Alternative ideas for a shady lottery

[Redz]

They could always take a page from Shirley Jackson and let the rest of the league stone the lottery winners.

[KG Living Legend]

 Tp for the guy who said 4-6 teams.

 I think the only real danger is guys Like Blake Griffin, Lebron, Durant, Oden, woops.

 Who cares if a team wants to tank for the fifth pick even.

 Am I alone here.

 It's really only the very top of the draft that's important. 

[sdceltsfan]

      The problem with a playoff bracket for draft position is obvious......it goes along with the whole motivation thing; how do you expect teams to be motivated to compete for a #1 pick that might still turn out to be a bust, when they couldn't even get their act together during the regular season? Also, who buys tickets for that kind of garbage basketball? Hard enough for the small market, bottom feeder teams to sell tickets as it is, then you want to rub salt in to the wounds of the fans even more?
       What could be considered for the lottery teams is maybe a ranking system based on record against the other lottery teams......so the team with the most wins against other lottery teams is awarded more ping pong balls for the actual lottery that would still take place......the worst teams still also get a substantial share of the drawing, and then once the top 3-5 teams are selected from the drawing, picks then go in sequence of worst to best record as usual.......so there would be no way to tank and even be guaranteed the best chance at winning the #1 pick overall.
      I think this also helps the NBA ratings (if only slightly), or at least makes the games more competitive for teams who are virtually out of contention at this point in the season. All of a sudden you get a Clippers/ T-wolves game the has some relevance. Definitely not full-proof by any means but it's a lot less embarrassing of a scenario compared to a tournament for losers. I would see the potential of this to backfire in that the lottery-bound teams might take the night off when playing a playoff contender, to save their strength for the next game or two against the crap teams on their schedule......
    As it stands now though, the better teams already beat on the inferior ones (Heat are a prime example), so it doesn't change too much from that perspective. I still would argue that there is more incentive for 2 inferior teams to "show up" in a game that would otherwise be meaningless in the regular season.
      

[sdceltsfan]

What also makes this interesting is that you would also have games where the team with the worst record overall (tank candidate) plays a team thats like 5 games out of the playoffs right now and is tied for #3 in wins against non-lottery teams......both teams are going to be playing hard.....worst team can win and knock out a team from gaining that rankings advantage in the lottery. The fringe team is playing to stay in the hunt for the playoffs, but also for draft stakes. It's a definite incentive to compete from basically every point in the standings.

[bdm860]

How about some kind of contest:

A big game of 21, with one player from each team playing and with the tip-in-rule in full effect.  If you're at 19, miss shot and it gets tipped in, back to 0! NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Or a big game of Horse.  Send whatever player think gives your team the best chance.  Team with the worst record shoots first.  But make a rule that a player had to play at least 300 minutes or something like that to make sure guys wouldn't sign some Horse stud and just hide him with the 15th roster spot.

Or use the Horse idea, but instead of you picking a player from your team to send, the other 13 lottery teams (or 29 teams if you do everybody) get to vote on which player will represent you.  Just picture Shaq squaring off against Perkins, against Ben Wallace, against Dwight Howard in a game of Horse (no dunking allowed).  Good times.  Works well with any type of shooting contest.  Plus it makes guys who can't shoot even more of a liability to their team, which in turn encourages fundamental basketball which makes for a better NBA.  Everybody wins!

WWF Royal Rumble style?  All 30 teams represented, teams with the 2 best records send guys to the ring first.  Every 2 minutes after that another player enters with players entering in the order of their teams record, best record first.  Last man standing wins.  No guarantee tanking gets you anything, and everybody has a chance!

Just think if any of these were televised.  They would draw way better ratings then the lottery.

[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

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.

it seems to me you you don't want to admit it's not the worst idea you've ever heard - the point of the thread is to give alternates to the lottery system as is in place; last I checked you haven't done that

[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.

it seems to me you you don't want to admit it's not the worst idea you've ever heard - the point of the thread is to give alternates to the lottery system as is in place; last I checked you haven't done that

I'm fine with the system as it is and even though it's not the worst idea I've ever head, it's pretty close to it.

