idea to get rid of tanking

[D.o.s.]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 



How about penalties for bad, clearly tanking trades?

Take the 76ers.  The Holiday trade was a rebuilding trade where they got value.  No penalty.

The Turner trade and the Hawes trades were pure dumping talented players for nothing.  Penalty for each.  Let's say dropping two slots in the draft per offense.  So, if they finished with the worst record, they get the lotto chance of the 5th worst teams.  Teams 2 through 5 move up. 

Don't spend up to the salary floor, drop 2 slots.

I like the one about the salary floor, but I don't think you can really assign a penalty for Hawes and Turner.

Why not?  They traded two starters for 2nd round picks.  What long term benefit is there to the team except losing more this year?

The Sixers would say that they picked up assets for two players who weren't going to be on the team next year, and they opened up playing time for guys who might be part of the long-term picture.

It's nonsense, but it's justifiable.  It's one reason why I wouldn't want to involve the Commissioner's office in determining draft order based upon the quality of in-season moves.

Right. Like Lowe points out in that article I posted above, it's the same logic that the Blazers used in trading Wallace for the Nets pick -- the one that turned into Damian Lillard. They took players that weren't part of their plans moving forward and turned them into assets. There's nothing objectively wrong with that.

[fairweatherfan]

The problem with that, of course, is that there will always be a "worst team." And teams will always go through cycles of being better and worse. So you'd be penalizing teams for what is an inevitable situation, which would make it harder for them to get out of the cellars, which would hurt them more and more as they were continually penalized.

But, yeah, aside from the fact that it's terribly shortsighted, it's a great idea.

Yeah I've noticed a lot of the especially harsh "anti-tanking" proposals seem to be based on the notion that teams at the bottom of the standings are always there because of some kind of moral failing, instead of just the inevitable outcome of a zero-sum game.

I can't even imagine how ugly a small-market, low money situation like Milwaukee could get if they got even less revenue, any player who signed there was likely to have to take a major pay cut, and any coach who took the job was likely to get suspended from the league for his trouble.  They'd probably have to fold the team.  Of course the league would be too busy fending off lawsuits to notice much.  But hey, tough on tanking 

[wdleehi]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 



How about penalties for bad, clearly tanking trades?

Take the 76ers.  The Holiday trade was a rebuilding trade where they got value.  No penalty.

The Turner trade and the Hawes trades were pure dumping talented players for nothing.  Penalty for each.  Let's say dropping two slots in the draft per offense.  So, if they finished with the worst record, they get the lotto chance of the 5th worst teams.  Teams 2 through 5 move up. 

Don't spend up to the salary floor, drop 2 slots.

I like the one about the salary floor, but I don't think you can really assign a penalty for Hawes and Turner.

Why not?  They traded two starters for 2nd round picks.  What long term benefit is there to the team except losing more this year?

The Sixers would say that they picked up assets for two players who weren't going to be on the team next year, and they opened up playing time for guys who might be part of the long-term picture.

It's nonsense, but it's justifiable.  It's one reason why I wouldn't want to involve the Commissioner's office in determining draft order based upon the quality of in-season moves.

Right. Like Lowe points out in that article I posted above, it's the same logic that the Blazers used in trading Wallace for the Nets pick -- the one that turned into Damian Lillard. They took players that weren't part of their plans moving forward and turned them into assets. There's nothing objectively wrong with that.

Except the Blazers got 1st rounders. 


76ers got 2nd rounders for starters. 


I don't see how they compare. 


(heck for Turner and Allen, they got a guy they bought out and nothing more)

[Fan from VT]

So most of these discussions around draft lottery involve concepts of incentives and parity. I dont think you can fix these things by only adjusting one part of the system. In this case, the nba is fairly star dependent; they really HAVE to get rid individual max contracts to help this situation. Getting rid of individual maxes would prevent super teams (lebron and durant are worth 40-50 million per year on the popem market taking up most of the cap),  and give small market teams a fair chance against glamor spots bu offering more if they want to.

[D.o.s.]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 



How about penalties for bad, clearly tanking trades?

Take the 76ers.  The Holiday trade was a rebuilding trade where they got value.  No penalty.

