Solving For Tanking, We're smart, let's figure it out

[TheGoldStandard]

Make any team not over the cap for more than one day in the prior season eligible for the lottery. If you are in the luxury tax you lose your draft pick which would be added in as a lottery pick for all other eligible teams. Will incentivize teams to make smart contracts, and cause the superteams with lots of salary to lose.

The big market teams would never go for this, but it would help with avoiding tanking and cause superteams to give up something for amassing that amount of talent unless players take huge salary cuts.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

I have to admit that I'm surprised that everyone has just ignored my odds-flattening lottery rejiggering earlier in this thread that tries to do exactly this (is it because no one can read/fully comprehend tankathon-style odds?): while keeping the aspect of giving the worst teams the highest average pick, my idea moved the "sweet spot" of winning the lottery for the top 5 picks to the middle of the standings and greatly flattened them out in the process (several teams max out at 5% chance for #1 pick).

I mean if there's some obvious flaw that I overlooked, I'd like it to be pointed out, but nobody gave it the time of day.

Apologies. At the time I wasn't interested at all in any proposals dealing with changing the lottery odds. I went and relooked and have some thoughts.

- I don't like any scenario where a top 10 team has a chance at a the top pick. So maybe if you squished things down to odds starting at record 21 it might be better.
- I think this eliminates tanking in the off season, which is the type of tanking that I don't really mind, but it doesn't completely eliminate in game tanking which is my main goal. Teams will still try and get as good of odds as possible even if there isn't a big difference and the bottom teams will try and improve their floor pick at some point at the end of the season.
- This would definitely greatly reduce tanking, but I don't know if I would really prefer the draft to be almost completely random.

 

[idiot]

Apologies. At the time I wasn't interested at all in any proposals dealing with changing the lottery odds. I went and relooked and have some thoughts.

- I don't like any scenario where a top 10 team has a chance at a the top pick. So maybe if you squished things down to odds starting at record 21 it might be better.
- I think this eliminates tanking in the off season, which is the type of tanking that I don't really mind, but it doesn't completely eliminate in game tanking which is my main goal. Teams will still try and get as good of odds as possible even if there isn't a big difference and the bottom teams will try and improve their floor pick at some point at the end of the season.
- This would definitely greatly reduce tanking, but I don't know if I would really prefer the draft to be almost completely random.

All great thoughts. Thanks!

I think any proposal is going to have advantages/disadvantages, advocates/detractors. But yeah, letting a top 10 team have a chance at the top spot will be unpopular (though I think it beats the wheel in this regard).

For the second point: it may lead to some in-season tanking among the bottom teams, but the reward is so much less that (perhaps) over time only the most desperate teams will go there. Would be interesting to see how the teams' calculus changes with this.

Third point: I'd say there's two elements to this. The top 5 picks are much more random than now. But the average picks still benefit the worse records pretty substantially (though not as much as now). For the first of these, I'm kinda in the camp that given how important a single transformational player is, and given the role that luck already plays in getting those players, it might be good to kind of "institutionalize" the role that random luck plays in this. But I know others will disagree.

 

[idiot]

Wasn't actively posting at this point so I'll admit I just brushed past it in catching up with the thread.

It does mostly achieve your stated objectives of keeping the average good pick going to the worst teams, but rewarding the best teams with the best chance at the top 5, which would incentivize mediocre teams still pushing hard to win, to a certain point.

I think it pushes the idea a little bit too hard. While its true that many of the best players were drafted outside the top 5, its also true that you are way way more likely to find a great player in the top 5 than at any other position. So I think it becomes really difficult for really bad teams to pull themselves out of that hole. The occasional win for teams near the top is going to push a championship favorite to an untouchable decade-long juggernaut at some point.

I have generally heard that home court advantage in the NBA playoffs has become less and less important, which is one of the things that has led to teams resting star players a lot. This gives a little more incentive for them to do that. Towards the ends of seasons we may see teams near the tops of the standings rest players a little more, since dropping from a 3 seed to a 4 seed isn't going to matter too much for the playoffs, but gives a decent boost to the lottery odds.

Making the middle the "best" place to be is kind of interesting. The way you would see team churn would probably involve the big markets mostly hanging out near the top and reloading via free agency, occasionally dipping into that middle tier when players retire, and then bouncing back up either through draft luck or free agency. You'd see a lot fewer teams completely gutting themselves when they lose their big guns. I think it would be even more devastating to smaller market teams when their big name players leave in free agency. There would still be a tier of teams without hope of getting into the sweet spots that would probably still field very uncompetitive teams and decide they are better off losing for that 6 spot than trying to claw their way up the charts.

There's probably some equation that balances the relative value of a #1 pick vs the value of lower picks. Though the details of that would probably vary between draft classes, someone is going to run that on this chart and find some "expected maximum value" slot and the dominant strategy is going to end up being trying to capture the 7 or 8 spot, which is going to end up with some weird situations where teams above that slot are tanking and teams below it are trying to win.

I dunno, its an interesting idea. I'm probably not seeing everything with it. But gut feel, its going to create a scenario where top tier playoff teams rest the superstars more frequently, and maybe even intentionally tank a bit towards the end of the season, and mediocre teams try a weird combination of tanking and competing to try to reach a specific number slot. And some lottery luck is going to end up creating a superteam, with the odds of that happening to someone probably favoring the bigger markets

Thanks for the thoughts!! I think you've understood and analyzed it well.

I think you're right it would create some weird dynamics, including the best teams perhaps trying to tank a bit toward the end in hopes that they can catch draft magic in the small, but slightly higher odds.

