NBA considering changes to the lottery (split)
- Thread starter kingsboi
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Love the elimination of the Harden rule. Not a fan of the new lottery odds.
I mean when I think of what irritates me about the NBA, there are quite a few things I can think of off the top of my head. Whistles being blown every 10 seconds. Extensive free throws. Throwing up 35ft shots to get a whistle that you know aren't real basketball plays. No defense allowed. Players intentionally running into defenders to get the call. Flagrants being called on anything that could be considered a hard foul. Referees taking forever and a day to look at a replay. Super teams creating a monopoly over the league. The commissioner wanting players to become more political. Resting big names during road games where the fans of that city only get to see those players one time a year. The last 2 minutes of the game taking 20 minutes to get through.
Out of all that, the Suns, Sixers, Kings, Magic etc tanking at the end of the year is basically at the very bottom of the list of things that make the NBA less watchable for me. Theoretically watching something like a 25-57 tanking Suns team finish the year 30-52, due to not tanking, does absolutely nothing for the viewing pleasure of the league. But keeping the Suns from being able to get the next star while allowing an already established team to sneak in and steal that star in the draft does a heck of a lot of harm to the fans of Phoenix and the team as a whole. The rich are able to get richer and now it's easier for the poor to stay poorer.
I mean when I think of what irritates me about the NBA, there are quite a few things I can think of off the top of my head. Whistles being blown every 10 seconds. Extensive free throws. Throwing up 35ft shots to get a whistle that you know aren't real basketball plays. No defense allowed. Players intentionally running into defenders to get the call. Flagrants being called on anything that could be considered a hard foul. Referees taking forever and a day to look at a replay. Super teams creating a monopoly over the league. The commissioner wanting players to become more political. Resting big names during road games where the fans of that city only get to see those players one time a year. The last 2 minutes of the game taking 20 minutes to get through.
Out of all that, the Suns, Sixers, Kings, Magic etc tanking at the end of the year is basically at the very bottom of the list of things that make the NBA less watchable for me. Theoretically watching something like a 25-57 tanking Suns team finish the year 30-52, due to not tanking, does absolutely nothing for the viewing pleasure of the league. But keeping the Suns from being able to get the next star while allowing an already established team to sneak in and steal that star in the draft does a heck of a lot of harm to the fans of Phoenix and the team as a whole. The rich are able to get richer and now it's easier for the poor to stay poorer.
I do agree with you that the NBA has been a tough watch the last couple of seasons with the offensive players having way too much power in terms of getting the benefit of the whistle while flailing their arms in the air, flopping off a screen, receiving shooting fouls when it's on the floor, a 95% use of illegal screens, etc.
That said, Silver is making progress in the right direction with the Harden rule. Within time, he may consider speeding the game up, especially towards the end and he has done so by eliminating the amount of timeouts teams have.
You mentioned teams like the Sixers, Magic & Suns. It's not as if they have been having any success, they've all been in the lottery time and time again with the current lottery odds and while the Sixers have been the most fortunate of the bunch in terms of moving up the draft, they haven't done a single thing. It's a nice team to look at on paper.
I don't see anything wrong in proposing a new strategy in terms of lottery odds because you and I have no clue whether the rich will get richer. It's not as if those teams that have all the talent in the lottery have done a masterful job of surrounding their players. Either that or they've been hit with unfortunate injuries to their star players. I'd say let's give these new proposals a shot before we crucify the decision.
That said, Silver is making progress in the right direction with the Harden rule. Within time, he may consider speeding the game up, especially towards the end and he has done so by eliminating the amount of timeouts teams have.
You mentioned teams like the Sixers, Magic & Suns. It's not as if they have been having any success, they've all been in the lottery time and time again with the current lottery odds and while the Sixers have been the most fortunate of the bunch in terms of moving up the draft, they haven't done a single thing. It's a nice team to look at on paper.
I don't see anything wrong in proposing a new strategy in terms of lottery odds because you and I have no clue whether the rich will get richer. It's not as if those teams that have all the talent in the lottery have done a masterful job of surrounding their players. Either that or they've been hit with unfortunate injuries to their star players. I'd say let's give these new proposals a shot before we crucify the decision.
