woj: The NBA's pursuing a vote on NBA Draft Lottery reform before the start of season

[vxmike]

Anyway, this is a terrible idea that will only keep bad teams bad for longer, make life harder for small market teams, and ruin what's left of competitive balance right now.

Not at all. In case anyone hasn't noticed....tanking has not been a very successful strategy lately. None of last year's playoff teams became good due to a successful tank.

The chronic tanking teams all suck.

[Warriorfan]

Good players are found throughout the draft.

Warriors tanked for Harrison Barnes Spurs tanked for Duncan but both are gone.
Warriors got green later Spurs Parker Manu and Leonard.

[gonzo]

teams are from the bottom and by draft pick:

#1 only teams 1-7 equal odds... worth it to be the worst?

#2 only teams 8-14 equal odds... worth it to tank out of playoffs?

#3 only 8 1st round losers equal odds... worth it to play your a$$ off to make playoffs

#4 only 1-14 remaining equal odds... slightly worth it to miss playoffs

#5 1-14 plus 8 1st round losers plus 4 second round losers equal odds... no reason to miss playoffs

#6 teams start drafting by record

Worst team can draft no worse than #6

The OP is about draft tanking, not league imbalance which is way more complicated. Sure some good teams win sometimes. IMO it would give 'treadmill' teams a boost without tearing it down. Or at least a chance which is why it's called a lottery. Would better work in a top 16 based playoff.

[babyjax13]

Who even cares about the lottery anymore, loyalty all but dead now.
There is a much bigger problem that needs fixing.

Tell that to IT

[WillVanderbilt]

The current lottery itself is an overreaction to Orlando winning the lottery again the year after drafting Shaq. The next revamp will last another 20 years before another overreaction swings it back the other way.


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[mademan]

I feel this would only be implemented a few years down the line (like 2 years or something). Otherwise, it's unfair to some of the teams who made moves with the old system in place (regardless of what you think of the system).

[dc]

The current lottery itself is an overreaction to Orlando winning the lottery again the year after drafting Shaq. The next revamp will last another 20 years before another overreaction swings it back the other way.

Yep. People totally forgot about that. The NBA started giving the worst teams BETTER odds to win the lottery after Orlando sneaked into the #1 spot after having the best (or one of the best IIRC) records among the lotto teams.

It was a kneejerk reaction. Everyone was absolutely livid that Orlando won back to back #1 picks, after getting Shaq the first time around, no less.

Everyone complained about how unfair that was and how the system needed to be fixed.

Sound familiar? LOL

[Statlanta]

I ain't mad for reform but it seems like fixing what is a necessary evil. Addressing the 16 team playoff format seems like it would alleviate the "weak East" problem and some of the tanking issues in one shot.

[Smitson]

They just want the draft to be easier to rig.

[makubesu]

Tanking is just a symptom of a larger problem: a lack of competitive balance. After the first month of the season, we basically know which 4 teams can make deep runs, and the rest basically have nothing to play for.

This is because there isn't enough randomness in the game. That's why they should mix things up with a single elimination, mid season tournament. You're less inclined to tank when you know that all you need is to field a league average team, and you can potentially excite your fan base and earn big ticket revenue by making a deep tournament run.


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[Dr Aki]

Problem: Bad teams are bad
Solution: Give teams with worst records, better picks

Problem: Bad teams are competing with each other trying to be worst than each other for better draft position
Solution: Implement a lottery, so that pick position is not guaranteed, change the percentages around to see what works best

Problem: Good-ish teams still have too good a chance to draft high
Solution: Tinker with the odds some more

Problem: Bad teams won't sign vets, play healthy starters less often, essentially throwing games through roster management
Solution: Prevent teams from continuously attaining the best-best draft picks, talent is still available outside of the top 3 disclaimer: I am saying this as a Laker fan, beneficiary of three #2 picks in a row

I don't see what the issue is. What fans don't want isn't total equality (parity), what fans want is for the equality of opportunity so that there is sufficient social mobility within the NBA if you do all the right things.

Do small markets have to do more to get to the top? Yes.
Is it impossible for small markets to make it to the top? No.
Is there a good enough chance that small markets can make it to the top? Yes. The blueprint is there - Get a superstar (or 2, or 3), get better at drafting, get better at making trades and accruing liquid assets, get better and shuffling contracts around, get better at team building. If you can't do that, fire your FO and get guys that can.

Then if you still manage to stuff it all up, you only really have yourself to blame. Like OKC or the SSOL Suns. Hopefully the Twolves do much better this time around and get to contender status

[Da ThRONe]

There is no way to fix the tanking issue without making the draft completely unfair and hurting competitive balance. Slightly fiddling with the lottery odds won't fix tanking and will make things less fair at the same time. The point of the draft should be to maintain competitive balance as much as possible. Instead of making the draft less fair to fix an issue that can't realistically be fixed, they should just accept that tanking is going to happen and work to make the draft as conducive as possible for competitive balance, which means just doing away with the lottery and ranking the picks straight up by worst record. The stuff being proposed is going in the exact wrong direction.

