The NBA needs to eliminate tanking

[TheyCallMePro]

This is shaping up to be the worst season of the NBA, parity-wise, ever. 14 out of 16 teams in the East are absolute garbage. The Spurs,Trailblazers, and Thunder are a combined 26-1 vs Eastern Conference teams this year, with the lone loss being from the Spurs to the Pacers.

The NBA is full of teams with pathetic rosters. Unless their owners are complete morons (Knicks) it's impossible to argue that their teams, as presently constructed, have been put together to compete and to win.

About 20 teams in the NBA are tanking right now. The elite teams are going to all win 60+ games automatically because they'll never lose to a team that's tanking. Take the Spurs for example. The Spurs are 13-0 vs teams with losing records (tanking teams) and conversely, 6-5 vs teams with winning records (non-tanking teams). 70% of teams fans have already lost hope in this season. If you think some of these arenas are empty now, just wait until February and March. They'll resemble graveyards, except that even the dead wouldn't be caught dead in them.

This is terrible for the NBA. The league has always teetered on the edge of maintaining the public's respect. This season of tanking will serve to destroy whatever is left of it. If the NBA wants to gain any of it back, they can NEVER let a season like this happen again. Having said that, here's what they need to do:

The NBA needs to GUARANTEE that the worst 3 teams (record-wise) will receive the LAST 3 draft picks in the 1st and 2nd round of the draft. Doing this prevents teams from assembling terrible rosters, for fear of the extreme consequences of doing so. This also keeps every team in the NBA trying to win as many games as possible. Half of the teams will be trying to win to make the playoffs while the other half will be desperately trying to win to avoid finishing in the bottom 3. The last half of the regular season will go from being unwatchable-- to flat-out compelling, as even the teams in the bottom half will be immersed in a bloodbath to not lose any more games. Other than this one stipulation, the draft would be left alone, with the corresponding W/L record of teams determining the order of where they draft outside of the lottery, which would now only feature 11 teams.

The continuing viability of the NBA is more important than individual teams futures. Besides, the worst NBA teams shouldn't be rewarded for trying to lose, or for being plain-out terrible. Right now tanking has built a losing culture in the NBA. And it''s not just the teams that are losing, but the NBA as a whole as empty arenas, low television ratings, and the loss of generated revenue comprise to destroy it.

This is the NBA's chance to change their losing culture. By eliminating tanking, they could increase interest in the regular season, and by doing so elevate the NBA to a whole new level. But apparently, they're too dumb to think of a solution of how to do so and they need our help. So please. For the love of the NBA, submit responses with solutions on how to stop tanking and we'll figure it out for them. Then, once we find a viable one, we'll mass send out our solution and solve this issue.

[irishock]

Who wrote this shitty article?

[apalisoc_9]

tanking is a must in american sports because players don't go to soccer academies like they do in Europe. It's the only way to maintain some sort of competitiveness in the long-run..

Would you rather watch LA and Botson winning every championship?

[HI-FI]

Steve Nash once mentioned this idea, something they do in certain soccer leagues, where they have a tournament for the lottery teams, and whoever wins the tournament gets the no.1 pick, second place gets the 2nd pick etc.... I think that would make shit a lot more interesting. the NBA has still a lots of way to go to fix things.

[MolaMola790]

Steve Nash once mentioned this idea, something they do in certain soccer leagues, where they have a tournament for the lottery teams, and whoever wins the tournament gets the no.1 pick, second place gets the 2nd pick etc.... I think that would make shit a lot more interesting. the NBA has still a lots of way to go to fix things.
so the best worst team would get the number one pick? doesn't that defeat the purpose of the lottery?

[HI-FI]

so the best worst team would get the number one pick? doesn't that defeat the purpose of the lottery?

I think Nash was saying that the team that played the hardest would get rewarded, saying how in certain soccer leagues, it turns out to be a very fun tournament to watch. I like that idea better than the crooked lottery.

[lefty]

Man the draft system used to be so shitty in the 70's-80's, especially in an era where most GM's got Ujiried by Red and Jerry (who got top draft picks in wtf trades).



Lakers have a good team and they get Magic, then a few years later Worthy.

Celtics destroy the NBA in 86, then get Len Bias, but he went all black on the white stuff.

[apalisoc_9]

Steve Nash once mentioned this idea, something they do in certain soccer leagues, where they have a tournament for the lottery teams, and whoever wins the tournament gets the no.1 pick, second place gets the 2nd pick etc.... I think that would make shit a lot more interesting. the NBA has still a lots of way to go to fix things.

I guess once the play-off starts the shitty teams can start playing for drfats ( Let's call it the shitty teams playoffs). And to determine the picks for playoff bound teams, whoever wins the championships get's the highest pick too..Gotta play hard to get rewarded. lol 6-8 seeded teams would benefit the least out of this system though

[DPG21920]

Steve Nash once mentioned this idea, something they do in certain soccer leagues, where they have a tournament for the lottery teams, and whoever wins the tournament gets the no.1 pick, second place gets the 2nd pick etc.... I think that would make shit a lot more interesting. the NBA has still a lots of way to go to fix things.

