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

[ATLTimekeeper]

I've decided that flat odds are better for the lottery. The 8th playoff spot is meaningless anyway, so I'm not upset if teams tank out of 8th for 9th to get the flat odds. Distribute the elite talent randomly among the bad teams.

or better yet, just extend lottery odds into the 7 and 8 seeds of the playoffs, making the odds flatter and giving teams no reason to tank out of the playoffs entirely.

Why do you think it would only be the 8th spot. Realistically in the west you could have teams trying to tank from the 5th spot to the 9th. This is a much worse look than a couple teams winning 18 games in a year.

I think that's highly unlikely and not a realistic scenario. Plus, I think a few good teams throwing games in March/April is better than 7-10 bad teams throwing games in March/April and 5-6 teams throwing games all season.

[Da ThRONe]

So to discourage bad team from intentionally staying bad they change the rules making it harder for bad teams to get better. That makes prefect sense.

[IllMagic04]

Im good with the small changes Silver wants. But the system overall is fine the way it is.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

[seren]

This is a great idea. I hope they also make sure you can't get back to back to back top 3 picks. That will force teams try to compete instead of going Philly way. I hated to see Cleveland getting 3 1st picks in such a short time span.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

[IllMagic04]

This is a great idea. I hope they also make sure you can't get back to back to back top 3 picks. That will force teams try to compete instead of going Philly way. I hated to see Cleveland getting 3 1st picks in such a short time span.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

When the Cavs got the number one pick those 3 times only once were they the worst team. The others they were 3rd worse and 9th worse. The lottery system is fine. Everyone kills philly but they only got the number 1 pick once during the tank years. This past year was a trade. The Lottery is doing its job. They just need to adjust the odds a bit

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

[Zion Wembanyama]

I really like this. End tanking.

[immortalone23]

What would a great team do with a top 5 pick? Especially in a game that rookies take 3 years to actually make an impact. This isn't Kareem and Magic. I think it should just be inverse record because it would allow a team like the Kings to finally get a number 1 pick and not constantly in the lottery. Accompanying this change would be an age limit of 20 and letting rookie contracts be 3 years and RFA. Thoughts anyone?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using RealGM mobile app

[seren]

This is a great idea. I hope they also make sure you can't get back to back to back top 3 picks. That will force teams try to compete instead of going Philly way. I hated to see Cleveland getting 3 1st picks in such a short time span.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

When the Cavs got the number one pick those 3 times only once were they the worst team. The others they were 3rd worse and 9th worse. The lottery system is fine. Everyone kills philly but they only got the number 1 pick once during the tank years. This past year was a trade. The Lottery is doing its job. They just need to adjust the odds a bit

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

I meant there should be an additional mechanism to prevent back to back top picks (maybe top 4). If you get a top 4 pick one year, you shouldn't be able to participate in the lottery part the year after and at best get the 5th pick even if you had the worst record.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

[seren]

The other change I would introduce is automatic protection. All traded picks should be top 4 protected automatically without teams needing to negotiate for it. That would prevent future mistakes.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

[IllMagic04]

This is a great idea. I hope they also make sure you can't get back to back to back top 3 picks. That will force teams try to compete instead of going Philly way. I hated to see Cleveland getting 3 1st picks in such a short time span.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

When the Cavs got the number one pick those 3 times only once were they the worst team. The others they were 3rd worse and 9th worse. The lottery system is fine. Everyone kills philly but they only got the number 1 pick once during the tank years. This past year was a trade. The Lottery is doing its job. They just need to adjust the odds a bit

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

I meant there should be an additional mechanism to prevent back to back top picks (maybe top 4). If you get a top 4 pick one year, you shouldn't be able to participate in the lottery part the year after and at best get the 5th pick even if you had the worst record.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

So say your team won the lottery in a weak draft year. You'd be ok not being eligible for a top pick in a stronger draft? I wouldnt. All drafts are different

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

[seren]

When the Cavs got the number one pick those 3 times only once were they the worst team. The others they were 3rd worse and 9th worse. The lottery system is fine. Everyone kills philly but they only got the number 1 pick once during the tank years. This past year was a trade. The Lottery is doing its job. They just need to adjust the odds a bit

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

I meant there should be an additional mechanism to prevent back to back top picks (maybe top 4). If you get a top 4 pick one year, you shouldn't be able to participate in the lottery part the year after and at best get the 5th pick even if you had the worst record.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

