My Draft Lottery Thoughts

[green]

First, the lottery will never fix tanking. The Wheel route is the only way to stop tanking, but that has its issues as well and we've covered that already.

So, if we know tanking is a part of the game, and we accept that, and we don't want the wheel system, then why have a lottery at all?

Teams will tank, we can't stop them, so why not speed up the process so teams don't stay bad forever. Just do away with the lottery teams tank. Why pretend they don't? If you want to help small market teams, l and they suck, let them get the #1 pick.

 

[♪alt13]

what about this? Make the worst team ineligible for the lotto. They automatically get the 4th pick.

30th-picks fourth
29th-16%
28th-16%
27th-15%
26th-13%
25th-11%
24th-9%
23rd-7%
22nd-5%
21st-3%
20th-1%
19th-.75%
18th-.5%
17th-.5%

league holds the last 1.25%

 

[AlaskanAssassin]

First, the lottery will never fix tanking. The Wheel route is the only way to stop tanking, but that has its issues as well and we've covered that already.

So, if we know tanking is a part of the game, and we accept that, and we don't want the wheel system, then why have a lottery at all?

Teams will tank, we can't stop them, so why not speed up the process so teams don't stay bad forever. Just do away with the lottery teams tank. Why pretend they don't? If you want to help small market teams, l and they suck, let them get the #1 pick.

That would take Tanking to a new level. If the next Lebron was coming out next year, some team would go 3-79 or something. It would bring out the most blatant tanking (players on the court intentionally not playing well, missing shots, turnovers, etc). Teams would never stoop to that level in a lottery system when at best it's a 25% chance of getting a transcendent player.

 

[The Midnight]

First, the lottery will never fix tanking. The Wheel route is the only way to stop tanking, but that has its issues as well and we've covered that already.

So, if we know tanking is a part of the game, and we accept that, and we don't want the wheel system, then why have a lottery at all?

Teams will tank, we can't stop them, so why not speed up the process so teams don't stay bad forever. Just do away with the lottery teams tank. Why pretend they don't? If you want to help small market teams, l and they suck, let them get the #1 pick.

The wheel will favor the big market team even more than the proposed system. Because the proposed system was rejected, I don't think the wheel while have a chance whatsoever.


Also Silver has not given up. All the teams unanimously referred the proposed system back to the Competitions Committee to take a 2nd look for any unintended consequences. I suspect the Committee will tweak the system to make it a bit less "flat" at the top end, and there will probably be a revised system for voting in 4-5 months time, with it being implemented from next season onwards.


Sorry Green, but I think the Wheel is dead... it's time to let it go...

 

[AlaskanAssassin]

The wheel will favor the big market team even more than the proposed system. Because the proposed system was rejected, I don't think the wheel while have a chance whatsoever.


Also Silver has not given up. All the teams unanimously referred the proposed system back to the Competitions Committee to take a 2nd look for any unintended consequences. I suspect the Committee will tweak the system to make it a bit less "flat" at the top end, and there will probably be a revised system for voting in 4-5 months time, with it being implemented from next season onwards.


Sorry Green, but I think the Wheel is dead... it's time to let it go...

I seriously might quit watching NBA basketball entirely if they went to a "wheel" method. Something like that might work in Baseball or Football (where one individual player has less of an impact on a game) but it won't work for basketball.

 

[oldtimer]

I still like my idea of a three year weighted average for all nonplayoff teams. No team can have the number 1 pick in back to back years. Very few teams would tank 3 years in a row just to get the number one pick. This helps the teams that are truly bad but also has a little protection against bad franchises losing year after year. I wish the competition committee would propose something like that.

 

[The Midnight]

I seriously might quit watching NBA basketball entirely if they went to a "wheel" method. Something like that might work in Baseball or Football (where one individual player has less of an impact on a game) but it won't work for basketball.

Yeah I agree. The best example of why it will fail is still the fact that a player coming out of college can wait 1-2 more year before entering the 'lottery' so that he can go to a team of his choosing (i.e., bigger market teams like LA or NY) and the system will allow that to happen.


That favors the bigger market teams big time and that surely goes against what the NBA is trying to do.

 

[The Midnight]

I still like my idea of a three year weighted average for all nonplayoff teams. No team can have the number 1 pick in back to back years. Very few teams would tank 3 years in a row just to get the number one pick. This helps the teams that are truly bad but also has a little protection against bad franchises losing year after year. I wish the competition committee would propose something like that.

You'd be surprise. The 76ers have already done it 2 straight years heading into its 3rd.

 

[Crawlnstall]

The lottery needs work we can all agree on that. But the wheel is not the answer and neither is getting rid of the lottery. Look at how bad the Colts tanked for Luck, you'd see the same thing, but on a grander scale. I really like the idea of having no team win back to back lottery's and taking a weighted average of losses.

 

[MDAV28]

Wasn't there an idea floating around about using the last 3 years records in determining draft order? I think that could be worked with.

 

[The Midnight]

Wasn't there an idea floating around about using the last 3 years records in determining draft order? I think that could be worked with.

I think any system that puts the fate of who you pick squarely on the results of the teams is dangerous. At least with the ping pong balls you have some uncertainty which may prevent teams from wanting to tank HARD. If a team knows that it'll need a win percentage of 20% to get the #1 pick this coming year, it'll do its absolute best to lose that many game.


I think the proposed lottery was a step in the right direction, it just needed to be tweak a bit more to be less 'flat' at the top end, giving the 5-6 worse teams slightly better odds.

 

[The Midnight]

This is the proposed odds of the system that was rejected:

1 - 12.0%
2 - 12.0%
3 - 12.0%
4 - 12.0%
5 - 11.5%
6 - 10.0%
7 - 8.5%
8 - 7.0%
9 - 5.5%
10 - 4.0%
11 - 2.5%
12 - 1.5%
13 - 1.0%
14 - 0.5%

May be revise it to be:

1 - 16.0%
2 - 15.0%
3 - 14.0%
4 - 13.0%
5 - 12.0%
6 - 10.0%
7 - 8.0%
8 - 5.0%
9 - 3.0%
10 - 1.5%
11 - 1.0%
12 - 0.5%
13 - 0.5%
14 - 0.5%


I think that is something the smaller market teams can look at and say, OK, that still give us something to work with at the end. Bigger market team should see less tanking. Win/Win.