Greatness wrote:That actually doesn't eliminate tanking at all, as teams will try desperately to get into the top 4 or even top 6.
Who said the goal is to eliminate tanking? The only way to eliminate tanking is to do a straight up unweighted lottery for the top-16 picks. But that has major implications before parity/competitive balance. The idea is to strike the proper balance between encouraging competition during the season and aiding the worse-off in getting better in the offseason.
This proposal is pretty strong, because it reduces the value of a bad record in the draft. As of right now, if you have the worst record, you get a 25% shot at the top pick--that's pretty strong! Under the new proposal, that drops to an 11% shot, co-equal with 3 other teams. All of a sudden not as valuable to have the worst record, so less incentive to seek the worst record.
Further, the downside to tanking (aside from the lost season) in the lottery is limited, because the league only pulls 3 draft slots from the lottery. So even with the worst record, you're still guaranteed at least the #4 pick. Under the new proposal, you'd only be guaranteed the #7 pick. That's actually a pretty decent drop off. See, e.g.,
here and
here. By average career production, the 4th pick is likely to be an all-star (60% likely to have all-star like production, median players are guys like Mashburn, Odom), whereas the 7th pick, less than a third develop into stars and the average production is nothing special (Lorenzen Wright, Roy Tarpley).
Losing a season might be worth it for a 60% shot at a star but not for a 30% shot at a star.
I think this is precisely what the league should be doing. It's only missing 1 key piece. The league should change the rookie scale such that the players who are picked in the lottery slots (in this scenario, 1-6) earn significantly more than their counterparts. One of the benefits of tanking is that you get cheap labor...if the player works out, you have an amazing deal, and if he doesn't, he's on a cheap rookie scale deal. No monetary downside! If you start making those picks a little expensive, teams might think twice about tanking, because there is real risk if you blow it. Might make the 7th & 8th picks more valuable than the 5th & 6th, actually--another reason why teams might not be as eager to tank.
