The draft and tanking

[Phenom]

I've listened to a few pods discussing these topics and I have been thinking about the idea about eliminating the draft altogether and making players free agents. I have always loved the draft and would hate to see it go but I was thinking there might be a middle ground.

What if the draft was in 7 year cycles in which each team gets 7 first round salary exceptions and 7 second round exceptions? Based on this year's salary slots each team would be given the following salary exceptions:

11.5M, 8.3M, 5.7M, 4.5M, 3.7M, 3M, 2.6M as first round salary slots based on the salaries for the 1st, 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th, and 24th picks this year. They could go up or down based on the salary cap but the important part is each team has the same amount. Then they get 7, 2.3M second round slots or some other number.

Teams could use these slots during any draft year in the 7 year cycle to negotiate with draftees. They could offer up their 11.5 slot to someone like AJ Dybantsa and he could choose the team he prefers. So if he chose the Jazz, for instance, they would not have the 11.5M slot to use until the next 7 year cycle. In a year where Zaccarie Risascher is the best player, maybe teams will save their high dollar slot for another year with higher end talent. This year, for example might have 3-5 guys that teams would be willing to pay their best slot for. Salary slots could not be combined. If you know the next Wemby is coming in 4 years, maybe you hold onto that top slot for that.

These slots could be traded like current draft picks are but you could not trade into the next 7 year cycle until the 6th draft in the current cycle had passed.

One key feature is that all 14 original slots you get, per cycle, are salary cap exempt for the life of that rookie deal. So when the Jazz get Dybantsa, he won't count against their cap until his rookie contract is done. For a team that's far into the apron or needing to avoid it they could use an extra draft slot or 2 that year to help mitigate that.

Any slot that you trade for will not be salary cap exempt, however.

What about all currently traded picks, you ask? I imagine a system in which all of those picks will be awarded a salary slot nearest to where that team would pick that year, until they have all been extinguished. So lets say the Wolves finish with the 10th best record in 2030, the pick owed to San Antonio would become a 3M (20th pick) slot for them to use in the remaining years of that cycle. All traded second round picks would be the 2.3M slot.

I would also move draft night to mid to late July, to let most free agents sign and give rookies a better idea of which situation they want to go to.

I'm not sure how draft night would work but maybe it would resemble national signing day where players have a table of hats and announce their choice.

[Mnwild1128]

I prefer Kevin Peltons new wheel idea.

[Phenom]

I prefer Kevin Peltons new wheel idea.

The wheel idea is interesting but I prefer the chance to get players we really want each year and not leave it to chance that we get the top pick in a Risacher type draft.

[FNG]

Great topic, phenom...I was thinking about starting this thread. Clearly something has to be done...Utah resting all their best players in 4th quarters is absurd. Your idea is one of the more creative ones, but I'm sure some smart guys here will punch some holes in it. I like the fines that were doled out this week, but for a guy like Ballmer, getting a $100K fine is like us getting a parking ticket. Someone on NBA Radio yesterday suggested a reverse lottery kind of system. If I understood it, the number 8 team would get the most ping pong balls and the team with the worst record would get the fewest. Perhaps not as good for parity, but there would not be as much incentive to get the worst record.

I'm curious to hear what Adam Silver has to say today at 3 central.

[rapsuperstar31]

In the MLB you are only allowed to receive a top 6 pick two years in a row, If you finish dead last but already drafted in the top 6 the previous two years, you can pick no higher than 10th this year. They also have rules around luxury tax paying teams, so if the Yankees have a top 6th pick one year, they are not allowed to have one the next season.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

This is one of my favorite perennial topics.

First, I do think the league made positive steps with the play-in games and the flattened odds.

I do like the ideas of:
1) flattening the odds just a touch more
2) allowing teams to get jumped by more teams in the lottery (you shouldn't be guaranteed a top 4 pick if you have the worst record)
3) limiting consecutive top 5 picks

I think those steps above would be easy and probably be enough.

But I've been advocating another fix. I've proposed this here before, usually most summers, but the tanking is so bad right now I feel like it's worth putting it out there again.

Here it is:

Let's call it a blind loser's window and a blind winner's window. In this system, a somewhat large number of games (say, 25-40 games) from the first 75% of games in the season is randomly selected by computer before the season to be the window when losses increase your lottery odds. Both the number of games (25-40 seems like a fair range) and the specific games themselves would be randomly selected. No one would know which games would be selected, but it would be the same number of games for each team. This would be kept secret by the computer and only revealed after the last game of the season. Then, the computer would also select a smaller random selection of games in the second half of the season (say, 10-15 games), when wins actually help your lottery odds. Again, no one would know which games were which. But overall, this would still give the worse teams a lottery bump for parity because there are more games in the loser's window, while--because you wouldn't know which games were actually in the loser's window--it should disincentivize blatant tanking somewhat. At the same time, knowing that there are some winner's window games in the second half of the season (but again, not knowing which games they are), should incentivize more effort and competitive games down the stretch because there would be a chance that winning could help your lottery odds.

[WildWolf2813]

to believe that tanking is a real problem is to believe that NBA teams can't just suck; they can only be bad because they don't try hard.

I've watched enough awful Wolves basketball to know you can legitimately suck. While this team has made some awful picks, we also got burned a lot on lotto night and our fortunes didn't change til we finally won a couple of those drafts. We'd still be in the wilderness had one lotto ball gone the other way and we're stuck with James Wiseman or Patrick Williams.


I'm not a big proponent in radical changes to affect tanking as long as the league is being dishonest with themselves. Utah blew up a 50 win team every year because it had a glass ceiling. We tried to gut everything we had to get Giannis because we think this team has plateaued. OKC had CP3 and made the playoffs and blew it up because they wanted to win a title, not just be a fun competitive team. Does sitting through a rebuild suck? Yes. But OKC is now the envy of the league and has a ring to show for it. The Spurs had 3 top 5 picks in a row and now they're the long term biggest threat to OKC. Fact is, you gotta go through it to get to it and we've determined that treading water doesn't lead to ultimately winning it all one day.

If anything I wish this team benefited off these teams tanking. It feels like we've lost more games to teams clearly disinterested in winning more than anyone.

[kekgeek]

The NBA considering getting rid of the draft if they can’t control taking.

This would be the death of the NBA if that happened

[Phenom]

The NBA considering getting rid of the draft if they can’t control taking.

This would be the death of the NBA if that happened

I think something like my idea would be better than straight free agency

[60WinTim]

Or the draft lottery could be set by record at the All-Star break...