Bizarro Wide World of Sports Lin Championship
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burekijogurt
Starter
agreed. we will lose to Houston (for the reasons specified). Memphis is the game up in the air, but I think there will be no more wins for the Kings.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
Unless Kings play their G leag
I would like to think that the commish could somehow penalize these teams for tanking, but it seems like such a subjective judgement I don't see how he could. Just like the Kings, teams can always make the excuse: "We just want assess what we have in these G leaguers and young guys we have on the roster so we can make judgements about next year." That's the reason (excuse) the Kings are giving currently, but who really thinks they don't know what the have (or more likely, don't have) in Caboclo, Hayes, and Cooley?
I would like to think that the commish could somehow penalize these teams for tanking, but it seems like such a subjective judgement I don't see how he could. Just like the Kings, teams can always make the excuse: "We just want assess what we have in these G leaguers and young guys we have on the roster so we can make judgements about next year." That's the reason (excuse) the Kings are giving currently, but who really thinks they don't know what the have (or more likely, don't have) in Caboclo, Hayes, and Cooley?
28 wins, worst case, gets sole possession of 9th. 10th takes 34+.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
It's really too late to penalize them for this season beyond some fines. What the league would need to do going forward is to essentially describe a set of practices such as resting starters, sitting key players in 4th quarters etc. maybe even sending in a league doctor to evaluate injuries of players listed as injured after 3 games. Then make clear before the start of the season that any team who engages in those described acts will be assinged the 30th pick, if more than one team is found to be tanking then you draw from the last positions. I really don't see another way to nail the teams that are intentionally trying to loose games with the roster they have. Its a clumsy imprecise tool that is more likely to fail than do much more than give the "smart kids" who are gaming the system a few new hurdles to jump and loop holes to thread.
In the end I suspect that the entire draft may need to reevaluated if the league really wants to end tanking. But I am sure that the leage WILL try to something, and I suspect it will be too little, too late and largely ineffective.
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Keep in mind that the league has already changed the lotto procedure starting next year, where now the top three spots all get the same number of combos, the odds are flattened out a decent amount, and they are drawing 4 places instead of three. Perhaps tanking is so bad this year because next year it won't be as effective.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
I can see your point, but I can also see an ethically challenged GM being even more motivated because there is a much greater chance of pay off for teams with the 3rd, 4th record to nail a top 2 pick... I guess it is a question of perspective.
Well, as I've said several times around here, I personally advocate for a system where draft pick is determined by front office vote and not by record at all. But the idea behind the changes is to reduce the efficiency of tanking, not increase it, and from a sideways mathematical glance, it certainly looks to me like it should.
Jkbiker
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.@memgrizz injury/status report, April 6 vs @SacramentoKings: OUT M. Conley (L heel) M. Gasol (rest) J. Green (R/L knee soreness) A. Harrison (R wrist/L shoulder) J. Martin (L ankle) C. Parsons (R/L knee soreness) W. Selden (R knee soreness) T. Evans (personal) remains NWT.
Wow 8 players out?
Can we sit and rest our best 8 players too?
Wow 8 players out?
Can we sit and rest our best 8 players too?
Section 101
All-Star
They need to add teams can't win (1-3 picks) 2 years in a row.
I haven't looked too much at this draft class, not like last year. Earlier in the season I took a look and was not too impressed, so honestly the draft is not as interesting. Mitchell was picked 13 last year. I have a feeling the Kings will pick 6, 7 or 8 - probably 7. Bigger question will be should they pick for position or talent level this year. Either way, they're gonna need more than the draft to make meaningful strides. Vlade is probably on the hotseat next season if the Kings don't compete and make strides - ie 10+ wins more.
I would "like" this a thousand times if I could!
sactowndog
All-Star
Right but the ping pong ball can bounce against you at a double digit percentage so you always have the odds of moving down 1.
sactowndog
All-Star
Would you also assured us no way we beat Golden State?
You might want to take another look. By my count this is the most interesting draft in at least 10 years. Three of these guys were First Team All-Americans this year as Freshmen. If we stretch a bit and count Luka Doncic as a shooting guard (which might not be a stretch, it might be his ideal position) than I think there's at least 1 All-Star in there at all 5 positions. That might sound absurd but the 1996 draft had 10, and the 1999 and 2003 drafts had 9. You're right that the draft alone will not be enough though. We need a good free agent signing too and probably a trade or two.
That was before I found out Durant wasn’t player Green isn’t good enough to lead a team
Okay... I wasn't really worrying about ping pong balls yet, when we can still theoretically take 3rd-9th seed, and 1st-12th (post-lottery) are all still possible.
Would be flabbergasted with that kind of output given what I saw. I'm sure there'll be several players at least to develop, and sometimes players take added years to emerge.....all-stars, I can't see it though, who knows. If there are latent stars, it bodes well for the Kings even at 6-8. Generally picking 1-7 means you have a decent chance at a "best" player at at least one position available even though the Kings may not need the position.
sactowndog
All-Star
And the Rockets scrubs are?
KingsFanSince85
All-Star
I think they should only do the lottery for the bottom 10 teams. And those teams all have equal odds across the board (like the old days with the envelopes). The other 4 teams draft in inverse order of record just like the playoff teams.
