA franchise. And I know the NBA would come in here and try to squeeze $2 billion in subsidies out of Columbus to do it, so absolutely not. Let the Cavs stay in Cleveland. Get rid of this abomination of a system and admit that if you want to be able to exercise monopsony power over the players, *and* you're going to use the monopoly rents you extract from them to make the overall league more competitive, then you have to tolerate tanking. All this "solution" does is punish small market teams. Or crappy teams like the Zards. I guess DC is actually a big market and in theory would benefit from these new rules.

I'm fascinated by the main boards base level support for it, I tend to think most of it is fans of teams that consistently contend and are rarely bad who find tanking annoying and so are clueless about how thoroughly this league is and has always been dominated by a handful of teams. Last time I checked I think fully 1/3 of Finals Appearances over the past nearly 80 years involve the Lakers and the Celtics (55 combined), after that there's a clump of teams that have like 6-12, and then it filters to next to nothing from there. It's a league where a couple of cities have consistently drawn all the FA's, and all the trade demands and the vast bulk of the league otherwise has been screwed and totally dependent upon luck in the draft lottery or draft, or a miraculous once a decade trade, or star landing in their lap like a Jokic or Giannis for success. Not surprisingly all of those things being rare, the league has been controlled by a handful of cities which established themselves early and often as contenders, or were simply attractive to live in (NY, Miami etc) or were tax free when it came to state based income tax (Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami again, not so much Orlando etc)....

These fans don't seem to get that by perma shutting out the rest of the league to this largess, you are basically risking killing the sport. I imagine that is part of the reason Stern ended up being fine with marketing Players rather than teams starting with Dr. J, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron etc. If you're in Milwaukee and have zero hope sans Giannis, you can either follow a player, or just be screwed essentially forever. But this isn't a long term winning strategy if these teams continue to be locked out of accessing truly special talent. How do you sell tickets in Milwaukee if the team is trash, has no stars, and only has stars appear periodically when LA, or Miami or Boston or NY or whatever grace their court?

Doing this flattening to me is just insane because they are not only pushing this direction, they are also pushing expansion when they can't likely continue to push forward successfully in all manner of cities, indeed if Charlotte hadn't built something interesting the past few years, would they be survivable? I don't know.

I can't understand what they're doing. Like, not that I'm the core audience, but unless 1 of 3 things happens for us in the next few years or days, I will be treating the Wizards like I treated the Redskins/WFT/Commanders from 2016-2023, and that's ignoring the team entirely and moving on. I gave Snyder about 17 years of my life into my deep forties and then I quit, and a few years after I quit hope returned (having given the Redskins 1979-2016, I felt more than justified in walking away). With the Wiz, we seem to have 3 ways out of our current status as worst in the league:
#1 Lottery luck in the week ahead and that prospect hitting.
#2 random Jokic/Giannis Luck with a pick at slot, or another pick in a few years
#3 Our Swaps, extra Picks or a trade managing to get us a superstar that the next week doesn't in a worst case scenario.

If lottery luck doesn't go our way this next week, I'll be out, and passively observing what we do with swaps, slotting, potential trades, but literally nothing else, if none of those things turn out well, much like 1980-2025, then I'll quit and move on. Like most of the posters here, I've given more than 40 years of my time to this bull---- with no payoff whatsoever beyond the interest in analysis shared with you guys and on my own, yet another screw job (which isn't even a screw job with these math odds) and I will feel fully justified in walking away. The fact that they're going to make it even harder for the screwed franchises like us, like Sacramento, soon to be Milwaukee etc is just mind bogglingly stupid too me. So insanely foolish and short sited. Otoh, maybe their focus is international growth and they really don't care about moribund Washington Generals-style opponents in various red haired stepchild cities around the country.

[The Consiglieri]

I think the new lotto system significantly enhances the value of pick swaps. Which may enrage teams that traded these under the prior system, if they end up losing a pick thru this method.

To suddenly to double your chances from 8% to 16% is a nice bump. Where previously a team could shave the chance of this to a negligible risk simply by winning more. Pick swaps were an oddity that felt unlikely if you bet on yourself playing better. Now there’s a real chance that a middling team surrenders a top pick despite fighting their way to the play in games. Or just falling short.

I can see a litigious owner filing suit if they are forced to cede a top pick to a team they traded with 5 years ago under the former system.

Likewise what is the protection on traded picks under the ruling where a team cannot pick top 5 in 3 or more years. Yeah? What if they traded for the pick that wins a top spot. Is it suddenly negated just because their own draft picks hit high a couple years in a row?

It’s a fustercluck. But one that could benefit the Wiz if we claw up thru the ranks of mediocrity.

Absolutely and that's the funniest part of that. In order to prevent fraud, or whatever legal term you want to apply to actually intelligently managing your team when the team you run sucks they are going to further rig the system, and they are going to activate said rigging immediately, ensuring that teams that made trades this past half decade based upon the preexisting rules, would absolutely not have made such trades if they'd had foreknowledge of these changes.

What is more corrupting? Changing the rules in the middle of a game, which this is, or actively pursuing the best direction in your long term interest which is playing kids and losing when you suck?

It's hilarious these idiots don't understand this, or more likely, don't care and are trying to rig it further for the right cities, and render "Washington generals" cities like Milwaukee, and Sacramento".