League Unveils some Anti-Tanking Proposals

[Donoghus]

Some interesting stuff here.  #2, especially is interesting.

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
The NBA presented three comprehensive anti-tanking concepts to its Board of Governors on Wednesday, with modifications expected to each before a formal vote in May, per ESPN sources.

1. 18 teams in draft lottery (seeds 7-15 in each conference) ? flattened odds, with bottom 10 teams having an 8% chance, the remaining 20% odds distributed in decreasing order for 11 through 18, and and a lottery drawing for all 18 picks.

2) 22 teams in lottery using 2-year record (seeds 7-15, plus the four playoff first round exits in both conferences). Lottery teams would reach a minimum win total floor in each season, such as 25 wins. If a team falls short of the floor, it gets slotted to meet the floor. Top 4 drawn as part of lottery, as is currently.

3) 18 teams in a "5 by 5" lottery ? bottom 5 teams have equal odds for the top pick, with lottery formed for picks 1-5. Bottom 5 teams have a floor at 10; those that fall out of top 5 get sorted in a separate drawing.

[timpiker]

Since it's the fans of those teams that suffer from the tanking because they can say their team is not trying to win games. I say penalize the teams that are taking by forcing them to give up all profits from their games. Reimburse the fans.

[Celtics4ever]

If you tank and it can be proven you should loose your draft pick or have it be at the end of the round.   That would stop it, immediately.  Have league doctors do random tests on injured players.

[Phantom255x]

I truthfully don't see how any draft lotteries are gonna actually solve this. Teams will still play for their lottery odds in the final month if they know their teams don't have any chance at playoffs. And some teams will choose to sit their star young guys and not risk a long term injury before season's end. Which makes sense, if you have a star young player why risk them suffering an ACL or something big in the final month if you're team is well out of it and puts some or all of next season in jeopardy? We've seen it in the past and I'm sure the Mavs will do it with Flagg very soon.

I'm with the others, they need to actually propose plans which punish teams who are proven to be tanking by more than just fines. That includes losing draft picks, revenue/profits, etc. Only then will we see change. And yeah, maybe for guys who are put on injury reports for multiple games have independent league doctors or staffs come to determine it. A massive organization like the NBA should have enough people for this.

I mean in these scenarios too, it's possible a great team like Denver can land a top pick while a bad team doesn't. Oh yeah, because that'll certainly help with parity in the league and promoting these smaller markets (keep in mind the addition of the expansion teams)

[Donoghus]

This certainly complicates matters a bit.

Bobby Marks
@BobbyMarks42
Consequences of lottery reform could be felt for teams that owe future firsts and swaps.

Starting in 2027, 21 teams have at least 1 first/swap owed in the next 7 years.

[Vermont Green]

I still say that the most egregious tanking occurs when there is a protected pick that has been traded.  I have not seen anything to tighten up this aspect.  If a team has a top say 7 protected traded pick, they work hard to keep that pick so it turns into (2) future seconds or whatever.  That is a big impact.  A much bigger impact than getting a few more or a few less ping pong balls.  They could impose rules around protecting picks that could address this aspect.  Address this and it would take care of some of the most egregious tanking.

More general tanking, where it is just about trying to position yourself in the lottery for a pick that you own, that has a few facets.  One is simply not playing your best players down the stretch, or like in the case of OKC, not playing a good player the whole season (Horford).  I don't know how you fix this.  How do you police a team that simply plays their young players over vets?  Is that tanking or is that developing?  You can make the lottery as convoluted as you want and teams are still going to do this.

And the other part of this is when a team trades vets for draft picks (like PHI).  To me, that is also tanking.  You are trading a player that could help you win for draft picks.  You are conceding that you will lose more games and have more draft picks as a strategy to improve your team.  In the extreme (as in the process by PHI), I see this as the highest order of tanking.  But every team does it and sometimes it actually works.  BOS did it when they traded Pierce and Garnett, and it worked.

[slamtheking]

I still say that the most egregious tanking occurs when there is a protected pick that has been traded.  I have not seen anything to tighten up this aspect.  If a team has a top say 7 protected traded pick, they work hard to keep that pick so it turns into (2) future seconds or whatever.  That is a big impact.  A much bigger impact than getting a few more or a few less ping pong balls.  They could impose rules around protecting picks that could address this aspect.  Address this and it would take care of some of the most egregious tanking.

More general tanking, where it is just about trying to position yourself in the lottery for a pick that you own, that has a few facets.  One is simply not playing your best players down the stretch, or like in the case of OKC, not playing a good player the whole season (Horford).  I don't know how you fix this.  How do you police a team that simply plays their young players over vets?  Is that tanking or is that developing?  You can make the lottery as convoluted as you want and teams are still going to do this.

And the other part of this is when a team trades vets for draft picks (like PHI).  To me, that is also tanking.  You are trading a player that could help you win for draft picks.  You are conceding that you will lose more games and have more draft picks as a strategy to improve your team.  In the extreme (as in the process by PHI), I see this as the highest order of tanking.  But every team does it and sometimes it actually works.  BOS did it when they traded Pierce and Garnett, and it worked.

technically Boston relied on Brooklyn getting bad, not themselves

[aefgogreen]

What about if they flatten the odds and let play-in teams in the lottery?  Flat odds prevent teams from losing out and maybe even fighting for a play-in spot.  I think teams that are around 5th or 6th in their conference would not want to tank into the play-in.  Of course people thought the play-in would incentivize teams near the mid-bottom to fight for a chance to go to the playoffs and that didn't work, so who knows?

