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

[LakerLegend]

Why not just give higher odds in inverse order for the teams with the 5 worse records?

[Snotbubbles]

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.

They used to have that system in place (where all teams had the same chance). The system slowly evolved to the current one because the whole point of the draft was to allow the weaker teams a better opportunity to obtain talent. If you truly wanted to eliminate tanking, just get rid of the draft and make every player an UFA. Any lottery reform is just window dressing to appease the casual fan.

[MUpacersSIC]

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.

They used to have that system in place (where all teams had the same chance). The system slowly evolved to the current one because the whole point of the draft was to allow the weaker teams a better opportunity to obtain talent. If you truly wanted to eliminate tanking, just get rid of the draft and make every player an UFA. Any lottery reform is just window dressing to appease the casual fan.

This would literally kill small market teams because everyone would want to sign with the bigger markets. I'm not sure why people keep bringing that up.

[seren]

Smaller market teams are brutalized by the current lottery system whether they recognize it or not. Truly small market teams do not have the option to tank hard. Their ticket base is too frickle to lose year after year. There is a reason you don't see true small market teams such as Atlanta, Indiana and Charlotte to bottom out year after year even if the current system dictates they should. If there will be a lottery, it should not punish teams for trying to win games. Sure we want worse teams to have a higher chance, but not disproportionately high. Is a 30 win team that much better than a 20 win team? I doubt. And why encourage a potential 30 win team to dramatically get worse? What do you achieve with that as a league.

So here is my suggestion: Give every team a chance to the lottery with the chances disproportionate to their win totals. But do it linearly, ie a 28 win team should not have double the probability of winning the lottery than a 30 win team. Moreover, open the whole 30 spots (technically 29 of course) rather than only top 3 or 4.

This would totally eliminate tanking yet acknowledge teams with bad records should be prioritrized in the lottery.

One additional step is to ban trading picks. It creates unfair advantage at the top. Teams like Cleveland can easily get role players that get them over the hump opening the gap between truly haves and teams trying to catch up. Teams should only be allowed to trade what they have now as opposed to what they may have in the future.

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[Snotbubbles]

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.

They used to have that system in place (where all teams had the same chance). The system slowly evolved to the current one because the whole point of the draft was to allow the weaker teams a better opportunity to obtain talent. If you truly wanted to eliminate tanking, just get rid of the draft and make every player an UFA. Any lottery reform is just window dressing to appease the casual fan.

This would literally kill small market teams because everyone would want to sign with the bigger markets. I'm not sure why people keep bringing that up.

There is still this thing called a salary cap.

[Snotbubbles]

Smaller market teams are brutalized by the current lottery system whether they recognize it or not. Truly small market teams do not have the option to tank hard. Their ticket base is too frickle to lose year after year. There is a reason you don't see true small market teams such as Atlanta, Indiana and Charlotte to bottom out year after year even if the current system dictates they should. If there will be a lottery, it should not punish teams for trying to win games. Sure we want worse teams to have a higher chance, but not disproportionately high. Is a 30 win team that much better than a 20 win team? I doubt. And why encourage a potential 30 win team to dramatically get worse? What do you achieve with that as a league.

So here is my suggestion: Give every team a chance to the lottery with the chances disproportionate to their win totals. But do it linearly, ie a 28 win team should not have double the probability of winning the lottery than a 30 win team. Moreover, open the whole 30 spots (technically 29 of course) rather than only top 3 or 4.

This would totally eliminate tanking yet acknowledge teams with bad records should be prioritrized in the lottery.

One additional step is to ban trading picks. It creates unfair advantage at the top. Teams like Cleveland can easily get role players that get them over the hump opening the gap between truly haves and teams trying to catch up. Teams should only be allowed to trade what they have now as opposed to what they may have in the future.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

They already had equal weighting. People wanted a new system. Then they went to a lottery where the weighting was pretty equal among the top 5 or 6. Orlando won the lottery after just missing the playoffs. People wanted a new system. So they went to a system that favored worse teams.

Guess what. Teams stunk in the equal weighting system. Teams stunk in the revised formatted systems too.

If you want to eliminate tanking, then you need to develop a system where teams aren't reliant on the draft to obtain star players. The NBA has a serious problem because the star players make so much money outside of the NBA that they can take reduced salaries. So they pick and choose where they want to go, and fit their salaries into the teams current structure.

[jbk1234]

After watching what happened to the Nets the last four years I really don't get why people think the worst teams having the best picks is a bad idea. Do you want four or five NBA teams to stay really bad indefinitely?

[DoItALL9]

Why not just give higher odds in inverse order for the teams with the 5 worse records?

Explain what you mean here

[LakerLegend]

Why not just give higher odds in inverse order for the teams with the 5 worse records?

Explain what you mean here

Worst record gets 5th best odds in the lottery, 2nd worst record gets 4th best odds etc.

[gflem]

My solution would be at the All-Star break teams select whose draft pick they want in order from worst to best.

Then there's no tanking for rest of season.

That would be ridiculous, team's only having to tank for half a year would have even more incentive. Ending tanking altogether is the best solution.

I think what he means is that every team, starting with the worst, has to pick another teams draft slot to have and you can't pick your own. Say for instance that Brooklyn is the worst team in the league, they could pick any other teams draft slot to have and wherever that team ends up in the lottery is where they pick. So let's say they pick Atlanta. Now Brooklyn has incentive to win because they need to stay above Atlanta and they want to screw over whoever decided to take their pick. Every team would try to win as much as possible in this scenario because no one would have their own pick. It would also make trading picks tougher as you would really be trading your spot in the pick selection order.

I actually really like this idea even if it is impractical. It's the only one where no team has an incentive to lose and every incentive to win.

That is really thinking outside the box, and would be a hugely entertaining exercise. It would also put a unique spin on player injuries and how they affect some other teams draft pick as well.

[Dr Aki]

Why not just give higher odds in inverse order for the teams with the 5 worse records?

Explain what you mean here

Worst record gets 5th best odds in the lottery, 2nd worst record gets 4th best odds etc.

so... the 6th worst team tanks to the 5th worst record?

more polemics?

there is no way of fudging the odds to punish crappy teams for tanking without benefiting (maybe crappy but) better teams that tank

it's a zero sum game

[DoItALL9]

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 don't believe there to be truly very much wrong with the current system but of the changes proposed this by far the most creative\best I've seen

[GoGreen]

I don't much think tanking will be solved unless the NBA becomes a league that doesn't require a team to have multiple, top-tier, elite talent to win a title. That's really the core issue. It's very rare to win with defense alone and a mediocre offense.

Parody was prevalent in the 70s, so unless the league wants to figure out how to go back to those days, I think changing the lottery is maybe helpful and could be refreshing, but I don't believe will make any real change to tanking.