I've already posted the solution - you don't even have to do the tournament. All you have to do is switch the way you assign the odds. Don't even have to change the probabilities, simply change the teams you award it to. Instead of the worst record getting the best odds, the best team to miss the playoffs gets that and work your way all the way down to the worst team.

Not only does it eliminate tanking, but if you truly want better basketball and more parity, that system allows teams "on the cusp" to make that next jump by having the possibility of obtaining top flight, young, cheap talent or giving them a great asset to trade with in order to make the next jump.


so the best worst team would get the number one pick? doesn't that defeat the purpose of the lottery?

The purpose of the lottery is supposed to give teams the ability to get better. However, you see tanking as a result of this and you reward not only tanking and poor play, but poor choices (since teams that are constantly in the lottery have other issues: bad management, drafting, trades, contracts...). If you want to give more teams a chance to compete, reward the teams that do more good and try to put a quality product on the floor. Give them the shot, since they typically make better decisions overall, to improve more quickly.

The system of rewarding sucking rarely works and leads to a lot of bad teams since the reason they are bad is bad management in general. Getting a good pick more often than not is a giant waste on them. The only time it's not is if a team lucks into a true superstar (Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, Wade, Durant) which is incredibly rare.

[baseline bum]

I've already posted the solution - you don't even have to do the tournament. All you have to do is switch the way you assign the odds. Don't even have to change the probabilities, simply change the teams you award it to. Instead of the worst record getting the best odds, the best team to miss the playoffs gets that and work your way all the way down to the worst team.

Not only does it eliminate tanking, but if you truly want better basketball and more parity, that system allows teams "on the cusp" to make that next jump by having the possibility of obtaining top flight, young, cheap talent or giving them a great asset to trade with in order to make the next jump.


I think that's a horrible idea. Instead of having bad teams tank, you'll have the borderline playoff teams tanking. If your choice is between having a great shot at getting the chance to pick one of Parker, Randle, and Wiggins vs getting your teeth kicked in by Miami in the first round, you're not gonna throw a few games to miss the playoffs?

[DPG21920]

I think that's a horrible idea. Instead of having bad teams tank, you'll have the borderline playoff teams tanking. If your choice is between having a great shot at getting the chance to pick one of Parker, Randle, and Wiggins vs getting your teeth kicked in by Miami in the first round, you're not gonna throw a few games to miss the playoffs?

Why thank you BB - I was hoping someone would bring that up. I highly, highly doubt a "borderline" playoff team will tank.

1) The financial incentive, especially for everyone outside of the Lakers/Knicks, for making the playoffs is quite huge. I surely doubt owners would give the ok to forgo not only the revenues from the playoffs, but the chance to build experience from the playoffs for his team that is right there.

2) Not only is there significant financial incentive, but it would be very difficult from a practical sense to do what you say. In order to do that, you would have to be good enough to get a playoff spot in the first place. If you are that good and have pushed all year to win as many games as you can to get the best pick or make the playoffs, to be able to shut that off or somehow just tank the last 5 games or so would be in practice quite difficult.

3) Ownership aside, good luck getting a coach/players to tank when they have a shot at the playoffs. Not only does ownership get a financial boost, but so do the players coaches. Both directly (incentives/bonus/sharing) but indirectly (perform in the playoffs and possibly get a bigger contract down the road).

4) You have to throw out the anomalies as well. No system is perfect, but it's about what makes the most sense and accomplishes the overall goal more often than not. Sure, in a year where the East is full of losers, you might run into some situations (but, because of what I explained above, shouldn't be a concern). Let's say you do have those issues though - well, it's such an anomaly that this would happen you just can't worry about it. Same with this draft. It's pretty rare you have a draft that is this "stacked". Most years it's not. That doesn't mean the draft isn't valuable, jus that the argument of "Parker, Randle, Wiggins.." doesn't come up all that often. There's really not many years where there are players worth tanking for tbh..

[DPG21920]

Also, let's say the problem you brought up does exist and all of what I said doesn't matter. Isn't it still better? That would still mean it's teams pushing the vast majority of the year playing as hard as they can and only tanking a few games instead of an entire season. Not only that, but if a borderline team did tank at the end of the year it only helps my point. If you want parity and competition and a better brand of basketball, you have to make those teams on the cusp make the jump faster to legit playoff team/contender. Getting that borderline team a Wiggins does that.

[DPG21920]

Bump - this is actual basketball discussion and I would like to hear others thoughts. With DPG's pull and subtle goods, I might get this implemented tbh..