[BigDanz2000]

I was thinking turtle races. 

Every team would be represented by a turtle, chosen randomly by an independent turtle breeder. Then the owners would get the opportunity to paint their turtles anyway they please, this is to prevent any sort of confusion just in case you lose track of which turtle is yours.

The order the turtles finish is the order of the draft. This is a completely fair system. Seeing as how everyone will get the same shot to win.  You just have to pick the right turtle.

Let the games begin!

[LooseCannon]

Many thought that the first lottery in 1985 was rigged because the Knicks won Patrick Ewing.  The league went to a weighted system.  When Orlando, the best team to miss the playoffs, won the first pick on a 1-in-66 chance in 1993, they weighted it further.

I would go with a weighted system similar to the current one, but instead of picking three teams for the top three slots no matter their record, you give teams advancement in draft slots.  One team gets to move up three slots, another gets to move up two slots, and a third team gets to move up one slot.

For example, let's say in 2010, the Wizards get +3, the 76ers get +2, and the Nets get +1.  The draft order would then go Nets, Wizards, Wolves, Kings, 76ers, Warriors, Pistons....

As long as draft position has some relation to win-loss record, tanking will always be a possibility.  You either have to get rid of the idea of a lottery, decrease the relationship between lottery odds and win-loss record, or decrease the incentive for finishing worse.  I opt to do the latter.

[pearljammer10]

Rock Paper Scissors tourney.

[Rondoholic]

They should mark a date late in the season (maybe all-star break, or just last 15-20 games of season or something), and teams that don't make playoffs should be awarded higher draft picks based on their record creating an incentive to win/try hard rather than tank late in season.  If you wanted to make it more fair, it could be their record over this stretch against each other or common opponents that could be used.

[Moranis]

Just get rid of the lottery and do it by record like every other sport.  The worst team should get the best pick, period. 

[Rondoholic]

They should mark a date late in the season (maybe all-star break, or just last 15-20 games of season or something), and teams that don't make playoffs should be awarded higher draft picks based on their record creating an incentive to win/try hard rather than tank late in season.  If you wanted to make it more fair, it could be their record over this stretch against each other or common opponents that could be used.

Maybe this should only include the worst of the worst rather than teams that just miss out on playoffs.  Have this competition between like 10 worst teams or something.

[clawlin]

Another problem with the Draft Bracket Tourney is that players would play for political reasons.  How hard do you think Gilbert Arenas would play if he knew the #1 pick would land the Wizards John Wall, and take his starting spot?  Not very hard.  And, for this year, how hard would Baron Davis and Ramon Sessions play if Kyrie Irving would just usurp their position with the #1 pick?

The Lottery seems to be the best option that anyone has currently come up with.  It does not prevent tanking, but mitigates it a bit, and doesnt negate incentive to do well.

[fairweatherfan]

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

The problem is that this way the tanking incentive isn't to be as bad as possible, it's to be just bad enough to barely miss the playoffs.  Say you're a mediocre team like the Pacers with a chance at the 8 spot.  You can fight to keep the spot and get maybe 2 home games before getting clobbered in the 1st, and take the #15 pick and probably be mediocre next year too.  Or you can let up a bit, play some bench guys, and get an excellent shot at a Top 3 pick, which can increase future revenue (with the added star power) and help build the team into a legit contender down the road. 

Playoff games are a big source of revenue, so there'd be less tanking your way, but it would happen sooner or later when some real blue-chippers were in play, and it'd be a huge black eye to the league. 

I support the old lottery method - 14 teams, 14 ping-pong balls, all spots are drawn.  There's still a slight incentive to miss the playoffs, but a 1/14 chance wouldn't motivate very many teams no matter who the #1 prospect is.  And you could do the lottery live (with proper auditing), like they used to do, which would add to the excitement.