The Turner trade and the Hawes trades were pure dumping talented players for nothing.  Penalty for each.  Let's say dropping two slots in the draft per offense.  So, if they finished with the worst record, they get the lotto chance of the 5th worst teams.  Teams 2 through 5 move up. 

Don't spend up to the salary floor, drop 2 slots.

I like the one about the salary floor, but I don't think you can really assign a penalty for Hawes and Turner.

Why not?  They traded two starters for 2nd round picks.  What long term benefit is there to the team except losing more this year?

The Sixers would say that they picked up assets for two players who weren't going to be on the team next year, and they opened up playing time for guys who might be part of the long-term picture.

It's nonsense, but it's justifiable.  It's one reason why I wouldn't want to involve the Commissioner's office in determining draft order based upon the quality of in-season moves.

Right. Like Lowe points out in that article I posted above, it's the same logic that the Blazers used in trading Wallace for the Nets pick -- the one that turned into Damian Lillard. They took players that weren't part of their plans moving forward and turned them into assets. There's nothing objectively wrong with that.

Except the Blazers got 1st rounders. 


76ers got 2nd rounders for starters. 


I don't see how they compare. 


(heck for Turner and Allen, they got a guy they bought out and nothing more)

A) Starters is a loose term to use for Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner.

B) Gerald Wallace in 2012 was worth a first-rounder to the Nets management. That's a very different thing than saying that Gerald Wallace was worth a first rounder.

[AidaCelt]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 



How about penalties for bad, clearly tanking trades?

Take the 76ers.  The Holiday trade was a rebuilding trade where they got value.  No penalty.

The Turner trade and the Hawes trades were pure dumping talented players for nothing.  Penalty for each.  Let's say dropping two slots in the draft per offense.  So, if they finished with the worst record, they get the lotto chance of the 5th worst teams.  Teams 2 through 5 move up. 

Don't spend up to the salary floor, drop 2 slots.

So who determines the penalties? The NBA front office? By putting somebody in charge of a decision that is based on opinion, you're opening a whole new can of worms. At least the draft has a framework around it that every team knows about.

My point is; who determines what Hawes and Turner were worth to the Sixers? Talent wise they may be worth more than other players, but as somebody else pointed out, they can always justify their decision by saying it was to open up minutes for a player in their long-term plans or they got a 2nd rounder for each when they would've walked at the end of the season.

The other thing with this is, you can only trade away and receive something back that another team is offering. The fact another team offered a 1st roudner for a lesser player shouldn't factor into it. 

[wdleehi]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 



How about penalties for bad, clearly tanking trades?

Take the 76ers.  The Holiday trade was a rebuilding trade where they got value.  No penalty.

The Turner trade and the Hawes trades were pure dumping talented players for nothing.  Penalty for each.  Let's say dropping two slots in the draft per offense.  So, if they finished with the worst record, they get the lotto chance of the 5th worst teams.  Teams 2 through 5 move up. 

Don't spend up to the salary floor, drop 2 slots.

So who determines the penalties? The NBA front office? By putting somebody in charge of a decision that is based on opinion, you're opening a whole new can of worms. At least the draft has a framework around it that every team knows about.

My point is; who determines what Hawes and Turner were worth to the Sixers? Talent wise they may be worth more than other players, but as somebody else pointed out, they can always justify their decision by saying it was to open up minutes for a player in their long-term plans or they got a 2nd rounder for each when they would've walked at the end of the season.

The other thing with this is, you can only trade away and receive something back that another team is offering. The fact another team offered a 1st roudner for a lesser player shouldn't factor into it.

They didn't get a second rounder for Turner.

[Roy H.]

^ Didn't the 76ers pick up a 2015 #2 in the Turner deal?

[Moranis]

Turner and Allen

for

Granger and 2nd round pick

They then cut Granger.

This was a pure tank trade.  Even if they had no intention of re-signing Turner, he was a restricted free agent who they held the rights to.  The ability to match alone often yields a 2nd round pick (or more) in sign and trade.

[PhoSita]

To me it makes no sense to penalize teams for making "tanking" trades unless you remove the substantial incentive to tank that motivates that behavior in the first place.

