Pelicans win draft lottery

[PinaMadness]

Impossible for the lottery to go better from a Bucks perspective:

 

- Celtics/Sixers didn't move up

- Bulls/Hawks dropped

- Zion goes West

 

And now there is a good chance that Anthony Davis won't get traded after all.

[trwi7]

The best part is it's a clear cut two player draft, Knicks and Lakers both move up giving their fan bases hope they'll get either Williamson or Morant and they end up 3rd and 4th.

[lcbj68c]

I kinda felt that giving the Pelicans the lottery win is almost a :wink wink: :nudge nudge: for letting Anthony Davis go without a fuss.

[coolhandluke121]

I kinda felt that giving the Pelicans the lottery win is almost a :wink wink: :nudge nudge: for letting Anthony Davis go without a fuss.

 

You can reverse engineer any explanation you want, but nobody has ever come up with a conspiracy theory that actually makes predictions any better than the odds. If the Knicks or Lakers had won, people would be crying foul because big markets. The lottery is random. Officiating has not always been, so if you want conspiracies, look there.

 

The lottery is still really dumb though. It's the NBA's own fault that teams have to tank. The number of games, the soft salary cap and max salaries, the ridiculously low rookie salaries, the superstar calls... it would be stupid not to tank. So let's punish the worst teams and their fan base even more? Stupid. Should just be in reverse order of record.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I kinda felt that giving the Pelicans the lottery win is almost a :wink wink: :nudge nudge: for letting Anthony Davis go without a fuss.

 

You can reverse engineer any explanation you want, but nobody has ever come up with a conspiracy theory that actually makes predictions any better than the odds. If the Knicks or Lakers had won, people would be crying foul because big markets. The lottery is random. Officiating has not always been, so if you want conspiracies, look there.

 

The lottery is still really dumb though. It's the NBA's own fault that teams have to tank. The number of games, the soft salary cap and max salaries, the ridiculously low rookie salaries, the superstar calls... it would be stupid not to tank. So let's punish the worst teams and their fan base even more? Stupid. Should just be in reverse order of record.

 

If you think tanking is bad now, it would be even worse if that were enacted. It would be a genuine Race to Last every year.

[OldHeidelberg]

I don't know the solution, you can't have a tanking battle every once in a decade or so a generational type prospect comes out so you have to have some sort of lottery in place. The Lakers moving from 11 to 4 seems sort of unnecessary collateral damage though. Maybe you just have a weighted drawing for pick #1 and then slide every one down a pick if they are jumped.

 

I am just glad the Knicks didn't win it.

[GAME05]

I like what they started this year with the worst three all having the same odds. I would also support setting the lottery order not at the end of the season but a week or two after the trade deadline. That way at least for the last month of the season the worst teams could win some games without penalty.

 

I'd still trade Anthony Davis. He's said he wants to go and this offseason they'll get some value out of him besides watching him walk. They could pick up a guy like Tatum and get younger since they'll be rebuilding anyway.

 

I'm not sure there's much you can do to prevent tanking. Every sport has that issue.

[coolhandluke121]

If you think tanking is bad now, it would be even worse if that were enacted. It would be a genuine Race to Last every year.

 

First off, it already is and will continue to be. The odds of the worst team picking #1 are lower, but it's still worth the gamble. The lottery has never stopped tanking or even mitigated it. It creates more problems than it solves. They used to have a lottery system like the current one and everyone realized how dumb it was when the Magic drafted Shaq, won 41 games, lost a tiebreaker for the 8th seed, and promptly won the lottery from the 13 hole. Everyone realized how dumb and unfair that was to the bad teams, so they scrapped that system. Now they're going back to a similar one. What makes them think that will work this time? How is that fair to the fans of bad teams? They're not the ones tanking.

 

Just have a hard salary cap and get rid of the artificial limits on rookie salaries and superstar salaries. If you can't keep super teams together and have to pay superstars what they're worth relative to garden variety all-stars, then there's more parity. Wouldn't hurt to cut back on superstar calls from the refs, too. Until they make some of those changes, the value of superstars under team control is far too great to stop tanking in any kind of draft system that's even remotely fair to the fans of the worst teams.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

You can reverse engineer any explanation you want, but nobody has ever come up with a conspiracy theory that actually makes predictions any better than the odds. If the Knicks or Lakers had won, people would be crying foul because big markets. The lottery is random. Officiating has not always been, so if you want conspiracies, look there.

 

It was very surreal last night seeing Knicks fans bemoan that the lottery was rigged. Yep, I'm sure the NBA's dream scenario was to have New Orleans and Memphis land the top 2 picks.

[tmwiese55]

THey have full complete transparency on the lottery now. It's impossible to be rigged. They have media in the room while it's happening to act as a check and balance on everything. They've done all they can to dispel this bs notion with the process they have in place now. Plus, look at this year. Look at Oden/KD going to Sea/Por from the 5 and 7 spots to jump Boston. People just need to give it a rest.

 

One tweak I'd make to the lottery is to actually do the lottery the whole way, not just top 4. So just keep going. This would allow teams to jump from 11 to 6, stuff like that. Helps in two ways, first it creates risk of dropping so a bit of a incentivization on not tanking. Second, it might help some of the middling borderline playoff teams get that extra player that actually makes them legit playoff teams. Take say the Charlotte type team or NO for years here, maybe they get luck and move up from 13th to 6th and get the guy that gets them over the hump. Think of it from this perspective, the best thing for entertainment might be to create more contenders rather than the current situation of usually only like 4 teams with a shot. So trying to find a way to bump those teams up a bit and reward them for trying to win. Plus, it would make the lotto itself for entertaining and dramatic, which I know the nba wants. Heck, maybe there is a way you could do this the whole first round too. So say this years Indiana could move up to like 11th or whatever instead being locked in at 23ish.