[Rogue]

The current lottery system is actually a de-facto encouraging system to those tanking teams imho. I thought of a feasible solution like 2-3yrs ago, when I said teams with the shittiest records (like the bottom 3 or something) should be deprived of their draft picks so even the tanking teams would have more or less incentives to win games.

[Rogue]

there's no sin in tanking, but there should be a limit to it just like everything tbh.

[DPG21920]

Agreed, and tanking isn't even close to the top reason I think my system makes sense. I just don't think tanking is that big of an issue in reality and my system just happens to clean that up from an ancillary perspective. The real benefit is getting more teams competitive which increases the quality brand of basketball.

[DPG21920]

HarlemHeat37 Chinook what are yalls thoughts on this?

[TheyCallMePro]

I've already posted the solution - you don't even have to do the tournament. All you have to do is switch the way you assign the odds. Don't even have to change the probabilities, simply change the teams you award it to. Instead of the worst record getting the best odds, the best team to miss the playoffs gets that and work your way all the way down to the worst team.

Not only does it eliminate tanking, but if you truly want better basketball and more parity, that system allows teams "on the cusp" to make that next jump by having the possibility of obtaining top flight, young, cheap talent or giving them a great asset to trade with in order to make the next jump.



The purpose of the lottery is supposed to give teams the ability to get better. However, you see tanking as a result of this and you reward not only tanking and poor play, but poor choices (since teams that are constantly in the lottery have other issues: bad management, drafting, trades, contracts...). If you want to give more teams a chance to compete, reward the teams that do more good and try to put a quality product on the floor. Give them the shot, since they typically make better decisions overall, to improve more quickly.

The system of rewarding sucking rarely works and leads to a lot of bad teams since the reason they are bad is bad management in general. Getting a good pick more often than not is a giant waste on them. The only time it's not is if a team lucks into a true superstar (Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, Wade, Durant) which is incredibly rare.

Yeah, this goes along the lines of my idea. Don't reward teams for sucking. Punish them. That way, teams will do everything in their power to try to get better, instead of to get worse. The draft system has it all backwards right now. It may make the worst teams a little better, but it makes the league worse as a whole.

[Rogue]

DPG's system is innovative and interesting, but it also has its own flaws. Just like BB pointed it out above, teams will begin tanking for the #9 seeds if DPG's system gets its way. Sure, playing in the playoffs generate more incomes for the team and increases the team's popularity among fans, but the difference isn't that significant when your team makes the playoffs only to receive the broom in the first round imho.

And it'd broaden the gap between good teams and bad ones in the long term, good teams getting better and the shitty ones getting even shittier, and finally the 30 teams will be sorted in two extreme groups. And the league would be split again someday into two leagues, NBA and ABA, like how things were in the mid 20th century. Our economy has been going that way for many decades and as you might have seen it, it doesn't work, because a strong middle class is always the foundation of a healthy economy imho.

[DPG21920]

DPG's system is innovative and interesting, but it also has its own flaws. Just like BB pointed it out above, teams will begin tanking for the #9 seeds if DPG's system gets its way. Sure, playing in the playoffs generate more incomes for the team and increases the team's popularity among fans, but the difference isn't that significant when your team makes the playoffs only to receive the broom in the first round imho.

And it'd broaden the gap between good teams and bad ones in the long term, good teams getting better and the shitty ones getting even shittier, and finally the 30 teams will be sorted in two extreme groups. And the league would be split again someday into two leagues, NBA and ABA, like how things were in the mid 20th century. Our economy has been going that way for many decades and as you might have seen it, it doesn't work, because a strong middle class is always the foundation of a healthy economy imho.

Disagree - boiled down, you see continually the same teams seemingly in the lottery year over year. It's because of how they are managed (which includes not only wasted draft picks, but bad contracts, ect..). Even if you think the financial incentive is not good enough to prevent teams from tanking that still means a team will have to play their best for 90% of the year which is more entertaining than today. So that doesn't even bother me.

But to the middle class point. As those cusp teams get those great draft picks, they will make the jump and force other teams up naturally. The shitty ones stay shitty in today's system anyways (see the Bobcats, Toronto...) so this will force them to be better managed and compete. There will always be losers, but in this system I feel the losers will all be better versions of themselves because of the setup. If not, they deserve to fail tbh just like the fail today.

[baseline bum]

1) The financial incentive, especially for everyone outside of the Lakers/Knicks, for making the playoffs is quite huge. I surely doubt owners would give the ok to forgo not only the revenues from the playoffs, but the chance to build experience from the playoffs for his team that is right there.


It's only two extra home games if the 1 or 2 seed in your conference is a juggernaut. Very worth forgoing in a loaded draft if you're a Milwaukee, a Minnesota, a Memphis, etc. who can only get franchise players in the draft since no great player leaves to anywhere but LA, Miami, NY in free agency.