The trades that the Sixers made at the deadline were in the team's best interest.  Those guys didn't have a future in Philly, and their presence only made the team slightly better in the short term, which actually hurts Philly's chances of getting a better draft pick.  Why would you penalize a team for making trades that serve its interests?

[freshinthehouse]

To many of these ideas hurt the truly bad teams. 

Exactly.  Some posters here seem to have a notion that a lot of the lottery-bound teams would be solid clubs if it weren't for tanking.  That is not the case.  Even if Philly kept the talent they jettisoned at the deadline, they'd still be awful.  The only way these teams can better is through the draft.  Besides a few exceptions, salary cap space does these teams little good.  The Milwaukees of the world end up having to overpay for mediocre talent, because that is the only way they will get vets to come to Milwaukee.  These teams need a shot at the top draft pick for any chance at relevancy.   Think back to the C's situation in 2007.  We ended up with the 5th pick, which is the worst we could do, but it's still not a bad pick, and we were able to flip it for Ray Allen, which started the moves that lead to our resurgence.  Under some of these proposals we could've ended up with picks far worse than the 5th overall.  Were would this team have been if that happened? 

[Fan from VT]

So here's a more extended post about some draft fixes.

I should say, first, that I'm not actually totally convinced there is a problem. As long as the NBA consists of 48 minute games of 5 on 5, it will be a game that is dependent on stars. Since stars are finite, there will be good and bad teams. Good teams with stars, and bad teams trying to get them, however they can. You could make depth matter more by increasing the game length or the number of players on the floor, but I don't see that happening.

As I mentioned above, first step is removing the individual max contracts. Having the team cap helps parity, but the individual max is completely antithetical to parity because it facilitates superteams (three stars barely have to take a pay cut to play together, unlike if there was a team cap but no individual max; who would take 5 million a year to play with Lebron making 50 a year and taking up most of the cap? Not Wade and Bosh!). This also gives small market teams (who, in a cap system, have similar amounts of money to throw around) a chance to get a big star, by basically committing a more aggressive amount of their cap to a star and hoping the smarts of their GM can fill in the pieces.

As an aside, I would also have the league be responsible for all state and federal income taxes so there is no regional tax differences causing income disparities.


Then for the draft, I have 2 possible proposals.

Proposal 1:
-Entire draft order is determined by equal random chance (each team has 1 ping pong ball; draw in order of 1st to 30th pick then again for 2nd round).
-Winning the lottery means you cannot get a top 3 pick the next year, a top 2 the following year, and the top pick in the 3rd year following the lotto win.
-Winning an NBA title causes a similar restriction to draft picks (either 3-2-1, 4-3-2-1, 5-4-3-2-1 or maybe top 5-3-1, or even 10-5-1. So much wiggle room!)
-NBA runner-up and the team that earns the #2 pick are barred from the top 3 picks the year after and the #1 pick the next year. The 3rd and 4th place teams and the team that had won the 3rd pick cannot win the #1 pick in that years draft.
-Obviously there could be no "swapping" future first rounders in the same year (i.e. swapping picks in 2016) until after the draft order has been determined, since the order is totally random. You could, of course, trade the RIGHT to swap picks. You can trade future firsts as under the current rules. If you're not a championship or top-4 team and you've acquired the future first round pick of a team that has won the championship (or lotto), that pick is NOT subject to restrictions since it's YOUR pick now, so it's your logo on the ping pong ball. You just get an extra ball, subject to YOUR team's restrictions. However, if you are a championship team and you get a first round pick from some bad team you ARE barred from EITHER of your picks winning the lotto.  At least until the draft order is set; on draft day the commodities are known, and you can trade whatever.
- There may be some details added. For example, perhaps if you win the lotto and trade that player away (or maybe if you trade that pick/player away on draft night) you can regain eligibility to win the lotto. This way, if you don't like a draft and don't want to lose future eligibility, you could "sell off" a pick to a team that wants it or has lost top pick eligibility once the order is set.