[Goldstar88]

I think they should just do what they did last year. Let Silver and the gang decide behind closed doors who wins the lottery. Worked out really well for the league. Lakers will now be relevant post LeBron. The Mavs were rewarded the #1 pick with their 1% lottery odds, netting another generational talent, plus all the picks from the trades. 

[Roy H.]

What about if they flatten the odds and let play-in teams in the lottery?  Flat odds prevent teams from losing out and maybe even fighting for a play-in spot.  I think teams that are around 5th or 6th in their conference would not want to tank into the play-in.  Of course people thought the play-in would incentivize teams near the mid-bottom to fight for a chance to go to the playoffs and that didn't work, so who knows?

It seems like this is what Shams is reporting in Option #1.  18 teams in the lottery, which I presume would go up to 20 after expansion.

[nickagneta]

From ESPN, more details on the third proposal:

The third proposal is a "five-by-five" method, sources told Charania. In this one, the same 18 teams from the first proposal -- the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, plus the eight that make it -- would be entered into the lottery. The teams with the five worst records would then all have the same odds, with them descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft.

After those five picks are selected, there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams. If any of the teams with the five worst records didn't land one of those top five spots -- like last season, when the teams with the first (the Utah Jazz), second (Washington Wizards) and fourth (New Orleans Pelicans) worst records all moved back to fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively -- the lowest they could wind up in the second lottery drawing would be 10th, preventing a bad team from falling too far down the draft board.

[Vermont Green]

I still say that the most egregious tanking occurs when there is a protected pick that has been traded.  I have not seen anything to tighten up this aspect.  If a team has a top say 7 protected traded pick, they work hard to keep that pick so it turns into (2) future seconds or whatever.  That is a big impact.  A much bigger impact than getting a few more or a few less ping pong balls.  They could impose rules around protecting picks that could address this aspect.  Address this and it would take care of some of the most egregious tanking.

More general tanking, where it is just about trying to position yourself in the lottery for a pick that you own, that has a few facets.  One is simply not playing your best players down the stretch, or like in the case of OKC, not playing a good player the whole season (Horford).  I don't know how you fix this.  How do you police a team that simply plays their young players over vets?  Is that tanking or is that developing?  You can make the lottery as convoluted as you want and teams are still going to do this.

And the other part of this is when a team trades vets for draft picks (like PHI).  To me, that is also tanking.  You are trading a player that could help you win for draft picks.  You are conceding that you will lose more games and have more draft picks as a strategy to improve your team.  In the extreme (as in the process by PHI), I see this as the highest order of tanking.  But every team does it and sometimes it actually works.  BOS did it when they traded Pierce and Garnett, and it worked.

technically Boston relied on Brooklyn getting bad, not themselves

Fair point, when you trade for another team's picks, then your own tanking does not impact those picks.  Usually it goes the other way though.  Take UTA trading Mitchell to CLE.  CLE got better, UTA got worse.  UTA made a strategic decision to trade a player who would help them win games in order to make the team worse in the near term, improving their own picks and getting other picks from CLE.  It was a rebuilding strategy based on doing the opposite of trying to win more games. 

To me:

[doing the opposite of trying to win more games] = [Tanking]

But how can the league police this?  At a certain level, I am not even sure there is anything wrong with it.  In the extreme though, it is tanking.  Tanking as part of a multi-season strategy.

[Goldstar88]

From ESPN, more details on the third proposal:

The third proposal is a "five-by-five" method, sources told Charania. In this one, the same 18 teams from the first proposal -- the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, plus the eight that make it -- would be entered into the lottery. The teams with the five worst records would then all have the same odds, with them descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft.

After those five picks are selected, there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams. If any of the teams with the five worst records didn't land one of those top five spots -- like last season, when the teams with the first (the Utah Jazz), second (Washington Wizards) and fourth (New Orleans Pelicans) worst records all moved back to fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively -- the lowest they could wind up in the second lottery drawing would be 10th, preventing a bad team from falling too far down the draft board.

Nick, is that really you!? Welcome back!

Also, I like that proposal.

[Phantom255x]

From ESPN, more details on the third proposal:

The third proposal is a "five-by-five" method, sources told Charania. In this one, the same 18 teams from the first proposal -- the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, plus the eight that make it -- would be entered into the lottery. The teams with the five worst records would then all have the same odds, with them descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft.

After those five picks are selected, there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams. If any of the teams with the five worst records didn't land one of those top five spots -- like last season, when the teams with the first (the Utah Jazz), second (Washington Wizards) and fourth (New Orleans Pelicans) worst records all moved back to fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively -- the lowest they could wind up in the second lottery drawing would be 10th, preventing a bad team from falling too far down the draft board.

NICK! 

[nickagneta]

From ESPN, more details on the third proposal:

The third proposal is a "five-by-five" method, sources told Charania. In this one, the same 18 teams from the first proposal -- the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, plus the eight that make it -- would be entered into the lottery. The teams with the five worst records would then all have the same odds, with them descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft.

After those five picks are selected, there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams. If any of the teams with the five worst records didn't land one of those top five spots -- like last season, when the teams with the first (the Utah Jazz), second (Washington Wizards) and fourth (New Orleans Pelicans) worst records all moved back to fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively -- the lowest they could wind up in the second lottery drawing would be 10th, preventing a bad team from falling too far down the draft board.

Nick, is that really you!? Welcome back!

It's really me. Been reading regularly while not logged in.

I read the Anti-tanking proposals and loved the subject so thought the extra info on the third proposal made it one I really liked. Wanted to share the extra info to see if it made a difference to anyone on that proposal