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It's time for a flat (non-playoff team) draft lottery

They could do a 3-level lottery. First level, every team is included, and it is used to set the stage for the 15 teams included in the 2nd stage. Everyone not selected gets their draft pick in their record order, but outside of the 15. The 2nd stage breaks out the 6 teams competing for the top 6 picks, the remaining 9 get their pick from 7-15 in record order. Then a third level gives you the pick order from 1-6. That way there is a far outside chance of the best team ending up with the #1 pick. And the worst team might end up at 16 at the worst. But the odds are skewed more heavily in favor of the worse teams for each stage of the lottery. This way there is less incentive to tank full-on maybe, depending on how things are weighted.
 
Making it so you can't move up top 4 two years in a row would be a minimally intrusive change that would dissuade or at least spread out the lotto luck a bit. Houston has drafted top 4 for 4 straight years. SA 2 straight years. Making it so that you can't draft top 4 for 2 years after moving up puts a lot of emphasis on getting that pick right so maybe that is too much. Maybe getting the #1 pick means you can't move up for 2 years and moving into the top 4 means you can't move up the following year. I think it would change the long term tank strategy for a few teams.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
I think an auction style system where you can get "credits" that roll over to future years would be one potential solution but its such a giant change that it would never get past like the first meeting. But if you were awarded a certain amount of credits based on where you finished and it wasn't massively different, and then you can bid on players... you could save credits for years with a Wemby and the winning team would have to blow a lot of credits on him... it would open up other value propositions on draft night and some additional trade possibilities throughout the year.

Again it would be so different that they wouldn't know what to do with it. Within the current construct any manipulation you do will simply move the goal post a bit one way or another.

The idea of flattening records across multiple years or simply making it so you can only move into the top 4 one out of every 3 years or something like that might help. Say we move into the top 4 this year... we aren't tanking next year most likely. It would also increase odds for every other team if they were in the lotto with some multi-year tankers that had been blessed with a top 4 pick.
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I like the credits idea as it adds more strategy to the process. It also helps to reduce the unluckiness of being bad in a bad draft. I'm not sure it helps with tanking that much though as it actually might incentivize it more.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
I like the credits idea as it adds more strategy to the process. It also helps to reduce the unluckiness of being bad in a bad draft. I'm not sure it helps with tanking that much though as it actually might incentivize it more.
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Yeah there would be some issues and things you'd have to work out. I think teams would hoard credits but you could also trade credits instead of full picks which would facilitate more player movement maybe. It would reduce the issue of "we got the 5th pick and the next obvious pick is a center and our best player or prospect is a center... now what?"

If a team had to push all their credits in for a prospect like Wemby it might mean the budget gets easier on a Thompson or something like that. There is a little too much emphasis and reward for straight dumb luck and no reward for winning a little extra here and there. They could also weight the season to make the lotto odds and during the first half of the season is weighted higher and maybe you reward actual wins the last 40 games to come up with the odds.

IDK there may be a couple small things they could change now but most are pretty big changes.
 
I think the only way to truly remove tanking is to make draft order not related to winning % at all, so the alternating wheel idea that fans would hate when good teams get the chance to draft the best players. Although, if they ever started that system, I would hope they would start the order with teams who have not had number one picks so that the Jazz would be on the top of the list. One thing this would change would be trades, where instead of guessing where the pick might land you would know exactly which pick you were getting at any point in the future.

Maybe if they did something like that the 2nd round would still be based off of win % which would help the worst teams still get top choice of guys that are still potential NBA talents.
 
David Hume said:
The ale flows, good sir; I experience senescence. Lo! Let the ale flow!
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I must, however, divulge that I do prefer mead as a sweeter indulgence, to ale, if I must cross the Rubicon on that topic.
 
I wouldn't mind a system similar to the current one, except that A) when you don't win the lottery (for the first 3-4 picks like current system) you bring your ping pong balls to future drafts, until you finally cash out. B) you can not "win" the lottery in back to back years.

I think this doesn't require as large of a change as other approaches, although it also doesn't fully solve the root issue either--just makes the highs and lows less steep, IMO.
 
The crux of the issue is that the middle ground is no man's land. So, teams are rewarded for a fire sale and a restart.

The solution has to lie in removing this incentive. If a fire sale makes sense, then the system is broken. If losing is incentivized then the system is broken.

I would be down for extending the trend the league made regarding the lottery odds balance by equalizing it so the midlevel teams have a greater shot at the lottery. I would also make it so the lottery includes the top 5 picks and not the top 3. By doing so, a mid-tier team that just misses out on the playoffs has greater chance of leapfrogging. Let's say the incentive for the best pick goes as follows:

10% chance for the worst team
10% for the next team
10% for the third worst
...8%
...7%
...7%
...6%
...6%
...6%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5% for the 15th worst team that just missed out on the playoffs.

Now what is the incentive to lose? A 5% increased chance at the lottery? Super not worth it.

Those odds all increase a bit with each pick. Now make 5 total picks into lottery selections and you have yourself little incentive to tank. Teams that suck will just need to build from the ground up. But why would a team like New Orleans tank? For a 5% increased chance? No way.

Surely you could play with these numbers a bit but ultimately if the top 5 picks are up for grabs AND the weighted values aren't there, mid-tier doesn't look so bad.
 
This isn't going to be popular, but the other way to decentivise tanking is to encourage free agency. Right now it feels impossible to land a star player in any other way than the draft. Encourage more player movement and more teams might have a chance at getting a top player.

Remove the number of years of team control for draft picks, get rid of max contracts, create a true hard cap, make it easier to get off bad money, etc.
 
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The Jazz Wonderbra said:
The crux of the issue is that the middle ground is no man's land. So, teams are rewarded for a fire sale and a restart.

The solution has to lie in removing this incentive. If a fire sale makes sense, then the system is broken. If losing is incentivized then the system is broken.

I would be down for extending the trend the league made regarding the lottery odds balance by equalizing it so the midlevel teams have a greater shot at the lottery. I would also make it so the lottery includes the top 5 picks and not the top 3. By doing so, a mid-tier team that just misses out on the playoffs has greater chance of leapfrogging. Let's say the incentive for the best pick goes as follows:

10% chance for the worst team
10% for the next team
10% for the third worst
...8%
...7%
...7%
...6%
...6%
...6%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5%
...5% for the 15th worst team that just missed out on the playoffs.

Now what is the incentive to lose? A 5% increased chance at the lottery? Super not worth it.

Those odds all increase a bit with each pick. Now make 5 total picks into lottery selections and you have yourself little incentive to tank. Teams that suck will just need to build from the ground up. But why would a team like New Orleans tank? For a 5% increased chance? No way.

Surely you could play with these numbers a bit but ultimately if the top 5 picks are up for grabs AND the weighted values aren't there, mid-tier doesn't look so bad.
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The problem is that with 4 or 5 top picks up for grabs, your chance isn't 5%, but closer to 20%. Also a flat lottery would be 6.66% per team, so not so different from 5%.
 
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