Real world example:
Let's say winning the lotto means you can't get a top 3 then 2 then 1 pick. Let's say winning the title means you can't get a top 5 then 3 then 1 pick. Pretend this was implemented after the 2012 title. Miami beat OKC, and Boston/SanAn were bounced in the conference finals. 2011 draft top three was CLE-MIN-UTA.
2012 draft: Cleveland cannot get a top 3 pick. Minny cannot get a top 2 pick. Utah can't get the top pick. Miami can't get a top 5 pick. OKC can't get a top 3 pick. SanAn and Boston can't get the top pick. So you draw the top pick with those 6 teams out, and add their ping pong balls back in when eligible.
2013 draft: 2012 draft was NO-Char-Was (which would have been possible in the new system). Miami won over SanAn with IND and MEM losing out.So:
NO can't get a top 3 pick. Char and Cleveland cannot get a top 2 pick. Minny and Was can't get the #1 pick. Miami still can't get a number 5 pick. San Antonio can't get a top 3 pick. OKC, IND, and MEM can't get a top pick.
2014: etc.

Anyway, that's the basic structure; you could tweak it infinitely with what gets you restricted and how broad the restrictions are.



Second idea:

-The draft occurs in 5 year cycles.
-Every team gets 1000 ping pong balls for each round of the draft every 5 years (1000 first round balls, 1000 2nd round balls).
-Each round is separate, but subject to same rules.
-Every lottery is open to 30 teams
-Every team blindly enters however many balls they want into each lottery (with restrictions; see below).
-You must enter at least 1 ball per season of a 5 year cycle.
-You must save enough balls to have a minimum of 50 going into a given season, so if you don't have extras (see below) the max you could enter in year 1 is 796 (to save at least 1 ball for each lotto of the next 4 years and at least 50 for each season).
-If you win the title, you pay 50 balls that year.
-Runner up pays 20.
-3rd and 4th place pays 10
-This is why you have to save at least 50 per year.
-MVP on your roster costs 20 balls.
-Every All-NBA 1st player on your roster and the DPOY costs 15 balls.
-All-NBA 2nd team and all-defensive team costs 10 balls
-All-NBA 3rd team costs 5 balls
-All-stars (not on all-nba or all-defense) cost 1 balls each.
-Maximum ball penalty in a given year is 50, so if you win the title with the DPOY, an all-nba first, and a random all-star, the penalty is just 50.
-That's why you must save 51 balls per season, because you must enter a ball and you might have to pay up to 50 balls for success.
-Trades would be awesome: On draft night, the order is known. For future trades, you have to attach a certain number of balls. So you could trade a 1st rounder and 1 ball to a team with their own first and a stockpile of 300 balls; that team could then put in 200 balls but their balls would stay in until their team was picked twice. If you really wanted a player on another team, you could trade a future first with 200 balls, etc.
-In year 5, teams dump all their leftover balls in, and cycle starts over.

Thoughts?

[freshinthehouse]

Thoughts?

The idea of dropping max contracts is very interesting.  It would certainly make cap room a hot commodity. 

Your draft proposals are too based on luck.   If I am reading this right, there is nothing stopping a bad team from draft in the mid to late 20s for years on end.  That would kill a franchise.

And with many of these draft proposals, teams get penalized for getting the number 1 pick.  1st overall picks are not created equal.  Say you are rebuilding, and you get the 1st overall pick in last years draft.  Last year's   If you are not allowed to pick high in the years after that, your team is going to be awful for a long time if you get the #1 pick in an awful draft.  I would wager the #6 pick in this year's draft has more value than last year's #1.  But the team getting that #6 pick doesn't get penalized.  To me that's unfair and would lead to team's being pretty bad for a long time, even if they do a fairly good job of drafting.

[Fan from VT]

Thoughts?

The idea of dropping max contracts is very interesting.  It would certainly make cap room a hot commodity. 

Your draft proposals are too based on luck.   If I am reading this right, there is nothing stopping a bad team from draft in the mid to late 20s for years on end.  That would kill a franchise.

And with many of these draft proposals, teams get penalized for getting the number 1 pick.  1st overall picks are not created equal.  Say you are rebuilding, and you get the 1st overall pick in last years draft.  Last year's   If you are not allowed to pick high in the years after that, your team is going to be awful for a long time if you get the #1 pick in an awful draft.  I would wager the #6 pick in this year's draft has more value than last year's #1.  But the team getting that #6 pick doesn't get penalized.  To me that's unfair and would lead to team's being pretty bad for a long time, even if they do a fairly good job of drafting.

