My lottery solution

kupman

kupman

Starter
Alright, with all the talk about the so-called "unfair lottery" and the all suspected tanking I have decided to e-mail David Stern my solution.

The front office of every team in the playoffs will submit a vote by secret ballot on what they believe should be draft order for the lottery. The commissioner's office will then average the ranking for each lottery team submitted by the teams in the playoffs and the results will determine the lottery draft order.

It will curb obvious tanking. Tanking will probably be punished by the voters. Plus, it will take fairness out of the equation. It is not about fairness - it is a vote. It will also encourage teams to be nice to each other. You do not want to p*** anyone off when you may need their vote in the future.

It's so crazy that it just might work.
 
This will create a black market and secret dealings between teams negotiating picks for trades. My friend it's not the vote that counts, it's the people who counts the vote...


EDIT - Keep your political editorial off this board. kthxbye.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If teams were unscrupulous enough to try and bye votes with money under the table I am not sure if it work......they would have no idea if the team they "bought" would actually vote they way the agreed with the secret vote.
 
Never satisfied; the NBA have the fairest draft system of any sports league in North America, if not the world.
 
There's too much possibility for outside influences with a voting system, not to mention teams will start campaiging. If you're going to go as far as trying to tip the scale, it probably isn't very hard to figure out wheter the people who's back you scratched followed through or not.
 
Mr. S£im Citrus said:
Never satisfied; the NBA have the fairest draft system of any sports league in North America, if not the world.
Click to expand...
I don't know if it's the fairest or not, but regardless, it encourages tanking more than any other major sport here in North America. So there's nothing wrong with being unsatisfied with that system and wanting it changed.

My favorite solution is to reduce but not eliminate the weighting. This still provides a greater chance to horrible teams than good teams. It also makes tanking much less rewarding, hopefully reducing the potential benefits enough to make it less rewarding than trying to win. Finally, the lottery show will become a bigger and bigger deal for fans and add more excitement in the middle of the playoffs for those whose teams are out of contention.
 
Another thing they might try is expanding the lottery to five teams instead of three. This way the team with the worst record could theoretically slide to sixth, which would make tanking pointless.
 
The NBA lottery is pretty fair as it stands. However, I still think that it needs to be fixed because of the temptation of tanking. Tanking (either real or perceived) is not good for the game as it runs counter to the spirit of the game IMHO. I would say that 1 ball per non-playoff team is a good way to go, but the idea of the Clippers having a 13% chance of landing either Oden or Durant frightens me.

This is why I threw out my idea. I am just trying to think outside the box and I am only being half serious. The drama that could go along with such a system, like the pandering, would be comical and entertaining if nothing else.
 
nbrans said:
Another thing they might try is expanding the lottery to five teams instead of three. This way the team with the worst record could theoretically slide to sixth, which would make tanking pointless.
Click to expand...
:confused: The point of tanking is to gain a higher probability of landing a top pick. A worse worst case might discourage it a little, but not much.

kupman said:
The NBA lottery is pretty fair as it stands. However, I still think that it needs to be fixed because of the temptation of tanking. Tanking (either real or perceived) is not good for the game as it runs counter to the spirit of the game IMHO. I would say that 1 ball per non-playoff team is a good way to go, but the idea of the Clippers having a 13% chance of landing either Oden or Durant frightens me.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's pretty much like I was thinking, reduce the weighting some but not all the way to one ball per team. Something like this:
Code: 
Pos		Balls		% Chance
1		100		10.0%
2		95		9.5%
3		90		9.0%
4		85		8.5%
5		80		8.0%
6		75		7.5%
7		70		7.0%
8		65		6.5%
9		60		6.0%
10		55		5.5%
11		50		5.0%
12		45		4.5%
13		40		4.0%
14		35		3.5%
Rd1		7		0.7%
 
You realize of course that it used to run that way? And the percentages were gradually worsened over time precisely to respond to the impression that teams who did not deserve to nab a top pick were getting it anyway.

It is a quandry. The natural system is just go in reverse order like every other league does. But that of course is tank central, and why the NBA went to a lottery in the first place to try to discourage Houston from finding more ways to finish #1 every year. So then they go to a lottery, and inthe very first year the Knicks win it form the 7th spot or some such, and the worst teams in the league get screwed and have a harder time turning it around. And so then you start to gradually make the percentages of that happening smaller and smaller, but at some point you begin to backslide right back to something approaching the pure reverse order system that you started the lottery to try to avoid.

