Was just briefly reading about the changes being talked about to the draft lottery, perhaps beginning as early as next season. It would move away from rank weighting by record and move to a system where your bottom 5-6 teams based on record would have the same odds at #1 pick (not sure what happens with teams from 6-13). Personally, I agree with this strategy for several reasons including tanking and the fact that the bottom 5 teams are all typically equally bad. I would also say that the same team shouldn't be allowed to get the #1 pick consecutive seasons.
Now, onto my second part, which is the success of the eastern conference (or lack thereof). Given the fact that the Eastern conference has had the lower winning % vs West in 15 of past 20 seasons, it would stand to reason that they are getting the better draft slots, and thus the chance at premier players during the drafting process. If that's the case, then why isn't this translating into wins for these teams? During that time, it seemingly has been many of the same teams drafting in these spots, yet they never really get any better. Just thought it a curious topic. I wonder if it has to do with free agency (perhaps ownership, etc). Meaning, outside of the Spurs and Thunder, the premier teams over the past 10-15 seasons have been built upon premier free agent acquisitions and not necessarily from the draft. Again, just thought it interesting.
Change in lottery and Eastern conference success.
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Hicks123 [enjin:6700838]
- Posts: 931
- Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:00 am
Re: Change in lottery and Eastern conference success.
I'm definitely on board with that. Only the 5-6 worst teams should be in the lotto for the top 5-6 picks. Teams almost making the playoffs have no business with one of the top picks. Whether these top 5-6 picks have equal odds or not doesn't matter to me as much as keeping the other teams out of it. The rest of them can go off record IMO or a couple more lotto brackets.
Maybe brackets of:
1-5
6-10
With 11-30 being based on record.
Maybe brackets of:
1-5
6-10
With 11-30 being based on record.
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SameOldNudityDrew
- Posts: 3079
- Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2013 12:00 am
Re: Change in lottery and Eastern conference success.
I think it's fine if teams that almost but don't make the playoff still have a long shot at winning a top pick. The problem isn't teams losing games to get out of the playoffs to get a .5 percent chance at a top pick. The problem is those bottom few teams that are not only intentionally not trying in games, and especially those whose front offices are intentionally making their teams bad for a few years at a time by gutting their roster to go for top picks (like Philly most egregiously).
Here's my proposed response off the top of my head:
I think for the sake of parity, you still have to give those bottom teams a higher percentage chance at a top pick, but you've also got to discourage repeat offenders. So I'm in favor of having tiers of 3, the bottom 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15 all having the same percentage chance, so groups of 3 teams would have even percentage chances at the top picks.
BUT I'm also in favor of a punishment for teams that repeatedly end up at the bottom. For example, if your team is in the bottom 3 for the second straight year, you don't get bottom 3 odds, you get, say, bottom 6 odds, and the rest of the odds are distributed to all other tiers by percentage or something. And if your team is in the bottom 6 for 3 straight years, you get knocked all the way down to bottom 12 odds or something. That way, it takes away the incentive to be bad for more than 1 or 2 years and hopefully discourages this tanking which is really pathetic.
That's not the cleanest system just off the top of my head, but they've got to do something to stop teams from being bad to get high odds at a high draft pick, especially for consecutive years. And to me the best way to do that is to knock away that higher percentage for repeat offenders to the point where a team that ends up being really bad 3 or 4 years, actually has the same odds as the 15 team, so it would actually punish bad teams as well.
Bad teams need a boost, teams that make themselves intentionally bad for multiple years need a punishment.
Here's my proposed response off the top of my head:
I think for the sake of parity, you still have to give those bottom teams a higher percentage chance at a top pick, but you've also got to discourage repeat offenders. So I'm in favor of having tiers of 3, the bottom 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15 all having the same percentage chance, so groups of 3 teams would have even percentage chances at the top picks.
BUT I'm also in favor of a punishment for teams that repeatedly end up at the bottom. For example, if your team is in the bottom 3 for the second straight year, you don't get bottom 3 odds, you get, say, bottom 6 odds, and the rest of the odds are distributed to all other tiers by percentage or something. And if your team is in the bottom 6 for 3 straight years, you get knocked all the way down to bottom 12 odds or something. That way, it takes away the incentive to be bad for more than 1 or 2 years and hopefully discourages this tanking which is really pathetic.
That's not the cleanest system just off the top of my head, but they've got to do something to stop teams from being bad to get high odds at a high draft pick, especially for consecutive years. And to me the best way to do that is to knock away that higher percentage for repeat offenders to the point where a team that ends up being really bad 3 or 4 years, actually has the same odds as the 15 team, so it would actually punish bad teams as well.
Bad teams need a boost, teams that make themselves intentionally bad for multiple years need a punishment.
Re: Change in lottery and Eastern conference success.
Drew, It's a problem when a team that barely missing the playoffs gets a top 1-3 pick. That should never happen, period. Those teams almost made the playoffs for a reason. The top pick should be for the very worst teams and them only.
Yes deliberate tanking sucks and I agree repeat offenders should have a reduced chance at the top picks, but I'd rather that than keep seeing good teams getting extremely lucky & winning a top pick. I'm all for punishing teams for being bad more than 1-2 years like your suggestion above.
A reduced chance for tankers could be something like, each year you are in the bottom 5 your chance is reduced by 4%. (bottom 5 teams each starting with a 20% chance at the top picks, then becomes, 21, 21, 21, 21, 16) The following year 22, 22, 22, 22, 12). Just a simplistic rounded example.
Yes deliberate tanking sucks and I agree repeat offenders should have a reduced chance at the top picks, but I'd rather that than keep seeing good teams getting extremely lucky & winning a top pick. I'm all for punishing teams for being bad more than 1-2 years like your suggestion above.
A reduced chance for tankers could be something like, each year you are in the bottom 5 your chance is reduced by 4%. (bottom 5 teams each starting with a 20% chance at the top picks, then becomes, 21, 21, 21, 21, 16) The following year 22, 22, 22, 22, 12). Just a simplistic rounded example.