I'm still not sure what can be done about the issue of not risking creating superteams while at the same time getting rid of most tanking (without completely changing the long-time principles of NBA CBAs, which seems unlikely to me).

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Thanks for the thoughts!! I think you've understood and analyzed it well.

I think you're right it would create some weird dynamics, including the best teams perhaps trying to tank a bit toward the end in hopes that they can catch draft magic in the small, but slightly higher odds.

I'm still not sure what can be done about the issue of not risking creating superteams while at the same time getting rid of most tanking (without completely changing the long-time principles of NBA CBAs, which seems unlikely to me).

Here's a thought, make teams ineligible to receive the top pick or top 3-4 picks if they already have an all NBA first team or maybe first or second team player.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Also tie revenue sharing to a minimum number of games won.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

More ideas:

Teams 1-5 all have equal odds at picks 1-5.

Teams 6-10 get two draft picks in the top 15 (6-6,11 7-7,12, 8-8,13, 9-9,14, 10-10,15). The draft moves on from there with picks 16 to 35.

All teams 11 and higher make the play-in. Teams that make the play in, but lose in the play in get revenue sharing equal to the amount of a 7 game playoff series.

 

[idiot]

Also tie revenue sharing to a minimum number of games won.

More ideas:

Teams 1-5 all have equal odds at picks 1-5.

Teams 6-10 get two draft picks in the top 15 (6-6,11 7-7,12, 8-8,13, 9-9,14, 10-10,15). The draft moves on from there with picks 16 to 35.

All teams 11 and higher make the play-in. Teams that make the play in, but lose in the play in get revenue sharing equal to the amount of a 7 game playoff series.

Interesting. If I'm understanding right, these are not fully getting rid of tanking incentives, but rather having revenue sharing and tanking incentives be mutually exclusive or at least compete against each other more than currently, thus lowering the number of teams that will tank.

Probably could have some success with this.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Interesting. If I'm understanding right, these are not fully getting rid of tanking incentives, but rather having revenue sharing and tanking incentives be mutually exclusive or at least compete against each other more than currently, thus lowering the number of teams that will tank.

Probably could have some success with this.

Yes. I strongly prefer a solution that removes any incentive to be bad, but since those ideas are not likely to ever gain traction, I'm considering alternatives, or in other words ideas that greatly reduce tanking, or at least the very worst forms of tanking like the Jazz executed this year where they sat young healthy players for the sole purpose of losing games.

The main reasoning with that last idea is to smooth out the difference between tiers. If there is a generational or maybe even just consensus #1 pick available, this probably isn't enough to dissuade teams from tanking. I'm not sure I love it, but it is just something I'm throwing out there.

 

[Park Bites]

I have thought of this way more than I should. My first thought is hit the teams in the wallet. Maybe penalized the eligible teams on the shared payout for teams under the salary cap.

Maybe penalize the bottom 5 or so teams, in a descending amount.

In addition if you win the lottery you are not eligible the following year or you are not eligible for that pick for a years. They can still win other one just not that pick.

 

[HermanG]

I have thought of this way more than I should. My first thought is hit the teams in the wallet. Maybe penalized the eligible teams on the shared payout for teams under the salary cap.

Maybe penalize the bottom 5 or so teams, in a descending amount.

In addition if you win the lottery you are not eligible the following year or you are not eligible for that pick for a years. They can still win other one just not that pick.

Tanking tax. Interesting proposal.

It would have to not count against the cap tho. Otherwise it would limit those teams in FA (making it harder for them to build up) while also helping them reach minimum salary floor with lower player salary totals.

Also it shouldnt work as a honey trap for teams to stay mid and cash in on both luxury tax and tanking tax. So the money shouldnt go to the other lottery teams missing out on the top picks.

Would it cause some money grubbing owners to force trade their looming top pick away just to avoid getting taxed? That could cause some wild "unfair" trades and also further emphasize imbalances between teams who have cheap owners and those who dont.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

OK, with a little thought this is what I'm thinking on trades:

- Teams can trade their current cap space that other teams can use or save for future years. It only effects the team that trades the cap space for the year they trade it, but the team that acquires the cap space can use it indefinitely.
- Teams can't carry over or save their own cap space, only cap space money they get in trades.
- Teams can aggregate their current cap space and cap space acquired in trades, but they can only exceed the difference between the salary floor and cap on picks after 4. (If salaries are tied to bid amounts then the drafted player's salary would be capped at the difference between the floor and the cap so that the 5th pick isn't paid more than the first 4).
- Teams can combine cap space acquired from previous teams to trade to other teams. Again, this isn't actual money that goes in to the team's bank account, but a "Cap Space" number that is just tracked. The actual money is only physically transferred to the new team at the time of the first trade.

Again complicated, but I think it can kind of work and not be too different that trades today.

Not that anyone else cares, but I was thinking about this idea the other day and I think you would have to put a time limit on how long you can carry over cap space that you trade for. I think probably somewhere between 3-5 years. That way teams aren't just hoarding it and waiting for the generational talent to come along.

I also go back and forth on whether there should be a max bid for the top 4 picks. If you keep it at a set amount then teams know they just need to have a certain amount of cap space saved up in order to be in the running for the top pick, it would prevent hoarding by too much. On the other hand if it was just the maximum amount, teams could get really strategic and the picks wouldn't be based on luck at that point, which I like. It could be really interesting if the bid ends up as the players' salary, because you could end up with a guy like Wemby making more than anybody in the NBA (Which maybe he should), but would also really hurt that team's ability to build around them, which again makes it an interesting choice for a team to consider.