2) Not only is there significant financial incentive, but it would be very difficult from a practical sense to do what you say. In order to do that, you would have to be good enough to get a playoff spot in the first place. If you are that good and have pushed all year to win as many games as you can to get the best pick or make the playoffs, to be able to shut that off or somehow just tank the last 5 games or so would be in practice quite difficult.


But you're not that good and probably haven't been pushing that hard when you're a borderline playoff team.



3) Ownership aside, good luck getting a coach/players to tank when they have a shot at the playoffs. Not only does ownership get a financial boost, but so do the players coaches. Both directly (incentives/bonus/sharing) but indirectly (perform in the playoffs and possibly get a bigger contract down the road).


You can dump guys at the trade deadline, cut players on expiring deals, fire the coach or force him to play along, things like that.



4) You have to throw out the anomalies as well. No system is perfect, but it's about what makes the most sense and accomplishes the overall goal more often than not. Sure, in a year where the East is full of losers, you might run into some situations (but, because of what I explained above, shouldn't be a concern). Let's say you do have those issues though - well, it's such an anomaly that this would happen you just can't worry about it. Same with this draft. It's pretty rare you have a draft that is this "stacked". Most years it's not. That doesn't mean the draft isn't valuable, jus that the argument of "Parker, Randle, Wiggins.." doesn't come up all that often. There's really not many years where there are players worth tanking for tbh..

So your solution eliminates tanking in years where tanking wouldn't be a problem anyways.

[Rogue]

tanking teams won't stop tanking just because they see other teams being good imho. you're probably making a paradox here, to tell you the truth. The shitty teams are being poorly managed and they don't give a shit about winning, so I don't see how you're gonna find any kick up their arses that would "force" them to compete tbh. Bottom teams need help (in the forms of high draft picks mainly) to turn things around, and if you don't give them such help they would simply quit, and they'd be even shittier.

I'm not saying my solution would definitely work but at least it is more feasible and reasonable imho. Just deprive the bottom 3 of their draft picks so even the tanking teams would have some incentives to win games to avoid finishing bottom three, which's like the relegation rule in MOST sports leagues in Europe imho. The competition among bottom teams in those leagues (like the English premier league) will always be more fierce and intense than the top flight, near the end of the season, and those teams can often upset the top ones. it's like, the top teams are fighting for glory, while the bottom teams are fighting for life. Can't believe you've actually played soccer tbh, when you don't even watch soccer at all.

[mudyez]

It's hard to stop tanking alltogether, but the best and most balanced way would be to have the same odds (one ping pong ball each) for each non-playoff team.

[baseline bum]

Also, let's say the problem you brought up does exist and all of what I said doesn't matter. Isn't it still better? That would still mean it's teams pushing the vast majority of the year playing as hard as they can and only tanking a few games instead of an entire season. Not only that, but if a borderline team did tank at the end of the year it only helps my point. If you want parity and competition and a better brand of basketball, you have to make those teams on the cusp make the jump faster to legit playoff team/contender. Getting that borderline team a Wiggins does that.

I don't like giving any team an incentive to tank. I would just do a straight-up equal odds lottery like Stern implemented after Houston's back-to-back tank jobs. No borderline playoff team will tank their playoff chance for a 1 in 14 shot at even a LeBron, but they'd be fools not to for a 1 in 4 shot if they're first round fodder under your system. And conversely no bad team will bench their best players (like New Orleans with Davis last season) when it can do nothing to improve its draft spot.

[baseline bum]

It's hard to stop tanking alltogether, but the best and most balanced way would be to have the same odds (one ping pong ball each) for each non-playoff team.

I think that would completely eliminate tanking.

[PlayNando]

The champion should receive the 1st pick, tbh. To the winner goes the spoils, tbh..........

[irishock]

It's hard to stop tanking alltogether, but the best and most balanced way would be to have the same odds (one ping pong ball each) for each non-playoff team.

Can't wait for Lakers, Celtics, Knicks to win top 3 picks for the foreseeable future

[PlayNando]

It's not like some scrub team like Milwaukelol, etc. are going to get anything out of a first round pick, anyways, tbh. They will always suck and sign scrubby chubby chuckers like Gary Neal to fk things up for them.

[DPG21920]

[QUOTE=DPG21920;7014997]Why thank you BB - I was hoping someone would bring that up. I highly, highly doubt a "borderline" playoff team will tank.



It's only two extra home games if the 1 or 2 seed in your conference is a juggernaut. Very worth forgoing in a loaded draft if you're a Milwaukee, a Minnesota, a Memphis, etc. who can only get franchise players in the draft since no great player leaves to anywhere but LA, Miami, NY in free agency.

It is still significant revenues for teams even in your worst case scenario. Best case scenario it's much more. That's just for ownership too. Players get financial awards for making the playoffs too.




But you're not that good and probably haven't been pushing that hard when you're a borderline playoff team.

