Butterfly effect

[cowhide]

Yeah we could have traded him for Worthy. SRS Magic was not as great as many say. People that put him in their top 5 all time are nuts, imo. He was the 3rd best player on his team.

lmao- that is funny.

 

[carolinajazz]

Imagine if San Antonio hadn't tanked in order to draft Tim Duncan or if the Jazz had drafted Tony Parker instead of Raul Lopez. It's easy to play the what if game.

.....what if the NBA hierarchy would have told the refs to enforce the "palming" and "traveling" calls back in the 70's, thus forcing teams to actually pass the ball more, creating a watchable sport where there would be more assists than turnovers each game and then banned any visible tattoo's so that we wouldn't have to see all the "eyesores" that dot the screen when you turn on to watch an NBA game?

 

[Borat]

Butterfly effect has more to do with randomness. In this example (which is pretty interesting but certainly not uniquely improbable), out of ~200,000 field goal attempts in a season two shots create a completely different NBA (could have been one shot and a coin flip for tiebreaker). Could have been a drop of perspiration in the eye that affected a shot, a 1 mm mechanical error, tape loosened on a finger on the shooting hand, etc.

Indeed, imagine if Michael Jordan's dad got a drop of perspiration in the eye and pulled out... Now that's a butterfly effect I am sure we all dreamed of over and over again.

 

[♪alt13]

Thus would have no affect on tanking or even make it worse

You think teams are tanking for second round picks? Seriously?

No, but I think it would help alleviate the hopelessness of finishing 10th-14th. To a small degree yes, but like I said it is just one small incentive.

Your system actually increases the difference in probability between picks, increasing the incentive to tank.

Disagree fine. But bold is just 100% false

Currently the worst team has a 25% chance and the 8th has a 2.8% chance. This way The worst would have a 16% chance and the *8th would have a 7% chance.

To illustrate how it would help I will use Philli as an example. Half way through the season they had a fire sale. They managed to chase down a 19.9% lotto chance and guaranteed top 5 pick. Under my proposal they would have secured only a 12% chance and a guaranteed top 9.

Let's say they behaved differently ,managed to improve their team before the deadline, and finished with 26 wins behind Bucks,Magic,Celtics and Jazz. Currently they would have forfeited a 19.9% for an 8.8% . Under my proposal they would have dropped from 12% to 7%.

And by splitting by conference you just create a race to the bottom by conference instead of by league. How does this help?

This is a fair concern but...

Each year there are 10-11 teams that have a legit shot at the playoffs, these teams don't tank, that leaves 4-5 tank candidates in each conference. My way gives the bottom four teams in each conf. a fair chance of getting a high lotto(1-4) or a mid one (5-10). Their chances: 16,16,12,12,10,10,7,7 for seven spots.