Hey, at least the NBA tries. Gets some theater out of it too. The otehr leagues just shrug, and perhaps can afford to since having the #1 pick is nowhere near as significant in those leagues in most seasons.
 
uolj said:
I don't know if it's the fairest or not, but regardless, it encourages tanking more than any other major sport here in North America. So there's nothing wrong with being unsatisfied with that system and wanting it changed.
Click to expand...
It isn't the system that's the problem. The draft system used by other sports is MUCH more permissible of blatant tanking teams to be rewarded.

The difference between basketball and other sports, particularly in the NBA, is that it's basically the one sport where one player can single-handedly turn a team around. It's the one league where it's been proven that one player can turn a 25-57 team into a 57-25 team in a year. That's why teams are going to keep trying to tank in the NBA; it's not because of the system, because the system that's in place is as close to a tank-proof method as you can create, it's because of the nature of the sport.

Nobody raises an eyebrow when the team with the worst record in the NFL gets the number-one pick, or in Major League Baseball; it's only because of the fact that one player can make a difference in the NBA and not in those other sports that people allow themselves to ignore the double standard.
 
I understand all that and agree completely. But just because it's not the system's "fault" doesn't mean the system cannot be improved. Like I said, even if the NBA system is fairest, if the nature of the sport means that the result isn't ideal, then it should be acceptable to be unsatisfied with it and want to make it better. There's really nothing else that can be changed besides the draft to do that.
 
Top pick goes to the team representative who can eat the most hot dogs in 20 minutes.

Do you think Brandon Roy still would've pulled it off?
 
Maybe they could do it like the legislature does the budget... your record in the current year would determine your lottery pick three years hence.

Since it would be nearly impossible to figure out how good the draft would be in three years, perhaps teams wouldn't risk all the negatives of tanking for a much bigger unknown.
 
VF21 said:
Maybe they could do it like the legislature does the budget... your record in the current year would determine your lottery pick three years hence.

Since it would be nearly impossible to figure out how good the draft would be in three years, perhaps teams wouldn't risk all the negatives of tanking for a much bigger unknown.
Click to expand...

That's so completely ridiculous there might actually be something to be said for it. ;)

At least it is thinking outside of the box, which is after all just basically a continuum between strictly in reverse order, to 100% random with all teams, in the lottery or not, having an equal shot. But putting in a time delay...that woudl produce some extremely unsatisfactory results when you had sucked all year and as in our case would be picking about 23rd or so, but still...wacky, but interesting at least.
 
Bricklayer said:
You realize of course that it used to run that way? And the percentages were gradually worsened over time precisely to respond to the impression that teams who did not deserve to nab a top pick were getting it anyway.

It is a quandry. The natural system is just go in reverse order like every other league does. But that of course is tank central, and why the NBA went to a lottery in the first place to try to discourage Houston from finding more ways to finish #1 every year. So then they go to a lottery, and inthe very first year the Knicks win it form the 7th spot or some such, and the worst teams in the league get screwed and have a harder time turning it around. And so then you start to gradually make the percentages of that happening smaller and smaller, but at some point you begin to backslide right back to something approaching the pure reverse order system that you started the lottery to try to avoid.

Hey, at least the NBA tries. Gets some theater out of it too. The otehr leagues just shrug, and perhaps can afford to since having the #1 pick is nowhere near as significant in those leagues in most seasons.
Click to expand...

Yes, the NBA tries - this year the worst teams got screwed but can anyone honestly say the Celtics weren't trying to lose almost the entire year?

The reason why the NBA NEEDS a lottery similar to the one we have now is to avoid complete tanking. I realize that all other sports give draft position based on record, but the NBA is completely unique from all other sports in that just one player, just one player, can completely turn around a franchise in a heartbeat. In football, you have 22 starters, and 55 players - sure, one franchise quarterback really helps out but he'll rarely win you a championship on his own. IN baseball, you'll be lucky if a #1 pick leads you the the playoffs.

But in basketball, you have the unique opportunity when that year comes around when you have a franchise player who will assuredly turn things around for you.