What do you mean? If you have to win plenty of games to get the draft pick, you have to be somewhat good. Not only that, you have to try and win all year where all teams are trying to win so you are probably pretty good. True contender? No, but that is the point.




You can dump guys at the trade deadline, cut players on expiring deals, fire the coach or force him to play along, things like that.

Doing those things when you are winning games and the 9th seed seems highly illogical and you rarely ever see that happening. If you are close to making the playoffs, but decide it's better for you to tank to get a stud young player vs making the playoffs because you can get a number one pick dumping guys and firing coaches who got you close to the playoffs makes 0 sense. You would just set yourself back further for the sake of getting a player who by himself doesnt make you better. You have to add that player to a team already close to being a playoff team for him to matter unless it's a once in a generation player like Duncan/Lebron.




So your solution eliminates tanking in years where tanking wouldn't be a problem anyways.

Tanking is not really a big problem in any year IMO, not even this one. My solution eliminates tanking in every year. And in the random year where a Duncan or Lebron is available and you see tanking, it would only be tanking for 5-10 games vs 82. It's a win-win. Everyone would be pushing to win enough games to not make playoffs which is more enteraining.

[PlayNando]

The NBA currently operates like a socialist system, trying to create artificial equality. This is complete bullshat. The champions should be rewarded for their success and given the first pick. The second pick should go to the runner-up, etc. Anything else is complete socialist fell-good baloney.

[mudyez]

I think that would completely eliminate tanking.

There might be this years(like14), where you rather have that chance of getting great pick, than beeing a 7th or 8th seat. But yeah, most years there would ne no tanking at all.


Can't wait for Lakers, Celtics, Knicks to win top 3 picks for the foreseeable future

It's not like teams like the Kicks never get picks or the Lakers have no chance at putting together a great team while not beeing the the playoffs.

[Killakobe81]

[QUOTE=baseline bum;7015086]

It is still significant revenues for teams even in your worst case scenario. Best case scenario it's much more. That's just for ownership too. Players get financial awards for making the playoffs too.





What do you mean? If you have to win plenty of games to get the draft pick, you have to be somewhat good. Not only that, you have to try and win all year where all teams are trying to win so you are probably pretty good. True contender? No, but that is the point.





Doing those things when you are winning games and the 9th seed seems highly illogical and you rarely ever see that happening. If you are close to making the playoffs, but decide it's better for you to tank to get a stud young player vs making the playoffs because you can get a number one pick dumping guys and firing coaches who got you close to the playoffs makes 0 sense. You would just set yourself back further for the sake of getting a player who by himself doesnt make you better. You have to add that player to a team already close to being a playoff team for him to matter unless it's a once in a generation player like Duncan/Lebron.





Tanking is not really a big problem in any year IMO, not even this one. My solution eliminates tanking in every year. And in the random year where a Duncan or Lebron is available and you see tanking, it would only be tanking for 5-10 games vs 82. It's a win-win. Everyone would be pushing to win enough games to not make playoffs which is more enteraining.

[DPG21920]

It's hard to stop tanking alltogether, but the best and most balanced way would be to have the same odds (one ping pong ball each) for each non-playoff team.

I agree, from a purely tanking perspective, this might be the best idea and I would even prefer this to the current system. However, I don't like this idea as much because it doesn't truly incentivize winning. It discourages tanking, but doesn't directly reward winning. Not only that, tanking is just not an issue. There is a reason that TOR/CHA are always in the lottery. It's not that they are tanking. Tanking implies you are good, but purposely do things to lose in order to add talent unfairly. If that were the case, these teams in the lottery would "tank", get their lottery pick and then all of the sudden be good. Since we know that doesn't happen, it points to them not tanking but just being bad teams.

Your idea only encourages winning from the perspective of: "Well, there is no benefit in losing", but it doesn't really make a team push to win. My system does that while still eliminating tanking. The key I guess is what are you trying to accomplish. My system isn't trying to eliminate tanking (although it pretty much takes care of it) - my system is designed to make good teams really good or great which makes the NBA better. The system of making terrible teams slightly less terrible is silly to me.

[ElNono]

I would say a mix of handing out even odds for non-playoff teams and also distributing revenue-sharing among non-tax teams based on overall ranking for the past season. What that does is make the lottery actually fair to everyone (tanking makes no sense when you have the same odds if you suck completely or you borderline suck), and there's a monetary incentive to actually strive to win games, even if you're not a contender or playoff team.

IMO

[DPG21920]

I would say a mix of handing out even odds for non-playoff teams and also distributing revenue-sharing among non-tax teams based on overall ranking for the past season. What that does is make the lottery actually fair to everyone (tanking makes no sense when you have the same odds if you suck completely or you borderline suck), and there's a monetary incentive to actually strive to win games, even if you're not a contender or playoff team.

IMO

I am assuming you mean distributing revenue-sharing for nontax teams that don't make the playoffs?

