[Grantland] Details to new lottery reform proposal

[Tony Franciosa]

I don't understand this. Give the #1 pick to the team with the worst record. Cleveland had no business getting Wiggins.

And the sixers did? You can't reward a team for giving away quality players for nothing.


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What quality players did they give away for nothing?

srsly. Evan Turner? megalolz

[Chitownbulls]

After rigging it for Lebron and the Cavs now they want fairness lol

EXACTLY.....NOW its not fair. I thought it was fair before? We shouldn't have to change anything

[rugbyrugger23]

Got to do the wheel!

ZERO Tanking

Excitement of good team/quality organization getting great pick

Help in trades (Knowing value vs. the guess of what it will be), promote player trades

[Sark]

As long as its not the wheel proposal where they rotate every year, that's fine. The wheel would be an embarassment to NBA parity.

How so? With the wheel, every team would be guaranteed to have the same number of picks throughout the 30 years. That's more fair than the current system, in which teams like Denver have never had a #1 pick in their entire history.

[Chitownbulls]

ALL I KNOW IS THIS.....If Andrew Wiggins wasn't a Cav.....LeBron James wouldn't be in Cleveland. 1.7% to get #1 an they did.

In 6 years....2 teams with 1.7% chance have WON the #1 pick. NEVER HAPPENED EVER BEFORE BESIDES THE LAST 6 years.

Im a Bulls fan, an theres no way we should have D Rose right now.

[Chitownbulls]

How about we have a real freakin lottery.....Worst team gets like 20 balls....#14 team gets 1-2 balls....DO IT ALL LIVE an see what happens.

A REAL LOTTERY

[MRxBLACK]

Man, I was really digging what the Sixers were doing though.

Yep, the Sixers are the only team to ever try to get a higher pick.

[NyKnicks1714]

So essentially, the team with the worst record in the NBA could end up with the 7th pick in this system?

The worst team would actually have about a 50% chance of falling outside the top 6. I don't like that at all.

[JayMKE]

Just get rid of the lottery all together, the worst team gets the top pick. Simple, not rigged, fair. This would only create an even more perverse incentive to be bad, why would any lower seed playoff team with no chance of winning the championship want to make the playoffs when they can tank and get a good chance at the #1 pick?

[inescape]

Why not just give every team in the lottery a 1/14 chance of winning the #1 pick? That's really the only way to get rid of tanking for good. If every lottery team has an equal chance of winning it, nobody will tank. It's a very simple solution and the easiest one to implement. I don't know why the NBA has never thought about doing it.

Don't like it because it ruins making the playoffs as an 8 seed. What would you rather have your team do? Squeak into the playoffs and get swept or have a 1/14 chance at a potential franchise changing superstar? I know what I'd be routing for. The system in place now is fine, just been some fluke results lately.

[HoraryAstrology]

And the sixers did? You can't reward a team for giving away quality players for nothing.


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What quality players did they give away for nothing?

srsly. Evan Turner? megalolz

Wasn't he averaging 17ppg? And Spencer Hawes you forgot to mention, just put the word megalolz around Spencers name to dodge that he was ever traded for picks and Earl Clark who was then waived LOL. Just mention that he 'sucked' though, then it's like it never happened. Surprised Henry Sims wasn't waived on the spot too.

I wouldn't have used the word quality but to even defend the Sixers there even if you're a fan has no credibility. Celtics and Lakers tanked too, Pau Gasol for example, I've never seen a 'season ending vertigo' in my life

[sweet_jesus]

Just get rid of the lottery all together, the worst team gets the top pick. Simple, not rigged, fair. This would only create an even more perverse incentive to be bad, why would any lower seed playoff team with no chance of winning the championship want to make the playoffs when they can tank and get a good chance at the #1 pick?

That's the whole reason the lottery was implemented because the worst gets first system wasn't working. Would you really want to see a team consisting of Griffin, Wall and Davis?

[Neutral 123]

Since we don't like the randomness and sometimes 'unfair' results from a draft. Why don't we have an unbiased panel of experts, like Bill Simmons for instance, to just choose who gets to pick where based on which team is most deserving?

[Double Helix]

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.