They've lowered the odds for the worst teams to be able to get the best players. Yeah there are no absolutes because you can either pick a Lebron James or an Anthony Bennett at #1 but the odds are that you're going to get a really good player if you pick first. Now you're lowering the odds of the worst team to be able to get the best player and you're raising the odds for an 8th seed to be able to sneak in and snatch that player up.
I just don't see how it benefits the league as a whole. Especially in this current day and age when free agents and trades are happening to create super teams. The bad teams have almost no shot at landing a good free agent, they don't have any assets to trade for a good player and now they have lower odds of landing a good player in the draft. Essentially they are stuck in purgatory unless they get even luckier than they needed to get in previous years to land a star in the draft.
I personally don't understand how this makes the league better for anyone. I guess saying the rich getting richer isn't the right term because it wont have any bearing on the actual rich teams like Cleveland or GS but what it does is give a team like Portland higher odds to come in and snatch an all star away from a team like Orlando that has none. It might not happen exactly that way from year to year but if you graph it over time you'll see that the worst teams are going to have a harder time landing good players and the teams that are in playoff contention will have an easier time.
I just don't see how it benefits the league as a whole. Especially in this current day and age when free agents and trades are happening to create super teams. The bad teams have almost no shot at landing a good free agent, they don't have any assets to trade for a good player and now they have lower odds of landing a good player in the draft. Essentially they are stuck in purgatory unless they get even luckier than they needed to get in previous years to land a star in the draft.
I personally don't understand how this makes the league better for anyone. I guess saying the rich getting richer isn't the right term because it wont have any bearing on the actual rich teams like Cleveland or GS but what it does is give a team like Portland higher odds to come in and snatch an all star away from a team like Orlando that has none. It might not happen exactly that way from year to year but if you graph it over time you'll see that the worst teams are going to have a harder time landing good players and the teams that are in playoff contention will have an easier time.
I can't seem to find an article for some reason but I believe it was Carmichael Dave that was reading them on the radio the other day. The bottom 3 used to collectively have a 60% chance or so of getting the #1 pick. Now each team in the bottom 3 will have a 14% chance a piece, which drops the total down to 42%. That allows other teams to sneak in.
So all we have to go by as of now are projections. Nothing is set in stone and even if the bottom 3 teams only have a 14% chance of landing the top pick, that really doesn't hold much merit as it pertains to the Kings because you know the Kings don't get top 3 draft picks. If the chances increase for teams slotted in 3-8 or 3-10 that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It would quite possibly help the Kings IMO.
I've said this before, but if I were in charge, Id go back to what we used to have before the lottery. The team with the worse record gets the first pick in the draft. If a team is willing to throw away an entire season to choose an unproven player, have at it. But I'm not in favor of any system that gives a chance to a borderline playoff team at getting the top pick. It defeats the entire purpose of the draft, which is to insure, or at least try to ensure that the worse teams get an opportunity to become competitive.
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There would be a endless battle between lottery teams to get the worst record and way too many players sitting out and teams throwing games. I don't know if the NBA would go for that. I know you said that's what YOU would do but there really is no right or wrong way. Ideas and change should always be considered especially if the league lacks parity.
It looked like only one owner voted against and maybe one abstained. Don't know why they have to wait. Maybe that was simply the way it was proposed. According to the ESPN article, there were some other rule changes that were tabled in order to get it done. I didn't understand what the other changes were that the article was talking about.
Thoughts on Stan Van Gundy’s idea to do away with the draft altogether. Let rookies be free agents and teams have to be under the cap to sign them. Good idea or bad idea?
It would certainly be interesting to see where the best rookies would choose to play. Lonzo would likely have still picked the Lakers. But other players could have decided to take their talents elsewhere. Not sure I’m in full agreement with SVG on this, but it would create another round of free agency frenzy to get excited about.
As for these changes there’s not been a great deal of change, just slight tweaks. Ultimately I don’t think the league will ever get rid of tanking unless they eliminate the draft altogether and go with SVG’s idea, or they give every non-play off team the same odds in the lottery so a team trying to get into the play offs like Miami is as likely to get a top pick as a team that’s making no real effort to win games. Reducing and tweaking the odds won’t help, likewise going to an NFL system won’t either. The bad teams will tank to get better players, it’s risky, but it’s how most teams rebuild.