[Kidd K]

The NBA needs to GUARANTEE that the worst 3 teams (record-wise) will receive the LAST 3 draft picks in the 1st and 2nd round of the draft. Doing this prevents teams from assembling terrible rosters, for fear of the extreme consequences of doing so. This also keeps every team in the NBA trying to win as many games as possible. Half of the teams will be trying to win to make the playoffs while the other half will be desperately trying to win to avoid finishing in the bottom 3. The last half of the regular season will go from being unwatchable-- to flat-out compelling, as even the teams in the bottom half will be immersed in a bloodbath to not lose any more games. Other than this one stipulation, the draft would be left alone

Quoting the part the matters. I actually agree with this at least in theory. I don't think it'll work exactly as you think because then the 4th worst gets the best chance? Then teams will just be more careful while tanking then try to turn it on late, or pad their wins a little then tank hard so they can control their destiny a bit better. If you wanna tank, you can practically choose your finishing seed among the bottom dregs.

You can never take away "bad teams getting draft picks" because that's how sports are balanced against the big cities and richest franchises from getting the best players and winning every single year. Those cities will always have an advantage because of that, but when you take away the draft structure, the whole system will fall in on itself besides the top dogs.

I don't really know a good way to fix it, but it's obvious the eastern conference is complete trash and full of tankers. They're worse than the west regardless but gimmie a break. Teams that aren't even in the west playoff picture would be 3rd in the east. :rolleyes

[RsxPiimp]

Steve Nash once mentioned this idea, something they do in certain soccer leagues, where they have a tournament for the lottery teams, and whoever wins the tournament gets the no.1 pick, second place gets the 2nd pick etc.... I think that would make shit a lot more interesting. the NBA has still a lots of way to go to fix things.

So what incentive does this bring to the players? Whose to say the players will take these games seriously?

The current system is fine IMHO.

[ElNono]

I am assuming you mean distributing revenue-sharing for nontax teams that don't make the playoffs?

Yes. For example, you would split equally the amount among the number of teams involved, and those that made the playoffs would get their share. Those that did not, would be ranked by their position and then you would reward those that did better (for example, you take the top team and add a 10% to their share, which would come out from the worst team share, etc).

[PlayNando]

The NBA is redistributing the wealth. Spreading it around, tbh.

[SpurSwag]

Idk I don't think this is really something that can ever be really fixed

The idea of having a tournament of all the lottery teams with the winner getting the number 1 pick doesn't exactly work for a couple reasons. Let's say you are the Milwaukee Bucks, a small market with undesirable night life and not the best weather, and you just can't attract talent. If being bad doesn't get them the pick, they are stuck in absolute mediocrity until some no name manages to develop into a star on their team or they get a great coach who can get a lot more out of them

[mudyez]

I agree, from a purely tanking perspective, this might be the best idea and I would even prefer this to the current system. However, I don't like this idea as much because it doesn't truly incentivize winning. It discourages tanking, but doesn't directly reward winning. Not only that, tanking is just not an issue. There is a reason that TOR/CHA are always in the lottery. It's not that they are tanking. Tanking implies you are good, but purposely do things to lose in order to add talent unfairly. If that were the case, these teams in the lottery would "tank", get their lottery pick and then all of the sudden be good. Since we know that doesn't happen, it points to them not tanking but just being bad teams.

Your idea only encourages winning from the perspective of: "Well, there is no benefit in losing", but it doesn't really make a team push to win. My system does that while still eliminating tanking. The key I guess is what are you trying to accomplish. My system isn't trying to eliminate tanking (although it pretty much takes care of it) - my system is designed to make good teams really good or great which makes the NBA better. The system of making terrible teams slightly less terrible is silly to me.

"incentivize winning"....wtf? is there any incentivize of winning for any team but 3-4 contenders then?

winning creates interest...interest creates ticketsales
winning creates playoffs...playoffs creates money

[Arcadian]

The only bad thing about changing the draft system is that it would preclude comparisons between any teams post-change with pre-change, because it would change the whole system of how teams are constructed.

From a pre-change team's perspective, they would think, "That's not fair - if we have been given the #1 draft choice in 20XX, we would have been title contenders by now" or something like that.

[Flintstones32]

I don't think all sub .500 teams are tanking like OP says. Take the Pistons. Their talent is very young. They have given some great teams some trouble this season and I think they are getting better every week.

No hope as a fan? It is nice seeing your team improve each week even if they have no shot at a title, they will be competing in a couple years.

[Captivus]

I cant remember who, but I think last year someone had an idea that I liked.
The idea was to LIMIT the picks a team could have in consecutive years, it was something like this (probably not, but the idea remains):

Picks 1-3: No more than 1 in a 3 year period
Picks 4-10: 3 / 3 years
Picks 11-14: 5 / 5 years

So if a team can gets the 1st pick one year, they cant get a top 3 in the next 2 years. Why not make it a Top 3 pick every 5 years instead of 3?
This is just an example (probably wrong) but, the idea is to LIMIT picks, so tanking doesn't necessary mean better picks.

