Pelicans win draft lottery

[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.

 

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.

 

Exactly. They simply try to win as much as they can and get in the playoffs. When they are out of the running, play younger players and simply try to get better, no strings attached.

 

Also, your comment "no way to impact good or bad their ability to get better through the draft"..... If they have a losing record,they still will likely have a better pick than most teams. Also, what is the good or bad way to affect draft position in the draft? The bad way is to play your worst players and tank to get a better pick, I reckon. It still happens. The good way is what? Win and have a worse pick?

[owbc]

I still think the best idea I've heard is a postseason tournament for the draft picks. The winning team gets the #1 pick, runner up gets #2 pick. Everyone else goes into a random lottery with equal chances at picks 3, 4, etc. Teams that are truly awful should get no reward or help from the NBA.

 

To discourage tanking by fringe playoff teams, I would add that teams seeded 7-8 can choose to be in the regular playoffs or the draft pick playoffs--if they choose draft playoffs then the 9-10 seeds get bumped into the regular playoffs.

[FVBrewerFan]

-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.

 

No, because tanking will never be dead. Lottery pick isn't the only reason a team tanks. If you know you're not going to be a good team, you trade away any assets you have to clear up cap space for the future. So you tank. Getting a top lottery pick is nice too, but still worth tanking without that.

[DuWayne Steurer]

In MLB, or even in the NFL, there's incentive to make the playoffs. If you make the playoffs, you have a shot to win it all. Maybe the lower seeds don't win a lot, but they do often enough that just making the playoffs are incentive enough to try to make that last playoff spot.

 

In the NBA, realistically, there's probably 5 or 6 teams each year (or even less) that have a shot to win it all. The last few years, we pretty much knew it was the Warriors, Cavs, and maybe one or two other teams.

 

8 seeds have won I think 2 or 3 series ever, since the NBA went to a 16 team field. In MLB, not only do wild card teams semi regularly win a series, 6 wild card teams have won world series in 24 years.

 

I don't know.... it doesn't feel like there's a great answer to this question, but there should be some sort of way to incentivize teams in the NBA to chase those last few playoff spots a bit harder.

 

I don't know that tanking is a huge problem the way people say it is, but at the same time, how many years do you want to watch what happened in Philly before you get the payoff? As a fan, that's pretty brutal.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Case in point.... the 1-4 seeds swept the 5-8 seeds this year. The 1 seeds beat the 4 seeds, and the 2 seeds split with the 3 seeds.

 

Higher seeded teams are 11 - 1 in 12 series so far.

[CheezWizHed]

Just rank the top 90 players that are draft eligible and randomly assign them to all 30 teams.

[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.

 

I think my way would end tanking immediately.

 

I don't see any reason teams in your scenario don't tank the first half of the season. And they can't get the #1 pick? Darn, guess I'll go for #2.

[HiAndTight]

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.

 

It'd likely also ruin franchises for very long periods of time.

 

 

Still not sure I understand the problem with tanking or why it's so much more focused on in the NBA. It happens in the NFL(it's really going to happen the next two years with Lawrence almost certainly the top pick in the 2021 draft) and it happens in baseball.

[HiAndTight]

-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.

 

No, because tanking will never be dead. Lottery pick isn't the only reason a team tanks. If you know you're not going to be a good team, you trade away any assets you have to clear up cap space for the future. So you tank. Getting a top lottery pick is nice too, but still worth tanking without that.

 

 

Exactly....but now the main difference starts to appear. All teams will clear their cap space if they don't have a chance to contend, but the top FA's aren't going to come to Milwaukee or Cleveland or other small market teams 9 times out of 10. So this is just a way to hurt small market teams even further. With everything the Knicks have done wrong, including trading a freakishly talented player, they could easily end up with two superstars and the 3rd pick in the draft, likely RJ Barrett.

 

Taking away draft picks from bad teams will just make those bad teams bad for longer. It's rare that a team gets a future MVP with the 15th pick. Even Curry was a low pick for an MVP type player.

[HiAndTight]

I still think the best idea I've heard is a postseason tournament for the draft picks. The winning team gets the #1 pick, runner up gets #2 pick. Everyone else goes into a random lottery with equal chances at picks 3, 4, etc. Teams that are truly awful should get no reward or help from the NBA.

 

To discourage tanking by fringe playoff teams, I would add that teams seeded 7-8 can choose to be in the regular playoffs or the draft pick playoffs--if they choose draft playoffs then the 9-10 seeds get bumped into the regular playoffs.

 

 

That's good in theory, but play it out? It's a clown show in real life. You have the worst teams playing in an NIT type tourney while the NBA playoffs are going on? And the lowest seeded teams get to pick if they want to be in the playoffs? If the 7th and 8th seeds don't "want" to make the playoffs, why would the 9th and 10th seeds? Just so they can get curb stomped by a GSW or Bucks team and then not get a lottery pick?

 

It's just not feasible.

 

The NBA is doing well. The only thing I'd change is you just make it like every other sport, worst records, best picks. That is if you're that intent on changing the lottery. But these other ideas...they're almost certainly never going to actually happen.

[rickh150]

You want to end tanking, which many view as a negative, my way is a possible way. A few more points...

- The 76ers way stops. Big markets can't tank and use both their advantage in financial resources AND high picks together. It will still happen of course in a given year, but now it will be much more random. Potential tankers for multiple years cannot plan on getting top 5 picks every year.

- Sure teams can still trade away players, clearing cap space for top FA's the following year(s). So be it. Yet, the incentive to do so isn't as great when a usetobe certain top 5 pick isn't there with it.

- The quality of play and product on the floor will not go down (as much) when teams are out of contention. Sure, Lebron still would not have played this season at year's end for possible injury concerns, but most teams could continue on trying to win games like usual with no ulterior motive to do nothing but trying to get better.

- Fans could simply hope that their team wins instead of hoping their team loses the last week of the year for a slight better chance at #1-3 picks. I probably should have lead with this.

- Small markets and mid markets could get that top pick to push them further in the playoffs or conference finals. How many times have we seen the Bucks show potential and get that #8 seed or just miss the playoffs? They are in no man's land, not good enough to really compete for a title and not poor enough to get a high pick. This new way would at least give them a shot to infuse more great talent to a middling team who cannot get a top FA. Big markets would get this too, sure. Yet maybe that's a good thing to get a greater variety of teams in the upper tier of the playoffs.