[HiAndTight]

 

If you think tanking is bad now, it would be even worse if that were enacted. It would be a genuine Race to Last every year.

 

That would have been SOOO much better than the years of rotating in role players who scored a lot of points on bad teams. The Corey Maggette's, the Stephen Jackson(who was a good ROLD player), the...basically Jabari Parker types who you depended on to be your #1 and was just not awful enough to help you get 35 wins and end up on the edge of the lottery or playoffs(in the East). We just got incredibly lucky and got our generational talent 15th. Something that rarely happens.

 

That was why Bucks basketball was nearly dead. If not for Herb Kohl, the Bucks would likely be gone. Of course, he was the one pushing them to be so consistently mediocre.

 

There is tanking in every sport. I don't really see why it's an issue in basketball.

 

And I also agree, if people think the lottery was fixed for the Pelicans for letting AD leave quietly, then I don't think there was an acceptable outcome. The outcry for the Lakers and particularly the Knicks-given that's genesis of this whole theory would have been ridiculous.

 

If Memphis gets it, people would be saying, "this was for not trading AD to the Lakers."

 

 

I do think RJ Barrett is going to be a stud in the NBA. It just might take a while.

[nodakfan17]

It’s really a bummer that since 2014, the Lakers have drafted:

 

7-2-2-2-10-4

 

They have all the advantages of a large market team and the balls bounce their way more often than not.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Give the #1 pick a mandatory max contract! That'll make people think twice about tanking.

[coolhandluke121]

Give the #1 pick a mandatory max contract! That'll make people think twice about tanking.

 

I once floated the idea of giving bad teams a little extra cap space or something like that, but then teams would have to bid for top picks. It would probably require lots of other changes to the CBA because of domino effects though.

[nate82]

So does this mean the Knicks are going to get Davis? Trade the #3 and a future 1st round pick for Davis?

 

I don't believe the Celtics are a favorite anymore their 1st round picks are not all that attractive right now with the 14th, 20th, and 22nd pick in the draft that is just blah even if they include Tatum or Brown. I don't see how the Celtics get Davis. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Celtics lose Kyrie though that maybe a blessing in disguise for them.

 

Maybe the Knicks land Davis and Kyrie? I think the Knicks have enough cap space to do this. I don't think Kyrie and Davis would be all that good together and it would hurt the Knicks long term but hey they are the Knicks.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm just enjoying being distracted by BB games so much that I didn't realize the lottery was happening!

[patrickgpe]

found this article today, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2836391-lights-camera-amir-hinton

 

considering that the bucks will be picking at the end of the first round and odds are pretty good that they will not be picking next season (any pick between 8-30 will be sent to Phoenix), a massive project like this may be worth it, even though it would be a reach.

[FVBrewerFan]

Why not just put equal odds for all teams not making the playoffs? Really limits the desire to tank if your odds are the same to get the last lottery pick vs the 1st. Nothing will eliminate tanking entirely, as clearing your salary for the following year will always be a sound strategy if you're rebuilding. And that has nothing to do with the lottery. But it may help?

[tmwiese55]

Why not just put equal odds for all teams not making the playoffs? Really limits the desire to tank if your odds are the same to get the last lottery pick vs the 1st. Nothing will eliminate tanking entirely, as clearing your salary for the following year will always be a sound strategy if you're rebuilding. And that has nothing to do with the lottery. But it may help?

 

Because it would incentivize fringe playoff teams to tank to not make the playoffs.

 

It actually used to be this way. Then Orlando got Shaq, almost made the playoffs. Then won the #1 overall pick again the next year (Weber traded for Penny) and everyone thought it was BS so they started weighting it.

[wallus]

Give the #1 pick a mandatory max contract! That'll make people think twice about tanking.

 

That is an interesting idea, I am sure Anthony Bennett would have approved.

[rickh150]

-Anyone in the lottery (and the #7 and #8 teams in playoffs) should have equal chance of landing the #1 through #5 picks.

- If you land a top 5 pick, you are not eligible to get a top 5 the following year.

- If you land the #1 pick, you are not eligible for the top pick for five years.

- After the top 5 are picked, win/loss record from the first half of the season determines the rest of the lottery picks.

 

Tanking dead.

[homer]

I really don't see any feasible way to get rid of tanking in a sport where one guy can make such a huge difference. About the only thing you could do is threaten to delegate a team down to the G League like they do in the soccer leagues. Obviously is never going to happen.

[rickh150]

I really don't see any feasible way to get rid of tanking in a sport where one guy can make such a huge difference. About the only thing you could do is threaten to delegate a team down to the G League like they do in the soccer leagues. Obviously is never going to happen.

 

I think my way would end tanking immediately.

[stalton]

-Anyone in the lottery (and the #7 and #8 teams in playoffs) should have equal chance of landing the #1 through #5 picks.

- If you land a top 5 pick, you are not eligible to get a top 5 the following year.

- If you land the #1 pick, you are not eligible for the top pick for five years.

- After the top 5 are picked, win/loss record from the first half of the season determines the rest of the lottery picks.

 

Tanking dead.

 

In that system you still have several teams with literally zero to play for after the first half of the season. There will be teams that won't have the talent to make the playoffs and no way to impact (good or bad) their ability to get better through the draft.

[young guns]

Why are we worried about killing tanking? Who exactly tanked this year and in what way did they tank?