It would certainly be interesting to see where the best rookies would choose to play. Lonzo would likely have still picked the Lakers. But other players could have decided to take their talents elsewhere. Not sure I’m in full agreement with SVG on this, but it would create another round of free agency frenzy to get excited about.
As for these changes there’s not been a great deal of change, just slight tweaks. Ultimately I don’t think the league will ever get rid of tanking unless they eliminate the draft altogether and go with SVG’s idea, or they give every non-play off team the same odds in the lottery so a team trying to get into the play offs like Miami is as likely to get a top pick as a team that’s making no real effort to win games. Reducing and tweaking the odds won’t help, likewise going to an NFL system won’t either. The bad teams will tank to get better players, it’s risky, but it’s how most teams rebuild.
I think it was reported that OKC was against, and Dallas abstained. I'm not positive tho I'm going from memory.
I wonder who the likely winners/losers are based on previous trades involving draft picks... anybody study and publish this yet? Do Kings project to be a winner or loser on their 2019 pick based on the lotto reform?
I wonder who the likely winners/losers are based on previous trades involving draft picks... anybody study and publish this yet? Do Kings project to be a winner or loser on their 2019 pick based on the lotto reform?
It really depends on where we finish in the regular season next year. If we finish very poorly (bottom three) then waiting for lottery reform is in our favor. If we finish 4th-worst or better then it would have been better for lottery reform to have been implemented right away. You can see the current and 2019- odds here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_draft_lottery
Did not realize you were a psychologist. Good to know.
It's actually how the league already works. It's why George Hill is probably the best free agent signing we've had in forever. It's why homes cost more in Miami and Los Angeles vs. Oklahoma City and Milwaukee. It's why players are constantly looking to go to New York or LA despite how poorly the team is doing at the time. People want to play under the lights of a big market. No amount of deregulation is going to change that. It just seems odd to me that people are like man it sucks that we can't bring in free agents....hey I know...lets make it so we can't bring in any good rookies as well!
It's actually how the league already works. It's why George Hill is probably the best free agent signing we've had in forever. It's why homes cost more in Miami and Los Angeles vs. Oklahoma City and Milwaukee. It's why players are constantly looking to go to New York or LA despite how poorly the team is doing at the time. People want to play under the lights of a big market. No amount of deregulation is going to change that. It just seems odd to me that people are like man it sucks that we can't bring in free agents....hey I know...lets make it so we can't bring in any good rookies as well!
There's a maximum of thirty guys that can play in Los Angeles at any given time, and no amount of dreams of playing 'under the lights of a big market' is going to change that. Which is also why, in addition to eliminating the draft, you also eliminate max salaries, while also adding a hard cap. Take away owners' ability to go over the cap to sign players, and the problem will correct itself.
I don't know who "we" is supposed to be in this sentence, but I'm pretty strongly opposed to poorly-run franchises being rewarded for their ineptitude. I'm also opposed to players being conscripted to play for teams, without having any say in the matter; players getting drafted to teams they don't want to be on is why they end up leaving in free agency, in the first place.
Besides, that's why you implement all three of those changes, and not just one of them: Even when/if a franchise is able to put together a team of three or four stars, they're not going to be able to turn around and offer the top incoming rookie a big contract. And a rookie is unlikely to sign on to come off the bench for a title contender for a million, if there's a team looking to rebuild, that's willing to pay them ten.
I don't know who "we" is supposed to be in this sentence, but I'm pretty strongly opposed to poorly-run franchises being rewarded for their ineptitude. I'm also opposed to players being conscripted to play for teams, without having any say in the matter; players getting drafted to teams they don't want to be on is why they end up leaving in free agency, in the first place.
Besides, that's why you implement all three of those changes, and not just one of them: Even when/if a franchise is able to put together a team of three or four stars, they're not going to be able to turn around and offer the top incoming rookie a big contract. And a rookie is unlikely to sign on to come off the bench for a title contender for a million, if there's a team looking to rebuild, that's willing to pay them ten.