the lotto, the thing i hate most

[goCeltics]

I think the draft lotto is the stupidest thing currently in the nba, it punishes the worse teams in the league and robs them of top teir talent (the bobcats the worse team in the league stand to lose out on anthony davis and instead might get  beal or barnes), and it doesn't achieve wants it set out to do which is disincentivize losing games at the end of the season, because teams still try not to compete to get the better odds. So what end up, is a mechanism that punishes poor teams and doesn't achieve anything.


If the nba wanted to really disincentives tanking then the logical way of going about it would be to set draft position by how early teams were eliminated  from playoff contention, with or without a lottery system. Then once teams get eliminated from the play-off race they have no incentive to lose games as their draft position or lotto odds are already set.

 

[Redz]

tanking is tanking no matter when it happens

your idea could also have some flaws based on how much more competitive one conference is over the other on a given year.

I like the idea of coming up with something though

[mr. dee]

Rockets was accused for tanking in the draft back in 1984 hence, the lottery. But I like your idea. The first teams who got eliminated should get the top 5 pick.

[Celtics18]

Eliminate the draft altogether.  That would fix the tanking problem.

[rondohondo]

tanking is tanking no matter when it happens

your idea could also have some flaws based on how much more competitive one conference is over the other on a given year.

I like the idea of coming up with something though

they should take all the the lottery teams and have a one game playoff for drafting position, but it would have to be in 5 pick tiers

like the teams that finished 11-15 would have to play each other to try and win the 11th pick at best (team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

teams 6-10 play for the 6th best pick (team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

teams 1-5 play for the top pick(team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

It would be a really exciting way to end the season with 1 game playoffs and give the real playoff teams a week off before the big boys play .

What do you guys think?

[mr. dee]

tanking is tanking no matter when it happens

your idea could also have some flaws based on how much more competitive one conference is over the other on a given year.

I like the idea of coming up with something though

they should take all the the lottery teams and have a one game playoff for drafting position, but it would have to be in 5 pick tiers

like the teams that finished 11-15 would have to play each other to try and win the 11th pick at best (team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

teams 6-10 play for the 6th best pick (team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

teams 1-5 play for the top pick(team with the worst overall record gets a 1 game bye)

It would be a really exciting way to end the season with 1 game playoffs and give the real playoff teams a week off before the big boys play .

What do you guys think?

It's no different than a regular season games and it doesn't fix the tanking issue. If the league could only penalize those who tanks......

[pearljammer10]

I dont think having picks 1, 2, AND 3 would help the Bobcats regardless of the lotto system.

[Smutzy#9]

There is no way of really getting rid of tanking. Its appalling that it happens, but it isnt apart of just NBA. AFL has the same issues, and im sure it happens in other sports.

AFL has a system just where the worst team gets the first draft pick in an aim to get consistently bad teams better within a few years. But tanking still occurs.

sadly i think it has just become part of the game

[kgiessler]

You could have a reverse ranking with a modifier.

For instance, team with the worst ranking gets a "1", second worst ranking gets a "2", etc.

But, for every .100 worse your record is in the final 10 games (or 15, whatever) than the record for the 82 total games, then your get added to your number a +2.

Example:  you were a .400 team for 72 games of the year.  In the last ten games you were a .100 team, for a year record of .363  That places as you as 8th worst in the league so your number is '8'.

But thats a .263 difference for those last 10 games, thus you receive a +5.26 penalty and now your number is 13.26.   

Now the actual draft picks happen in order of lowest number to highest. 

If you were to tank at the end, you will be penalized.  But the system is still very much based on the worst records, and those teams that have the worst records will certainly be picking the earliest.

I can probably come up with a bunch of other mathematical models to highlight a disparity towards the end of the season aka 'tanking'.  All you need is a system that penalizes for it and it becomes counter productive and it will stop.

[guava_wrench]

There is only 1 solution: stopped worrying about it.

No system will be perfect. And why do we care about tanking? Baseball teams trade everyone with 2 months left in the season.

[hwangjini_1]

While flawed to be sure, at least the current system does keep the worst 3 teams in the top 5 picks. Supposedly, over a few years the truly putrid teams can shake off their miserable players and replace them with stars.....

Though honestly, I have doubts about even this sometimes.

[Greenbean]

There is only 1 solution: stopped worrying about it.

No system will be perfect. And why do we care about tanking? Baseball teams trade everyone with 2 months left in the season.

Baseball is a bad comparison. Bigger rosters and they can stash prospects in the minors.

It is much more important for NBA teams to get top 10 talent to contend.

The whole point of this thread isn't to bash tanking it's that the lottery is supposed to thwart tanking, which it doesn't and in the process it punishes teams with bad records by making it possible to miss out on good pick positions.

I completely agree with the OP's gripe with the system.

I mean look what happened to the Celtics the last two times they were projected to get top 2 picks...

There is entirely too much luck involved with just picking players and then you throw a stupid lottery into the equation.

It really is a roll of the dice which is why I would never be a proponent for my team tanking....ever. Too risky.

[LooseCannon]

The sports blogosphere has been filled recently with a lot of posts suggesting that tanking is actually a stupid strategy that teams should generally avoid.

If you really wanted to discourage tanking, the best way is to expand the playoffs to 24 teams (top four teams in each conference get first-round byes) so that almost every team has playoff hopes until the end.

[SHAQATTACK]

I don't win.

[fairweatherfan]

I think I'm the only person who has this position, but I still think eliminating the ping-pong balls and going with a straight "one team, one chance" lottery is the best way to minimize tanking.  Every team that misses the playoffs has an equal chance, and all 14 picks are drawn randomly.

The only incentive to tank in this system is to miss the playoffs, and the playoffs are lucrative enough that most teams would not be willing to miss them for a shot at the top players.  Once you're out of the playoffs it doesn't matter where you finish, so there's no point in not trying to win.  And the draw becomes much more exciting, and can be done live.