The best solution is probably a combination of many things, but this idea I like.

This would help eliminate tanking because, jut because

[Expert]

the problem in the East has nothing to do with taking on the draft lottery. The problem is too much revenue for too little production. look at New York for example, they don't have to win a single game to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Sure that would make a little bit more if they won more games but they're not hurting regardless. I can't say the same for Brooklyn however. it must be profitable for these guys to lose these games else they would not own the team or they would not lose as many games. It seems these people just bring in whomever of the street to coach the teams.

[ambchang]

The problem about the solutions to tanking is that it goes against what the league wants to achieve, parity amongst all teams. The league, ultimately, wants to run a socialist approach by equalizing the playing field, essentially rewarding the weak by penalizing the strong. While there is some merits to this by given small market teams a chance and essentially broadens the base market for the league, the side effects are that some teams will purposely do poorly to get the handouts, like the abuse of the social benefits system at the expense of society.

The Clippers did it for a number of years, the Bobcats did it a few times by putting in a minimum waged team and get revenue sharing to make a profit. It extends to tanking to get top picks, because the lottery, in and of itself, is a mechanism to reward the worst of the worst.

To eliminate tanking, the league will have to reward good behaviour in the form of either revenue or top talent, but this creates an issue that is reflected in capitalistic societies, where the rich gets richer, and the poor gets poorer. The league absolutely do not want this to happen as bankruptcy of weaker teams is not beneficial to the league overall.

The best way to do this has already been mentioned a couple of times, and it is to have a combination of tax sharing for the better teams, best non-playoff team getting the most lottery balls, and also averaging records over a number of years as a ranking to avoid a Lebron or Wiggins sweepstakes.

[Killakobe81]

I agree, from a purely tanking perspective, this might be the best idea and I would even prefer this to the current system. However, I don't like this idea as much because it doesn't truly incentivize winning. It discourages tanking, but doesn't directly reward winning. Not only that, tanking is just not an issue. There is a reason that TOR/CHA are always in the lottery. It's not that they are tanking. Tanking implies you are good, but purposely do things to lose in order to add talent unfairly. If that were the case, these teams in the lottery would "tank", get their lottery pick and then all of the sudden be good. Since we know that doesn't happen, it points to them not tanking but just being bad teams.

Your idea only encourages winning from the perspective of: "Well, there is no benefit in losing", but it doesn't really make a team push to win. My system does that while still eliminating tanking. The key I guess is what are you trying to accomplish. My system isn't trying to eliminate tanking (although it pretty much takes care of it) - my system is designed to make good teams really good or great which makes the NBA better. The system of making terrible teams slightly less terrible is silly to me.

If DPG is still advocating a lottery (which I believe he is) ...then his plan makes sense. All you are doing is flipping the odds and like he said the teams that are close get help taking the next step if the balls break their way. You increase the odds of a fringe team like the Bulls pre DRose a chance to be great ...
The bottom feeders still have a chance to get lucky ...

[Killakobe81]

I also like the fact that DPG is also placing a incentive on building the best team ...
Sure someone COULD still tank late (just miss the playoffs) by sitting/shutting down a star but that happens right now.
And as DPG said, they still would be playing well for months before the "tank" ...

[Killakobe81]

I also thinks contraction could help elevate play ... sure teams will still screw up ...but there is not enough talent to stock 30 teams tbh ...
If the talent was better distributed ...there would be less incentive to tank.

[Cowboys_Wear_Spurs]

It's hard to stop tanking alltogether, but the best and most balanced way would be to have the same odds (one ping pong ball each) for each non-playoff team.

That's a good thought, but sometimes its more than just tanking. Bad Management, Bad Coaching, Bad Chemistry between players. The lottery was establish to prevent tanking. And getting a top pick year in and year our doesn't ensure success. So tanking isn't a viable option anyway.

Quite honestly the EC team just suck or very marginal outside of the Heat and Pacers.

[mudyez]

When I wrote "most balanced way" I thought about the balance between "giving worse teams some help (even though they might not deserve it)" and "don't help them to the point that the best way to be good, is to be bad."

While right now the worst record you can have in todays NBA is something around 41:41 (no chance/no good chances for a great pick). So teams that are 20:62 are in a better shape than you and its somewhat easy to sabotage your way to such a worse record.

82:0 perfect
62:20 great
41:41 (making playoffs) bad
41:41 (missing playoffs) not as bad
20:62 great
0:82 next best thing to a championship if the draft ist great

With giving every non-playoff-team the same chance at getting the #1 pick (and maybe all the way up to #14) you may still be better as a 41:41-team that misses the playoffs than a team that makes it and has no chance in round 1. but how often would a team purposely tank themself out of the playoffs (for a 1/14 chance of getting #1) without losing their whole fanbase? and you at least are in a better shape with 41:41-missingPOs than any team with a worse record.