I wouldn't be surprised if the league understand and agrees with all this and are purposely doing this slight measure because they want to make it seem like they are doing something to fix tanking, while actually changing the odds as little as possible because they know it is unfair.

All of this. Tanking is the least of the league worries. If the league really want to discourage intentional losing it has to create a system that allows teams to turn their rosters around quickly. That means changing the max contract rule, hard caps, reduced season(regular and playoffs).

[Lalouie]

I think they should hold the vote after the season and before the draft just to lay a big one on all those tankin' teams

[DoItALL9]

This would hurt the Bulls, Magic, Nets and small market teams. Also hurt the competitive balance. The NBA already has major competitive balance issues they've been dealing with and it has gotten worse by the year. Like 3 teams in the entire league are good enough to win a title and this past year's playoffs were a total joke from beginning to end. A charade and basically a sideshow until the inevitable Cavs vs Warriors.

If they want the bottom teams to stay at the bottom even longer, then sure, overreact and fix the lottery odds so you have even more of a disparity across the league, and have it so the number of teams in the league no free agents ever wants to sign with grows and grows!

The one thing I hate about sports is whenever isolated incidents crop up, the leagues totally overreact and instead of a measured response, they take the extreme response so it "NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN!"

A brawl in Detroit??? Make it so if a player steps one foot out of the bench area, immediate suspension!

Sick of players getting technical fouls??? Make it so if you amass enough, you can get suspended in a playoff game!

One team massively tanked??? Let's screw the competitive balance of the league for everyone!

Nailed it. Sadly I think it's the super loud whiny folks on sites like this and casual fans who don't understand the grander scheme who result in these blanket changes

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[Asian Celtic]

Hot take: Teams at the bottom 5 should be penalized by having lower odds than 6-10th ranked teams.

IE: Bottom Ranked 1-5 have 5% lowered chance at the top pick compared to 6-10th. 6-10th has higher odds of winning the lottery than bottom 5.

Imagine the bottom 5 teams trying so hard to win to go into 6-10th lol. 6-10 trying to win/lose to be in that tier.

All right it doesn't make sense.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

A brawl in Detroit??? Make it so if a player steps one foot out of the bench area, immediate suspension!

This rule existed long before Malice in the Palace. Remember PJ Brown's troll job?

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[Cactus Jack]

All 30 teams in the lottery with equal odds, you just can't get the # 1 pick two years in a row

If that means the Cavs or Warriors end up with the #1 pick then so be it.

If teams feel they can't compete or improve then find new management, ownership or whatever.

I don't believe in being rewarded or compensated for not being good.

No one will tank ever.

The end

I have an even better proposal. Put in place a Relegation/Promotion system. The worst team (or teams) get relegated to the G-League. Meanwhile, the Winner of the G-League gets promoted & is awarded the 1st pick.

Problem solved. No more tanking.

[whocurrz]

Don't see anything too crazy about this or really giving bad teams a much worse advantage. They still have the best chance at the top pick, but it kinda just rewards other teams that are trying harder but nowhere close to a championship more and gives them a slightly higher chance at a transformational piece. I don't mind teams that are bad and need talent but are trying to compete having a slightly better chance while teams that are also bad but trying to lose having a little smaller chance. All these teams for the most part still need the same type of player, just certain organizations try their best to ensure their teams won't compete at a high level

[marcush]

This tells me that;
a) Silver is not bright enough to realize that parity is the real issue and that the simple way to fix it is to increase max salaries and enforce a hard cap. Or;
b)Silver is savvy enough to realize that he does not possess the negotiating skills to achieve said parity and is happy for an optics win.

Unfortunately all this does is make a minor optics improvement to a minor problem, all the while exacerbating the real issue.....how to get stars in a league where stars are the most important?

[Dominator83]

teams are from the bottom and by draft pick:

#1 only teams 1-7 equal odds... worth it to be the worst?

#2 only teams 8-14 equal odds... worth it to tank out of playoffs?

#3 only 8 1st round losers equal odds... worth it to play your a$$ off to make playoffs

#4 only 1-14 remaining equal odds... slightly worth it to miss playoffs

#5 1-14 plus 8 1st round losers plus 4 second round losers equal odds... no reason to miss playoffs

#6 teams start drafting by record

Worst team can draft no worse than #6

The OP is about draft tanking, not league imbalance which is way more complicated. Sure some good teams win sometimes. IMO it would give 'treadmill' teams a boost without tearing it down. Or at least a chance which is why it's called a lottery. Would better work in a top 16 based playoff.

I like this a lot actually. Love the idea of giving #3 to a 1st round loser. I've been saying forever, the treadmill teams need a chance too.

Signed, disgruntled Bulls fan that just traded our superstar because the current system gives us no shot at a top pick