SilverPlayer
04-17-2007, 04:31 PM
I wrote this please tell me what you think. I would be happy to see it in print somewhere at some point to maybe get the idea some traction.
Every year there are three races to end an NBA season; the race of the best to secure home court advantage though out the playoffs, the race amongst the peripheral teams to make the final spot in the playoffs, and the malodorous race to the bottom to secure a good draft position. The first two races make for some of the most exciting competitions in the NBA. Good to mediocre teams suddenly start to claw and scrap with the best of them acting as spoilers or even victors in their attempt to have a shot at the playoffs.
On the other hand, good teams loaded with potential systematically shut players down, feigning injuries, or worse boredom. Given that bad teams still charge around 50-100 dollars per ticket this seems absolutely unfair to everyone involved. It also means when the good teams come stomping into town gearing up for the playoffs, the game is hardly contested.
A cry for an end to this detestable practice has been gaining steam around the league. Some including the outspoken Charles Barkley have called for the loosening of the weighting system that guarantees more ping pong balls to the bottom feeders. While this has some merit and would alleviate the problem somewhat it would also ruin the level of parity that the league has been able to achieve through the draft.
My suggestion on the other hand would be to break up the draft into the two conferences, East and West, geographically. Players would be randomly assigned to either the east or the western conference and teams would then draft from their conference pool only. This would not completely solve the problem, but it would make a significant difference in how teams assessed the risk of tanking.
Let’s look at the 2003 draft as our example. Lebron stood as the consensus number 1 pick in the draft pool. Any team that got the number one pick would have taken him, but let’s say that even having the number 1 pick did not guarantee more than a 50% chance of actually drafting him. The team managers would be forced to reconsider tanking when a much better team from another conference might have just as much chance to draft Lebron as they do. This would have an added bonus of creating more parity between the eastern and western conferences after a few years of following it.
Taking the 2003 draft as our model, lets run the numbers to see how it would come out, if we follow the order of draft picks as they were chosen (ie- Lebron is selected by the first team that can, Milicic is second, Anthony third, etc.) I randomized their names and then alternated E or W assignments. In my scenario the teams would have selected the following:
East
1- Cleveland – Lebron James
2- Detroit – Carmelo Anthony
3- Toronto – Dwayne Wade
4- Miami – Michael Sweetney
5- Chicago – Nick Collison
6- Milwaukee- Marcus Banks
7- New York- Reece Gaines
8- Washington- Troy Bell
9- Orlando- Aleksandar Pavlovic
10- Boston- Dahntay Jones
11- Boston- Boris Diaw
12- Atlanta- Brian Cook
13- New Jersey- Ndudi Ebi
14- Detroit- Kendrick Perkins
15- Memphis (via Orlando)- Josh Howard
West
1- Denver – Darko Milicic
2- Clippers – Chris Bosh
3- Golden State- Chris Kaman
4- Seattle- Kirk Heinrich
5- Memphis- TJ Ford
6- Seattle- Jarvis Hayes
7- Phoenix- Michael Pietrus
8- New Orleans- Zarko Cabarkapa
9- Utah- David West
10- Portland- Zoran Planicic
11- Lakers- Travis Outlaw
12- Minnesota- Carlos Delfino
13- San Antonio- Leandrinho Barbosa
14- Dallas- Luke Walton
For a reminder to how it actually happened go here (http://sports.espn.go.com/nbadraft/d03/tracker/round?round=1)
This isn’t to say this is exactly how it would have occurred. Teams draft by need and often make trades based upon talent remaining. I really like this system though because I would allow trades, and the draft would occur simultaneously in the same setup in Madison Square Garden, with Cleveland drafting first then Denver. Teams would be allowed and encouraged to trade into the other conferences draft pool, and trades would be much more strategic not to mention more common. The draft pools would be assigned a week ahead of time
:fro
Every year there are three races to end an NBA season; the race of the best to secure home court advantage though out the playoffs, the race amongst the peripheral teams to make the final spot in the playoffs, and the malodorous race to the bottom to secure a good draft position. The first two races make for some of the most exciting competitions in the NBA. Good to mediocre teams suddenly start to claw and scrap with the best of them acting as spoilers or even victors in their attempt to have a shot at the playoffs.
On the other hand, good teams loaded with potential systematically shut players down, feigning injuries, or worse boredom. Given that bad teams still charge around 50-100 dollars per ticket this seems absolutely unfair to everyone involved. It also means when the good teams come stomping into town gearing up for the playoffs, the game is hardly contested.
A cry for an end to this detestable practice has been gaining steam around the league. Some including the outspoken Charles Barkley have called for the loosening of the weighting system that guarantees more ping pong balls to the bottom feeders. While this has some merit and would alleviate the problem somewhat it would also ruin the level of parity that the league has been able to achieve through the draft.
My suggestion on the other hand would be to break up the draft into the two conferences, East and West, geographically. Players would be randomly assigned to either the east or the western conference and teams would then draft from their conference pool only. This would not completely solve the problem, but it would make a significant difference in how teams assessed the risk of tanking.
Let’s look at the 2003 draft as our example. Lebron stood as the consensus number 1 pick in the draft pool. Any team that got the number one pick would have taken him, but let’s say that even having the number 1 pick did not guarantee more than a 50% chance of actually drafting him. The team managers would be forced to reconsider tanking when a much better team from another conference might have just as much chance to draft Lebron as they do. This would have an added bonus of creating more parity between the eastern and western conferences after a few years of following it.
Taking the 2003 draft as our model, lets run the numbers to see how it would come out, if we follow the order of draft picks as they were chosen (ie- Lebron is selected by the first team that can, Milicic is second, Anthony third, etc.) I randomized their names and then alternated E or W assignments. In my scenario the teams would have selected the following:
East
1- Cleveland – Lebron James
2- Detroit – Carmelo Anthony
3- Toronto – Dwayne Wade
4- Miami – Michael Sweetney
5- Chicago – Nick Collison
6- Milwaukee- Marcus Banks
7- New York- Reece Gaines
8- Washington- Troy Bell
9- Orlando- Aleksandar Pavlovic
10- Boston- Dahntay Jones
11- Boston- Boris Diaw
12- Atlanta- Brian Cook
13- New Jersey- Ndudi Ebi
14- Detroit- Kendrick Perkins
15- Memphis (via Orlando)- Josh Howard
West
1- Denver – Darko Milicic
2- Clippers – Chris Bosh
3- Golden State- Chris Kaman
4- Seattle- Kirk Heinrich
5- Memphis- TJ Ford
6- Seattle- Jarvis Hayes
7- Phoenix- Michael Pietrus
8- New Orleans- Zarko Cabarkapa
9- Utah- David West
10- Portland- Zoran Planicic
11- Lakers- Travis Outlaw
12- Minnesota- Carlos Delfino
13- San Antonio- Leandrinho Barbosa
14- Dallas- Luke Walton
For a reminder to how it actually happened go here (http://sports.espn.go.com/nbadraft/d03/tracker/round?round=1)
This isn’t to say this is exactly how it would have occurred. Teams draft by need and often make trades based upon talent remaining. I really like this system though because I would allow trades, and the draft would occur simultaneously in the same setup in Madison Square Garden, with Cleveland drafting first then Denver. Teams would be allowed and encouraged to trade into the other conferences draft pool, and trades would be much more strategic not to mention more common. The draft pools would be assigned a week ahead of time
:fro