That's why the lottery is important in the NBA. Sure I feel bad for Grizzlies fans (not Celtics fans - don't ask me to feel sorry for a franchise who has won a billion championships and who overtly tanked 2/3 of a season), but in my opinion, it's for the best of the game.
 
cfechter said:
Yes, the NBA tries - this year the worst teams got screwed but can anyone honestly say the Celtics weren't trying to lose almost the entire year?

The reason why the NBA NEEDS a lottery similar to the one we have now is to avoid complete tanking. I realize that all other sports give draft position based on record, but the NBA is completely unique from all other sports in that just one player, just one player, can completely turn around a franchise in a heartbeat. In football, you have 22 starters, and 55 players - sure, one franchise quarterback really helps out but he'll rarely win you a championship on his own. IN baseball, you'll be lucky if a #1 pick leads you the the playoffs.

But in basketball, you have the unique opportunity when that year comes around when you have a franchise player who will assuredly turn things around for you.

That's why the lottery is important in the NBA. Sure I feel bad for Grizzlies fans (not Celtics fans - don't ask me to feel sorry for a franchise who has won a billion championships and who overtly tanked 2/3 of a season), but in my opinion, it's for the best of the game.
Click to expand...

I agree with cfechter and Mr. S£im Citrus, the NBA is all by it self by how one player could impact a team and that is why the lottery is great.

In my opinion we should just leave it only, people just same to overreact when an event like Tuesday happen and try to fix something that is not broken. Boston got what they deserved for tanking for the better part of the season. The lottery basically did what it was supposed to do, it punished a team like boston for tanking but they still got a decent pick at 5. Even thou it wont be a Durrant or Oden at 1 or 2, it is sure better then a pick at 10. If anything this tells teams to show up and play each and every night and let the lottery play it self out.

And just think if we went to the NFL or Baseball way and go by recored. I could see teams like Alt and Cha tanking from the start to get a player like Lebron or Oden in the draft. They know they won't make the playoffs so they go for the second opition which is big time tanking.
 
DaMan said:
In my opinion we should just leave it only, people just same to overreact when an event like Tuesday happen and try to fix something that is not broken. Boston got what they deserved for tanking for the better part of the season. The lottery basically did what it was supposed to do, it punished a team like boston for tanking but they still got a decent pick at 5. Even thou it wont be a Durrant or Oden at 1 or 2, it is sure better then a pick at 10. If anything this tells teams to show up and play each and every night and let the lottery play it self out.
Click to expand...
You've got that concept wrong; the NBA Draft Lottery is designed to remove the advantage of trying to play for the worst record; it is not designed to "punish" teams that tank.

And anyway, Memphis lost sixty games; even if they lost some games down the stretch, they didn't lose sixty games on purpose. A horrible season should be punishment enough. And, if the league genuinely believes that they were doing something untoward, then you actually punish them for real: you take away their draft picks for x amount of seasons, you don't proclaim that "justice" was served just because they got a bad draw.
 
The only way to eliminate tanking is to get rid of the guaranteed contract. Teams in the NFL do not tank because every player is fighting for his job every game, with a few exceptions.
 
hardly. Teams stick their best players on IR almost immediately after they get eliminated from the playoffs.

Sure the scrubs play hard, but who cares?
 
Not to mention without guaranteed contracts, the NBA would become an even more me-first league than it is now. Players would play every game for their stats and their stats alone.

Players do this in the NFL too, but it actually works to their advantage more often than not, because its hard to put up great numbers outside of your team concept in football.

In basketball, it's very easy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
NBA GMs Vote Kings Rookie 'Biggest Steal' in 2024 Draft
Replies
0
Views
197
Sacramento Kings On SI
S
Ozymandias
Following Potential *2024* Draftees
18 19 20
Replies
593
Views
33K
hrdboild
hrdboild
Capt. Factorial
Can we get a quality player in the 2023 draft?
2
Replies
56
Views
4K
206Fan
2
bajaden
Bajaden's final 2023 Mock Draft
2 3 4
Replies
92
Views
8K
ockingsfan
ockingsfan
venom_7
Venom_7 Doxxes | A Ghost of Christmas Past
Replies
2
Views
577
venom_7
venom_7
Back
Top