whitechocolate
Bench
Give us Indiana's and Utah's picks. Problem solved.
Race to the Bottom thread
- Thread starter iowamcnabb
- Start date
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
The NBA hates us.
I get it this hurts us, but I generally do like these changes.
It's not perfect, but I think the biggest problem is the last 2 months of the NBA season are absolute ****ing garbage as a product. We had fans on this forum actually typing Precious freaking Achiwua is too good to play on a rebuilding team. Like what are we doing here?
There can be issues from this, but in the current system; you still had a team like the Mavs move up and get rewarded for being complete dumbasses. There's always been "lotto luck" involved.
Hoo boy, this is a mess.
Will be updating this post with a summary of the expected new rules...
Gone is the system of distributing 1000 four-ball combinations to teams. Instead, each team in the lottery (16 teams) will have a specific number of (presumably) team-marked balls:
- Teams in the 1-3 slots ("relegation area", LOL) will get 2 balls each (6 balls total)
- Teams in the 4-10 slots (missing play-in) will get 3 balls each (21 balls total)
- Teams in the 9/10 play-in seeds will get 2 balls each (8 balls total)
- Teams losing the 7/8 play-in game will get 1 ball each (2 balls total)
So, if these reports are correct, there will be 37 balls. ALL 16 lottery slots will be determined by ball draw, not just the top four.
There are a few other complicating twists:
- Teams in the "relegation area" cannot fall below the 12th pick, even if their luck sucks. Presumably this means that if all 1-2-3 seeds are still unselected after pick 9 is selected, then they get picks 10, 11, and 12 respectively.
- No team can get the top pick in consecutive years. Presumably this means that if the team that got the top pick in the previous year is again in the lottery, that their ball(s) will not be added to the hopper until after the first pick is selected.
- No team can get a top-5 pick three years in a row. Presumably this means that if a team that received top-5 picks in the last two years is again in the lottery, that their ball(s) will not be added to the hopper until after the first five picks are selected.
- Teams will not be allowed to protect picks in the 12-15 slots when trading picks (I'm going to have to noodle that one)
Happily there is a sunset provision which allows the NBA to back out of this after the first three drafts (2027-2029) because I think this proposal will hurt bad teams and the results will not be as the NBA hopes, but that's just me. A team that barely misses the play-in is MORE likely to get a good pick in the draft than the worst team in the league. Not only is there now zero incentive to "tank", but being bad actively hurts you. The local minimum that a bad team can get sucked into here is extremely bleak, and small-market teams like the Kings are just the teams that stand to suffer under this proposal. This is just such a huge unforced error by the league as it is "stewarded" by the man who continually proves himself to be the worst commissioner in its history.
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sactowndog
Hall of Famer
Super bad for the Kings.
If we don't get our star this year, we could be in for a long stretch of 15-win seasons, even trying as hard as we can. This year's lottery just became very important for us.
I could not have put it better
sono
Starter
Who is he, does he have authority to influence it?
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
Yeah too bad we didn’t actually tank. I would prefer every combination I can get
Some Twitter guy I've never heard of, I doubt it
The league loves gambling so much they should rate teams vs. their over under and assign draft position there.
No, I'm still clueless as to what they're doing here. 12-15 seems to have no real significance. 13-16 is the "no-go" zone for a bottom-three team, but this doesn't say 13-16, so.
Assuming that the rule effectively says "when trading a first-round pick, the 12-15 slots MUST be included", this would actually prevent teams from trading two portions of their first round pick. For instance, it would be legal to trade a top-10 protected 2028 pick (includes 12-15), but then a subsequent trade of the 1-10 portion of the 2028 pick would be disallowed, because the 12-15 slots could not be included. I think that's what the logic here is. "If you're going to trade a protected FRP, then 1) You have to include at least some juicy slots, and 2) Once you've traded a protected pick, you're stuck with the rest of the pick; it's untradeable."
Dongoodboy
Bench
I wonder what will be our real result when these teams won't be losing so blatantly like fielding G-leaguer against us. Could be like 10-72
"Him"mer Fredette
G-League
How does this not force small market teams to abandon their loyal fans and go to more desirable (big market) locations for free agents? I'll hold my doom and gloom until after the lottery but if we get bad lotto luck it will be hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel...
Isn't this a problem in itself though? Why should we have to find out which teams are pretending to be bad and which teams are actually bad?
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
I hate you, Adam.
David, please come back!
David, please come back!
The solution to the problem is worse than the the problem. The solution to the problem punishes teams that are actually bad, making it that much harder for them to ever rise out of it.
Again, the fact we don't know who is "actually bad" is the problem here.
I don't think this solution is the end all be all either, but I think it does solve the very real problem we saw this year of 10+ teams simply just punting the last 2 months of the year and not caring at all about staying competitive. That's horrible for the game. And just through our forum here; people saying we should have benched Carter when he went off in the 4th Q vs Indy. Precious being "too good" to play in a tank. I remember after the Laker win, fans lamenting that it hurt our lotto odds rather than being stoked we beat the GD Lakers.
Needs some tweaks and we'll see how this plays out over the next few years, but I think this mostly accomplishes the goal of making teams field their best possible rosters night in and night out. It's a start
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
There's so much wrong with this visual that I don't even know where to begin, lol!!!
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Vecenie said he talked to a GM who said it’s much easier to go from bad to good than it is to go from good to great (Mike Brown said this too). This system could potentially help good teams become great. Maybe that’s a good thing? Bad franchises are still going to be bad unless they get good decision makers in the room, regardless of where they draft (hello Kings). Teams like the Kings, Hornets, Pelicans etc aren’t bad because they didn’t get lottery luck, they were/are bad because of decision making/injuries. Draft well, trade well, develop well, win on the margins. Still going to require luck in the draft, just don’t think sucking should be rewarded.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
I don’t even think the monkey need to be trained
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
They will when everyone else plays their good players.
Except, we do know who is actually bad? Like, here's Utah benching their all-stars in the fourth!
I've already beaten this dead horse, but there are two problems. (1) Tanking is a problem. (2) Competitive imbalance in the league is a problem.
A solution like a straight reverse-order draft does a good job of addressing the second problem while exacerbating the first. Typical lottery systems partially address both, but only partially. The new system more or less fully addresses the first problem while exacerbating the second.
We should address both problems simultaneously, and I believe in principle we can. But current NBA leadership isn't astute enough to recognize this and get out of the lottery framework entirely.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
We don't?
Also the restrictions on how many times a team can draft first and top 5 consecutively could make it really bad to win the lottery in an off year when your reward is someone like Zaccharie Risacher not the next Wemby. That becomes a 5 year problem rather than a 1 year problem if you're now locked out of the top 5 for the next 3 or 4 seasons. And perhaps not talked about enough is what this will do to traded draft picks when nobody has any idea where that pick will land. Does that make them a lot more valuable or less valuable? In 2031 we own Minnesota's pick outright but San Antonio has the right to swap for ours. (We also get SA's pick next year if it's 1-16 but that seems unlikely)
It sure would be a nice time to have a winning team already with a couple of established stars and a good coach. Such a situation would put you ahead of the game while all the bad teams are suddenly scrambling to figure out a new plan.
It sure would be a nice time to have a winning team already with a couple of established stars and a good coach. Such a situation would put you ahead of the game while all the bad teams are suddenly scrambling to figure out a new plan.
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