So say your team won the lottery in a weak draft year. You'd be ok not being eligible for a top pick in a stronger draft? I wouldnt. All drafts are different

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

Purpose is to prevent teams tanking year after year. If teams are so concerned about the quality of the top of draft, this might lead even a better incentive to win games.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

[Dominator83]

The other change I would introduce is automatic protection. All traded picks should be top 4 protected automatically without teams needing to negotiate for it. That would prevent future mistakes.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

I actually think it should be the other way around. I hate it when teams trade picks, only to see them get to weasel their way out of honoring them. If a pick is traded, it should be traded. period

[HurricaneKid]

All sorts of wild ideas here and I hate each and every one of them. The NFL has at least as big a benefit to having the #1 pick but it just goes to the worst team and that is despite fans carrying 40' signs saying "Suck for Luck" etc. In the NHL franchises are reborn through the draft of a guy like McDavid. No one even blinks when franchises in other sports are rewarded for losing.. But for some reason, the worst team getting the first choice a mere 25% of the time is too big a benefit for losing in the NBA. Its non-sensical.

I would strongly prefer to leave the draft the way it is (and even reverse the silly lottery entirely) and actually do something to impact teams willingness to lose. There is one proven method: take their money. If you are a poor rebuilding team that needs so much support that you are going to lose 60 games and need a top 2 pick, you probably don't deserve a full cut of the TV $$ since no one is watching you. You probably don't deserve to share in gate receipts because when you go on the road there are empty seats everywhere. Have increasing financial penalties for being bad for long periods of time (call it the repeater tax). As long as each team gets an equal share of the TV $ there is little financial reward for putting together a squad that might not be able to win but can certainly compete.

Furthermore, the more you flatten out the lottery the more teams you impact, and by extension reward for losing. So if you give everyone an equal shot like they used to, teams are likely to lose the last game to get a shot at a generational talent rather than be roadkill for the Warriors for a week. And that's just absurd.

[lamscott]

I like the ideas. End tanking.

[Da ThRONe]

This doesn't put a dent in tanking. Bad teams will still want to ensure they have the best odds available. Whether it's 25% or 14% doesn't change the goal if your team is too poor to compete. In fact now more teams may tank. Because if you're 4th or 5th dropping to 3rd is the same as dropping to 1st.

[NuggetsWY]

The NBA has proven that no lottery can be "fair" - anyone that plays powerball should understand that. A few people have mortgaged their homes to buy thousands of tickets when there is a large jackpot - and they lose bundles.

The NBA didn't like it when there was no lottery. So they added a lottery. They didn't like it when "big media city teams" won even though they were not one of the 3 or 4 worst. So they modified the lottery. When a team got the 1st two years in a row, they modified the lottery again. How many times? Now they want to modify the lottery again.

I'm wondering if they understand "Lottery means chance/luck".

The best option I've seen to prevent tanking is to have the "lottery teams" do a single elimination tournament to determine draft order.

[johnx]

If its the quality of games people are complaining about because of tanking this doesn't change anything bad teams are gonna suck, boring, unwatchable, uncompetitive whatever you call it they tank or not now you're taking away (or at least the percentage) their chance of getting a player that could potentially save their franchise or atleast someone they could be excited about their future

[Mulhollanddrive]

Why not just make it in order of who gets to 41 losses.

A team that is tanking at 15-41 then has no incentive to lose anymore.

[HangTime]

After the first 4 picks are chosen,
A lottery ball representing the other 11 teams (in inverse order) should be drawn from a machine to determine 4/5, 6/7, 8/9, 10/11, 12/13/14.

For example if 14 is the first ball drawn they will get the 12th pick.

Next, let's says ball 9 is drawn, they will get the 8th pick and team 8 will get the automatically get the 9th pick.

Next lets say ball 12 is drawn, they will get the 13th pick and team 13 will get the 14th pick automatically.

You keep going until all the pick are determined. So when a team doesn't show up in the expected position, they still won't know if they actually moved into the top 4, or if they just moved up 1 (or 2, determining picks 12-14) spot.

[Bologna Smasher]

Maybe the should just disallow the trading of draft picks. Then just give all 14 teams in the draft lottery the same chance of getting the number one pick.