Proposal to do away with NBA Draft Lottery

[Dave]

Saw this brought up on Skype. Here is the article I found with more info:

sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/nba-discussing-proposal-away-draft-lottery-eliminate-tanking-192755179--nba.html

The discussion surrounding NBA teams “tanking” and willingly turning in losing efforts in order to obtain high-end draft picks has reached a fever pitch. Though some teams have been more “successful” than others in punting games this season -- and even though finishing with the worst record guarantees only a 25 percent chance at the top overall pick during the NBA’s yearly draft lottery -- many fans and scores of print personnel see this type of rebuilding plan as a bad thing for the league.

Things came to a head on Monday when Grantland’s Zach Lowe, a mindful sort who isn’t among those rattling the cages while kvetching about tanking, published a proposal that has been discussed by the league as a resolution to end the tank jobs. In the system under discussion, the NBA would set up a “wheel” of rotating draft picks, one that would ensure a team a top overall pick every 30 years, with established guaranteed picking spots at all points in between 2 and 30 in the ensuing years. Though it isn’t as severe as a fantasy draft, the selection points aren’t unlike a team having the final pick in the first round, followed by the top pick in the second round.

The process would do away with the NBA’s draft lottery, which has been in place since 1985 and weighted heavily since 1994. Whether it would change the landscape of the league all that much is anyone’s guess. From Lowe’s report:

The team that gets the no. 1 pick in the very first year of this proposed system would draft in the following slots over the system's first six seasons: 1st, 30th, 19th, 18th, 7th, 6th. Just follow the wheel around clockwise to see the entire 30-year pick cycle of each team, depending on their starting spoke in Year 1.

The system is designed to eliminate the link between being very bad and getting a high draft pick. There is no benefit at all to being bad under a wheel system like this. If you believe tanking is morally wrong, or that it hurts business by alienating fans and cutting into attendance, this is a system you could get behind.


I think that could be neat if done properly. However I would imagine that the league would be pretty unbalanced for a while and way too easy to set up superteams with NBA ready rookies.

[Madrid]

Four problems I see with this:

1. You can't put this on a trial run. It has to run the full thirty years to be fair.
2. In light of what we've been talking about, what happens with potential expansion?
3. I feel like this would make the NBA more deterministic. Teams would more generally cycle in and out of competition and rebuilding in a rather predictable fashion, except for a few well-managed teams that could establish dynasties.
4. Draft declaration. Many top players would declare if larger market or championship teams had the top pick. If it's a small market and/or losing team, a top prospect like LeBron James might wait a year or two to declare.

I do think this is an intriguing idea. However, I'd rather see something a little more complex, like having a lottery among 5-10 teams every year (those teams determined by the wheel), with the rest of the picks falling in order by standings. Or even something very simple, such as extending the lottery to ten picks (so the worst team in the league could get pick #11).

[Phil Jackson]

#1. If they vote to remove it because it's that bad, it'll get removed even if not finished. Just needs votes.
#2. There is a provision for expansion/contraction in the proposal submitted (article didn't go into details)
#3. How? The order of receiving picks isn't very consistent, in the sense you'll have a decent pick for a year and then a bad one they year after. If a team is consistently good or bad, it'll have to do with their decisions, not their draft picks. Check out the proposed order
#4. This is the most common argument brought up and strongest, but how many top picks will actually do that? How many years is the top pick actually guarenteed to be someone? How often does a Lebron come out? You could solve this by allowing teams to draft the rights to a player like international players.

[BC Žalgiris]

Let the Cavs have a bunch of number ones, we will still draft an asthmatic, frumpy guy or a white guy that can't move.@@

[Derek]

Not loving this... gotta be something brighter out there.

Saw Mark Cuban tweet he wishes worst 2 records couldn't get the top 2 picks.

[BC Žalgiris]

Combine this awful draft idea and the new god awful short sleeve jerseys. Not sure if the NBA is trying to make me hate basketball but it is working!

[Dave]

Yeah, I found those X-mas jerseys to be the most hideous things I've seen on a court since John Stocktons shorts. I get that they want all the extra revenue they can drum up, but is just having a home and away jersey such a bad thing?