Draft Lottery idea?

[Spfelx [enjin:13218936]]

As most of us know, the NBA has a problem with tanking (or the perception of tanking). The original idea behind the lottery was to prevent this. Sadly, teams will tank just to increase their chances in the lottery.

Suggestions like a rotating draft wheel might prevent tanking but it doesn't really address the real problem. In a perfect world, the worst team would get the highest pick to help make them better. The problem they have is the system they use to determine which team is the worst team is flawed.
Instead of using just the win percentage of each team, why don't they use a system that only counts the games that matter when calculating that win percentage.

Say you pick a number like 5 games (for discussion). Once a team is more than 5 games out of the last playoff spot at the start of their game day, the result of their game does not help or hurt their lottery win percentage. If the team creeps back under 5 games, they start to count again.
This way, a team is not helped by a loss or punished by a win when they are not in a playoff race. Teams could choose if they want to still try to win or perhaps develop younger players without the result impacting the upcoming draft.

It also has the benefit of potentially being fairer to the teams that are still fighting for playoff positions in that they wont necessarily face teams in tank mode depending on when they play them in the season.

Sorry for the long post.

[WildWolf2813]

tanking is not an issue. Tanking implies that teams aren't THAT bad if they just put forth effort. That's simply not true.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

This seems like a creative approach to me. Yes, all the bottom feeders appear to be playing hard, but the coach's decisions about not playing stars (Anthony, KG, Rubio, etc.) is compelling evidence of serious tanking...not fair to the fans. I'm in favor of an approach like the one Spfelx has suggested.

[mrhockey89]

Spfelx, I like the point your suggestion is making, however I think that too is flawed for the following reasons.

1) It would put an emphasis on whether you have injuries to start the year or at the end of the year. Teams that start out the year with injured stars could be out of the playoff picture in a hurry. They could end up the season hot because they got the right players back or built chemistry.

2) It puts a lot of emphasis on early season schedule. If your team plays a healthy OKC/GS/Rockets/Spurs/etc early in the season vs another team of equal ability having SAC/ORL/PHI/NYK/LAL on their schedules early, one team could get the 'benefit' of a tough early schedule.

My personal thoughts on the best way to fix the system is to run it more similarly to how the NHL runs theirs. I still like the idea of the lottery (it creates interest/excitement), but only let teams jump up a certain number of picks if they were to win the lottery. A team like the Wolves/76ers/Knicks won't ever get out of the top 5 even with this.

[TheGrey08]

That's been my preference too Hockey. I think it's ridiculous that a team that just misses the playoffs has even a TINY chance at #1.

My thinking has always been that each team should only move up or down 3 spots or worst case there should be brackets within the lotto. Like having seeds 1-5 as a lottery and 6-10 as a lottery.

IE: Just quick rough numbers for #1 odds.
1 = 30%
2 = 25%
3 = 20%
4 = 15%
5= 10%

[mrhockey89]

That's been my preference too Hockey. I think it's ridiculous that a team that just misses the playoffs has even a TINY chance at #1.

My thinking has always been that each team should only move up or down 3 spots or worst case there should be brackets within the lotto. Like having seeds 1-5 as a lottery and 6-10 as a lottery.

IE: Just quick rough numbers for #1 odds.
1 = 30%
2 = 25%
3 = 20%
4 = 15%
5= 10%

Funny you should say suggest this...because I almost suggested this exact scenario myself. (but since we're the same person, I suppose that's obvious?)

[TheGrey08]

Funny you should say suggest this...because I almost suggested this exact scenario myself. (but since we're the same person, I suppose that's obvious?)

Yes exactly lol

[Spfelx [enjin:13218936]]

Hockey, yes I agree that this system would put more emphasis on the games at the beginning of the season but isn't that what you would want? That's when the teams are still trying to win. Yes it's true, a team could have injuries to start a season and get their starters back later and be a better team, but if they play well enough to get back in the playoff race, the games would count again.

[TheGrey08]

Most teams really are just that bad so you don't want to punish them. The biggest thing they need to do IMO is to stop giving teams all 14 non playoff teams a shot at any of the top picks. It doesn't make any sense to do so.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I think you break it into 5's and do a random lottery for each section of 5 (4 teams for 11-14). That way the only real tanking would be from 4 teams at 5-6 and 10-11 and the bottom 2-3 teams wouldn't need to be tanking at all because they usually aren't that close to 5 in wins anyway. You don't deserve the top pick if you aren't one of the 5 worst teams in the league. It also makes the draft protection process a lot easier to work with because there would pretty much only be 4 tiers of protected picks (top 5, 10, lottery, first round).