Could you have 1 or more of those 4 non-playoff teams tanking late in the season once they know they can't make the playoffs in order to get into the bottom 10? Sure. But the tanking wouldn't be near as wide spread and wouldn't happen until they knew they were out or had little chance. It wouldn't me a big problem.
Doing it this way would prevent the Orlando situation from 1993 when they went 41-41, missed the playoffs but won the #1 pick while also preventing the widespread tanking since there'd be no benefit to finishing last, 2nd to last, 3rd to last, etc, etc.
Most of the teams 1-10 are equally bad. Teams 11-14 are usually borderline playoff teams and shouldn't be in it for a top pick.
I think this is the point where I disagree with you, and accepting or rejecting this premise leads to very different solutions. Now, it's true that this year there are what I would consider to be 8 bad teams (the Knicks don't really count, because they were clearly better than the others before Porzingis went down) and maybe there's not too big of a talent gap between them. But this year is unusual in terms of bad teams. There are probably going to be 9 teams with under 30 wins, which will tie a record for the most teams under 30 wins in a full season since the league went to 30 teams - the average in that time is 6.15. Furthermore, the gap between teams #1-#9 in the lottery will be at most 11 wins, and likely 8 or 9. Since 1990, the smallest gap between #1-#9 in the lottery is 11 wins, and the average is 17.7, going as high as 25. So this year there actually is a lot of "parity" at the bottom of the league, but usually that is not the case.
So, if I accepted your premise (the bottom 10 teams in the league are about equally bad most years) then I'd say setting the lotto odds equal for all those teams would be reasonable. But when the gap between the best and worst teams in that range averages nearly 20 games, well, if a lottery is the solution you pick then a weighted lottery seems appropriate to me.
kingsfan1984
Starter
Tbis approaxh coupled with no top 3 pick 2 years in a row would go a long way to minimizing tanking. The "fix" next year will still creat a tank fest for the nottom 3 spots as well as continued tanking for the prize of 5th 6th 7th etc.
I still ghink there needs to be some human element involved...perhaps Silver would determine how many teams would have the equal odds in the lottery such as 1-8 one yeat and 1-10 next year depending on a judgment call of crappiness
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There was only one Tankathon game Thursday, but it went well for the Kings, with the nothing-to-lose-for Nets pulling off the win to leave the Kings alone in 6th place - for now.
Friday has a much fuller schedule, starting with the Kings on the road in Memphis. This is a big game, because while as of now the Kings still have a mathematical chance at being tied for 2nd, a win coupled with a Hawks loss at Washington would leave the Kings a chance at no better than 4th - and that's probably the most likely scenario by the end of the day. In other games, Dallas visits Detroit, Orlando hosts Charlotte, the Bulls go to Boston, and the Knicks host Miami.
KingsFanSince85
All-Star
Honestly, that really wasn't the crux of my point. It doesn't really matter whether they are equally as bad or not. So my bad for even bringing that up. Let's say for arguments sake there is some decent separation ... does it really matter? If you're a bottom 10 team, you aren't really in playoff contention -- which provides an incentive to tank in order to then improve draft position.
While not every year and in every situation, but in general the teams 11-14 are within reach of the post season deep into the season. And it's not the best thing to also have them in play for a top pick. Most of those teams are good enough (and winning enough) that tanking wouldn't come into play for them until real late in the season.
The main thing is to prevent the remaining teams from having incentive to lose while also preventing the Orlando 1993 scenario. Is there a perfect way to do it? Likely not. But I believe it'd be far better than what they've got now.
Perhaps there's a better tipping point than 10. That's just a number I thought would work most years. If you lower it to 7 or 8, there'd be more teams falling out of contention earlier in the season trying to then stay in that bottom 7 or 8. Having it at 10 keeps it closer to the teams that are still in contention for an 8th seed.
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There's still somewhat realistic hope for at least a tie on 4 or 5... Fingers crossed
I've been thinking about that a lot this year, because of how things have come out. We jockey for ranking, which is really a poor way to compare teams. The #1 Suns have won games at about .25, the #9 teams are at .35, and the #10 team at .43. Distributing ping pong balls proportionally, based on W-L record, the bottom 9 would do well, and the higher teams would lose out, which is just as it should be. Ranking is a really arbitrary system that encourages racing towards the bottom. A game or two one way or the other should not be the big deal that ranking makes it.
Mass
Starter
The only realistic way to prevent teams from tanking and fighting for the bottom spots is to have GMs listing the other 29 teams at the end of the season. They would create a draft order, from 1 to 29 (they wouldn't be allowed to list their own team), the final results of all the 30 GMs would be the draft order.
I'm sure GM's wouldn't reward teams like Memphis, already with 2 stars, trying to tank as hard as they can with no respect for the game. This in my opinion is the only way to make sure the worst teams get the firt picks and to prevent teams from tanking.
I'm sure GM's wouldn't reward teams like Memphis, already with 2 stars, trying to tank as hard as they can with no respect for the game. This in my opinion is the only way to make sure the worst teams get the firt picks and to prevent teams from tanking.
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