I think the max  contracts thing is the key far above and beyond any draft fixes.

As I said above, I'm not sure there's even a problem. There will be no perfect draft because no one can agree on a perfect league either. A person's views on a draft will depend on their views of the league.

For example:
-We want "parity" year to year, but it would suck if every team went .500.
-We want smart teams to be able to keep their own players but we don't want to do away with free agency and leave good players stuck on poorly run unwatchable teams.
-We want to do away with tanking but we want bad teams to have hope for the future.
-We don't want to reward the same not-spending, crappy run team every year with high picks, but we don't want to alienate their fans.

As for luck, the current system is pretty luck based as well; just look back and see who has ended up with the number 1 pick, it hasn't been the worst teams necessarily.

There are a lot of details you could tweak.

Proposal 1 positives are that fans have hope year to year of turning their franchise around. There are no incentives to tank. Teams that have had a shot at top picks or had real playoff are penalized in the short term to allow other teams a chance to catch up.

Negatives are that through bad luck, you might get the top pick in a weak draft (same is true now). This would temporarily set you back, but that's an issue now too. There is a tweak in proposal 1 that if you trade that pick away, you are eligible again for a top pick, so there are details to adjust. Other negatives are that really good teams might get a top pick while they are still good. But is that really bad? Chicago is a fun team because they through skill added a #1 pick to a good team. Additionally, if you get rid of max contracts for individuals but keep the cap, this eventually fixes itself because you couldn't permanently stack a team; players would want too much money.



Proposal 2 positives:
It becomes somewhat more strategy based. Do you go for it in year 1 or stockpile? Do you go all-in in a 2014 draft or zig when everyone else is zagging? Trades also become fun; is a player you are targeting worth a pick and 20 ping pong balls or 150 balls? It also has some penalties/parity encouraging things built in either if you have good players already (mild penalties) or major MVP types or major team success (bigger penalties).

Negatives: The league had to institute a rule prohibiting trading consecutive future firsts because owners and teams are generally idiots with no self control. So if your aggressive team goes all-in in year 1 of a 5 year cycle and end up unlucky and are a bad team, your hope disappears for 5 years.

[CFAN38]

So here's a more extended post about some draft fixes.

I should say, first, that I'm not actually totally convinced there is a problem. As long as the NBA consists of 48 minute games of 5 on 5, it will be a game that is dependent on stars. Since stars are finite, there will be good and bad teams. Good teams with stars, and bad teams trying to get them, however they can. You could make depth matter more by increasing the game length or the number of players on the floor, but I don't see that happening.

As I mentioned above, first step is removing the individual max contracts. Having the team cap helps parity, but the individual max is completely antithetical to parity because it facilitates superteams (three stars barely have to take a pay cut to play together, unlike if there was a team cap but no individual max; who would take 5 million a year to play with Lebron making 50 a year and taking up most of the cap? Not Wade and Bosh!). This also gives small market teams (who, in a cap system, have similar amounts of money to throw around) a chance to get a big star, by basically committing a more aggressive amount of their cap to a star and hoping the smarts of their GM can fill in the pieces.

As an aside, I would also have the league be responsible for all state and federal income taxes so there is no regional tax differences causing income disparities.


Then for the draft, I have 2 possible proposals.