82:0 perfect
62:20 great
41:41 (making playoffs) not so great
41:41 (missing playoffs) good
20:62 bad
0:82 your franchise will move :)

[ambchang]

In terms of lack of talent, I don't think the issue is with the players talents. Really, the difference between the 200th best player vs. the 300th best player in the league is minimal, as compared to the best player in the league (Lebron) vs. the 100th best player in the league, or even the 10th best player in the league. So shrinking down the number of teams will not really help immensely.

The issue with more teams is the spread in talent from a coaching and management perspective. You only need a one or two of these guys to make a good team, and there simply aren't 30 of them in the league right now. Some of those GMs and coaches are just horrible and do not deserve a job. They simply got it because there are 30 teams and every team needs one.

[Phillip]

Knicks are definitely tanking. It doesn't make any sense for them to be as bad as they have been.

[Captivus]

Maybe teams that have more than X salary shouldnt get a lottery pick or something like that.
So if the franchise has money (Nets) they dont get a lottery pick. This makes sense. Team would stop overpaying players, these players will be in other teams and there will be more balance.
IDK...

[Chinook]

HarlemHeat37 Chinook what are yalls thoughts on this?

Why not use a split lottery system in which both the worst and best lottery teams have the same odds? That both incentivizes trying for the playoffs and allows the truly horrible teams to get talent. Sure, there will be some tanking, but because there are essentially only half the spots to tank toward, the teams have just as much enssentive to get better.

So a horrible team like Utah or Milwaukee would still tank, but decently bad teams like Phoenix, Boston and Philly would not have to dump assets just to make sure they don't win themselves out of a good draft pick.

Cons: teams at the end of the playoffs will try to lose out--who cares? It's not like they were going to be good anyway; it just further incentivizes getting a high playoff seed.

Hurts mid-lottery teams--again who cares? They were stuck in no man's land anyway.

The East sucks so much that it's hard to grab a low-lottery spot without accidentally making the playoffs or tanking--indeed. Hopefully that changes some time soon.

[phoenix219]

Phoenix is decently bad?

Are we watching the same league?

[Chinook]

Phoenix is decently bad?

Are we watching the same league?

Of course they are. They aren't likely to make the playoffs, but they aren't mailing it in either. So I think they'd do really well with a high pick. Philly is tanking hard but in the split system would probably just play normally.

[angrydude]

The real problem is the conferences splitting the playoff teams.

In order to make the playoffs in the west you have to be pretty damn good. In order to make the playoffs you NEED a good organization that drafts, trades, decently well or you're at the bottom and nobody goes to your games and you make no money.

Out east, lots of bad teams make the playoffs and are therefore "playoff teams". Since they made the playoffs the owners can say "we're a pretty good team, we made the playoffs last year!" get people to buy tickets so they make money even though their team sucks. They don't have to fire the GM/coach and hire people who know what they're doing and stay the same shitty team year after year.

Hence the conference disparity.

[RsxPiimp]

Knicks are definitely tanking. It doesn't make any sense for them to be as bad as they have been.

Don't know why,coz they're not getting that pick :lol

[spurraider21]

I think the equal odds system is the only way you can discourage tanking. Teams will still suck, but nobody will have incentive to artificially suck.

[Lulzaur]

I honestly do not believe it's possible to completely correct the system because fringe teams in the original solution will forfeit games in order to get that one draft pick to put them over the top. It also allows for the middle class to really separate themselves from the rest of the down trodden, which it not what you really want. That being said, it's a crap shoot anyways since the majority of teams haven't shown a logical capacity to draft well these days unless they're drafting 1-4 and still (Cleveland), some fail miserably. I think one solution that could be looked at is removing the playoff contenders from the first found entirely. Give the playoff contenders the top picks in the second round in ascending order from worst to best, and the remaining 16 to the lottery teams.


This way lottery teams get 2 picks in the first round and 1 in the second.

[phoenix219]

Of course they are. They aren't likely to make the playoffs, but they aren't mailing it in either. So I think they'd do really well with a high pick. Philly is tanking hard but in the split system would probably just play normally.

How are they unlikely to make the playoffs at 16-10, 2 games behind the Clips for the division, and in possession of the 6th seed, with a third of the season completed?

[Thread]

How are they unlikely to make the playoffs at 16-10, 2 games behind the Clips for the division, and in possession of the 6th seed, with a third of the season completed?

They're a team, and they know it. They've suppressed the egos (if there were any to speak of) and they fear no one. And in THIS NBA they can dance, and they know it. I'm just fortunate they're in the West instead of the East and they'll have to run a gauntlet before any kind of disaster could threaten the "owen."