Great post and I'm with you that increasing the compensation structure of the top 6 picks would further reduce the incentive. Sterling, for years, just built via the lottery because it was cheap. As soon as the players wanted bigger deals they were gone and back into the lotto he would go looking for cheap labor.

The other exciting thing if the top 6 were paid dramtically more than now is that you would likely see more trades occurring on draft night. There would be more opportunities to trade for a pick if the team picking 4th felt that they could get a guy they liked about as much at 8 was there who was paid significantly less. GMs that believed in certain prospects more than others would be willing to chance the contract so you'd see more movement on draft night.

Compensation-related reforms can only happen when the CBA is negotiated and it's unlikely that the owners would push for compensation reform because it exposes them to more risk. The players won't push for it either because they tend to concede on draft-related matters in order to better protect themselves as vets. Most of the larger concessions the NBAPA put forth during the last CBA were draft related. So, sadly I have my doubts that rookie scale contract reform and increases will happen in any kind of dramatic way. It would add excitement for the fans but neither the owners or the players in the league and voting would benefit from the idea of it.

[choppermagic]

I still like the complete lottery with ALL teams having equal chances. I dont care if your team sucks. Get better by trying to develop players and make good decisions, not rely on tanking and the draft. Equal chance for all.

[MistyMountain20]

I feel like Lowe makes this crap up so he can get his ideas out there.

[Brt19]

Got to do the wheel!

ZERO Tanking

Excitement of good team/quality organization getting great pick

Help in trades (Knowing value vs. the guess of what it will be), promote player trades

The problem with this, players might stay another year or early to go to better team. I'd probably wait another year for quality organization or great city.

[Charlie Sollers]

I still like the complete lottery with ALL teams having equal chances. I dont care if your team sucks. Get better by trying to develop players and make good decisions, not rely on tanking and the draft. Equal chance for all.

This is the only way to get rid of tanking. Is it Would it suck if one of the top teams ended up with the #1 pick? Yes, but if the league cares about preventing tanking, this is the way to go until someone can propose a better idea.

[Double Helix]

Here's how I think things would shake out if this system was implemented. You'd see more Boston 2014 style rebuilds. Rebuilds where the last remaining star from an era wasn't forced out right away in an attempt to get worse. Rebuilds where your GM wouldn't be afraid to hire a quality coach from fear that he would help them too much. You could hire a good coach and allow him to implement a culture that could be there for when things improved. Your younger prospects would be more likely to come back from injury in their normal time frame so you, as a fan, would get to watch them more. No more Anthony Davis/Kyrie Irving-style extended, indefinite injury hold outs in order to lose as much as possible. You'd be able to build better relationships with your youngest players because they wouldn't be thinking, "Crap. We are going to be tanking as much as possible for the next 3 years." They'd know the team wasn't going to be great but would be less worried about the impact wins would have on the team in a negative way and more accepting of whatever comes next. Teams would tank but less aggressively. There'd be more this idea that much of it was beyond your control anyway so why not just see how you actually look with your young players playing a lot of minutes and let the chips fall where they may. And fans in that bottom 4 would know that they were already in the best spot try could be so they could actually cheer on and enjoy an upset win from their young guys rather than curse it. You wouldn't see fans expecting 3 top 3 picks in a row because they'd know how unlikely that would be to occur.

I just think it makes the process more honest and less likely to be micromanaged and manipulated or rigged. Sure, you might see some teams in 8 nose dive to 9 but probably not until the very end so at least they're putting up a fight until then. And besides, playoff revenue is a strong enough draw and players want to play in the playoffs bad enough that you might see less nose dives at the end than we currently think. It would all depend on how close they were to being a team on the rise or not.

But best of all... Outside of all the armchair GMing we all do... It would be better for the game and the sport of professional basketball to have teams with less incentive to lose games. Less incentive to lose means more of the 2460 regular season NBA games have some drama, competitiveness and excitement to them.

[BullyKing]

I guess I just don't agree with the people that think tanking is a bigger problem in the league than disparity. The reason teams tank is because it is virtually impossible to build a legit contender without getting lucky in the draft. Taking away that option is only going to increase the haves and have nots.