Proposal 1:
-Entire draft order is determined by equal random chance (each team has 1 ping pong ball; draw in order of 1st to 30th pick then again for 2nd round).
-Winning the lottery means you cannot get a top 3 pick the next year, a top 2 the following year, and the top pick in the 3rd year following the lotto win.
-Winning an NBA title causes a similar restriction to draft picks (either 3-2-1, 4-3-2-1, 5-4-3-2-1 or maybe top 5-3-1, or even 10-5-1. So much wiggle room!)
-NBA runner-up and the team that earns the #2 pick are barred from the top 3 picks the year after and the #1 pick the next year. The 3rd and 4th place teams and the team that had won the 3rd pick cannot win the #1 pick in that years draft.
-Obviously there could be no "swapping" future first rounders in the same year (i.e. swapping picks in 2016) until after the draft order has been determined, since the order is totally random. You could, of course, trade the RIGHT to swap picks. You can trade future firsts as under the current rules. If you're not a championship or top-4 team and you've acquired the future first round pick of a team that has won the championship (or lotto), that pick is NOT subject to restrictions since it's YOUR pick now, so it's your logo on the ping pong ball. You just get an extra ball, subject to YOUR team's restrictions. However, if you are a championship team and you get a first round pick from some bad team you ARE barred from EITHER of your picks winning the lotto.  At least until the draft order is set; on draft day the commodities are known, and you can trade whatever.
- There may be some details added. For example, perhaps if you win the lotto and trade that player away (or maybe if you trade that pick/player away on draft night) you can regain eligibility to win the lotto. This way, if you don't like a draft and don't want to lose future eligibility, you could "sell off" a pick to a team that wants it or has lost top pick eligibility once the order is set.

Real world example:
Let's say winning the lotto means you can't get a top 3 then 2 then 1 pick. Let's say winning the title means you can't get a top 5 then 3 then 1 pick. Pretend this was implemented after the 2012 title. Miami beat OKC, and Boston/SanAn were bounced in the conference finals. 2011 draft top three was CLE-MIN-UTA.
2012 draft: Cleveland cannot get a top 3 pick. Minny cannot get a top 2 pick. Utah can't get the top pick. Miami can't get a top 5 pick. OKC can't get a top 3 pick. SanAn and Boston can't get the top pick. So you draw the top pick with those 6 teams out, and add their ping pong balls back in when eligible.
2013 draft: 2012 draft was NO-Char-Was (which would have been possible in the new system). Miami won over SanAn with IND and MEM losing out.So:
NO can't get a top 3 pick. Char and Cleveland cannot get a top 2 pick. Minny and Was can't get the #1 pick. Miami still can't get a number 5 pick. San Antonio can't get a top 3 pick. OKC, IND, and MEM can't get a top pick.
2014: etc.

Anyway, that's the basic structure; you could tweak it infinitely with what gets you restricted and how broad the restrictions are.

I like the idea of eliminating the restrictions on max salaries.

However these types of deals could also very easily become franchise killers on many levels. KG could never win in minn because he was making to much money. What happens when a super star has a career changing injury like amare or brandon roy? I think the solution could be as follows...

Super Max contract, (anything over current max)

Contract is a min of 4 yrs and can not be traded (this eliminates players forcing trades)

Can be no more then 60% of salary cap, out of the remaining 40% no one player can make more then 1/2 of the remaining salary (ex with 68mill cap Lebron signs for 40.8 mill, leaving 27.2mill in cap, the highest paid player that can be added is 13.6mill.

If a player is a restricted FA and is signed away from his original team to a super max deal then the team loosing the Star received the other teams next two available first round picks.

If a team wants to get out of a super max deal (say do to injury) then they must use a stretch provision to spread the value of 50% of the remaining deal over 2x the remaining contract years and forfeit their next 1st rd pick. EX Amare signed to super max 4yr for 40.8 then after 2 yrs gets hurt. The team then can buy him out but takes a cap hit of 5mill over the next 4yrs.


I have put much more thought into my draft fix
In terms of the draft I have been a huge fan of the idea that teams shouldn't be able to consistently land top 5 picks. I have posted before how teams that land top 3 picks should not be eligible for top picks in the preceding draft.

My Draft fix would be

You land #1 pick your not eligible for top 5 next year, top 3 following and #1 after that

You land top 3 your not eligible for top 3 the next season

I would give all lottery teams equal chances at the top 3 picks. After that the rest of the lottery is figured by giving each team a ball for every ten losses  and pull these at random.

ex 2012-13 draft

east

76ers     4 balls
Raptors  4 balls
Pistons   5 balls
Wiz         5 balls had 3rd pick in 2012 so not top 3 eligible
Cavs       5 balls had #1 in 2011 so not top 3 eligible
Bobcats  6 balls  had 2nd pick in 2012 so not top 3 eligible
Magic      6 balls

basing the balls in groups of 3 would cut down on team management feeling like they have to lose at the end of the season because unless they are at 49 losses and want to make it to 50 there is less incentive