Alternative ideas for a shady lottery

[KG Living Legend]

 I want to see if you guys have any better ideas than the current "ping pong ball" method.

 I completely understand the fear of tanking problem.

 And I really don't like the Lottery either. At all.

 I admit I don't have a great solution to the problem.

 So I was hoping some of my Smart Boston fans can give a suggestion or two.

 Tp's for anything better than what we got.

 P.S.   Stern is a shady, little, evil man. I wouldn't trust him any farther than I could toss him.  (about six feet)

[cdif911]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

[barefacedmonk]

P.S.   Stern is a shady, little, evil man. I wouldn't trust him any farther than I could toss him.  (about six feet)

[droponov]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

That negates the entire idea of the draft. How would bad teams improve?

[Army_of_One_Nation]

Instead of having all non play-off teams in the lottery, it should have only the last place teams from each division.

[cdif911]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

That negates the entire idea of the draft. How would bad teams improve?

it would eliminate tanking though; teams motivated to win are able to get over the hump through the draft vs. crappy teams getting a great player for 4 or 5 years then losing them and starting over - bad teams will remain bad unless they find ways to motivate players

[Redz]

Have the worst 12 teams play single elimination mini tournaments within 4 seed brackets.

Teams 1-4 (the 4 worst teams) play each other in a double elimination round robin dealio with the worst team getting home court advantage.  Winner gets the top pick, 2nd place gets 2nd etc...

Do the same for seeds 5-8, and 9-12 brackets.

[raynman]

The lottery should not just be for the top three draft positions, but for all 14.. Every team has equal chances of winning the top pick and the whole order of the draft from 1-14 will be determined by the lottery.. That should definitely discourage tanking!

[jambr380]

Have the worst 12 teams play single elimination mini tournaments within 4 seed brackets.

Teams 1-4 (the 4 worst teams) play each other in a double elimination round robin dealio with the worst team getting home court advantage.  Winner gets the top pick, 2nd place gets 2nd etc...

Do the same for seeds 5-8, and 9-12 brackets.

I think you are at least on the right track here. Playing for draft position may seem like an off the wall idea, but it makes it the most fair. Frankly, I hate the idea of doing a reverse lottery - for the obvious reason that bad teams will have a much harder time getting good.

[droponov]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

That negates the entire idea of the draft. How would bad teams improve?

it would eliminate tanking though; teams motivated to win are able to get over the hump through the draft vs. crappy teams getting a great player for 4 or 5 years then losing them and starting over - bad teams will remain bad unless they find ways to motivate players

Most bad teams are bad because they lack talent, not because they lack motivation. The most powerful motivator players have is money. That's why when teams are tanking, it's not because players don't try their best - they're generally trying to keep their market value as high as possible. More often, it's the FO/coaching staff making decisions about which players to play.

Anyway, imagine your idea works and nobody tanks. You'd still have teams with less wins than others. Then what? Average teams would have the biggest talents; really bad teams would get lesser talents, even though they didn't tank at all. It's completely nonsensical.

Tanking is an overrated problem, I have no idea why people care so much about it. The lottery took care of it for the most part.

[cdif911]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

That negates the entire idea of the draft. How would bad teams improve?

it would eliminate tanking though; teams motivated to win are able to get over the hump through the draft vs. crappy teams getting a great player for 4 or 5 years then losing them and starting over - bad teams will remain bad unless they find ways to motivate players

Most bad teams are bad because they lack talent, not because they lack motivation. The most powerful motivator players have is money. That's why when teams are tanking, it's not because players don't try their best - they're generally trying to keep their market value as high as possible. More often, it's the FO/coaching staff making decisions about which players to play.

Anyway, imagine your idea works and nobody tanks. You'd still have teams with less wins than others. Then what? Average teams would have the biggest talents; really bad teams would get lesser talents, even though they didn't tank at all. It's completely nonsensical.

Tanking is an overrated problem, I have no idea why people care so much about it. The lottery took care of it for the most part.

the NBA doesn't and won't have parity, it's an unfortunate part of the game, but if you can take a pretty ok team and make them a contender with a draft pick, that does the league a lot better than taking an awful team and making them an ok team imho

[Redz]

Have the worst 12 teams play single elimination mini tournaments within 4 seed brackets.

Teams 1-4 (the 4 worst teams) play each other in a double elimination round robin dealio with the worst team getting home court advantage.  Winner gets the top pick, 2nd place gets 2nd etc...

Do the same for seeds 5-8, and 9-12 brackets.

I think you are at least on the right track here. Playing for draft position may seem like an off the wall idea, but it makes it the most fair. Frankly, I hate the idea of doing a reverse lottery - for the obvious reason that bad teams will have a much harder time getting good.

Plus they could definitely sell some seats (at least for the top bracket)

[droponov]

reverse lottery, best team to not make the playoffs gets the most ping pong balls, that way there's an incentive to be good

That negates the entire idea of the draft. How would bad teams improve?

it would eliminate tanking though; teams motivated to win are able to get over the hump through the draft vs. crappy teams getting a great player for 4 or 5 years then losing them and starting over - bad teams will remain bad unless they find ways to motivate players

Most bad teams are bad because they lack talent, not because they lack motivation. The most powerful motivator players have is money. That's why when teams are tanking, it's not because players don't try their best - they're generally trying to keep their market value as high as possible. More often, it's the FO/coaching staff making decisions about which players to play.

Anyway, imagine your idea works and nobody tanks. You'd still have teams with less wins than others. Then what? Average teams would have the biggest talents; really bad teams would get lesser talents, even though they didn't tank at all. It's completely nonsensical.

Tanking is an overrated problem, I have no idea why people care so much about it. The lottery took care of it for the most part.

the NBA doesn't and won't have parity, it's an unfortunate part of the game, but if you can take a pretty ok team and make them a contender with a draft pick, that does the league a lot better than taking an awful team and making them an ok team imho

So, bad teams would be bad teams forever? The NBA would implode in a few years. This has nothing to do with parity; just with giving teams a chance to improve - others will get worse.

It seems to me you just don't want to admit it's a bad idea.

[slamtheking]

Instead of having all non play-off teams in the lottery, it should have only the last place teams from each division.

That's what they did prior to the lottery.  Didn't discourage tanking. 

[slamtheking]

The lottery should not just be for the top three draft positions, but for all 14.. Every team has equal chances of winning the top pick and the whole order of the draft from 1-14 will be determined by the lottery.. That should definitely discourage tanking!

I believe that was the original lottery format, or at least one that was weighted differently from the current method.

Personally, I think only the 4-6 worst teams should be in the lottery.  It should be an equal balance to prevent tanking amongst the worst teams.  If they do the bottom 6, the rest of the bottom teams should be in a position to be trying for the playoffs.  Might need to extend it to 8 teams but you get the idea.