My Cunning and amusing plan to prevent tanking.

[SilverPlayer]

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 compe ions 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

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

[SilverPlayer]

Did I say amusing? I meant long.

[SilverPlayer]

As a side note it would be interesting to have the top two teams Denver and Cleveland flip for the first pick, and whichever player they pick from represents that conferences draft pool for the rest of the pool.

[JamStone]

How does it really prevent tanking?

Teams still want the best player in their conference pool. I appreciate the innovative thinking, but I don't think it's practical, nor do I think it really prevent teams from tanking.

I like the idea (I think it was Jeff Vun Gundy but I'm not sure) of no lottery at all and instead of the worst teams drafting first, the teams with the best records that didn't make the playoffs get the highest draft picks. That way, if a team barely misses the playoffs, they get rewarded for being close. That does hurt parity because teams that are simply not as talented will stay less talented and probably stay closer to the bottom for a longer period of time. But, I do think it will prevent the tanking of games for the most part.

[SilverPlayer]

Here's the deal. It really creates a of a lot more random chance than the normal lottery includes. First of all one draft pool could have included all of the best players. Lebron, Wade, Anthony, and Bosh could have easily have all been listed in the western conference pool. Leaving Cleveland with Milicic or Kaman. So it makes it much more of a crap shoot.

Additionally the teams in the better conference wouldn't be competing with the teams in a lesser conference in their tanking. So this in effect would reduce the total number of teams aiming for the lowest of the low.

Finally teams in the second third and fourth position like Miami don't end up getting nearly as rewarded for tanking, making it less worth their while to even attempt it, further reducing the amount of teams scrapping the bottom. And when they aren't pushing the teams underneath them to tank further maybe it will improve the overall trend.

[SilverPlayer]

I did the 2004 draft now too and you can see more of what I am talking about. Less rewards to those teams that are tanking in the more bottom loaded eastern conference.

East:
1. Orlando- Emeka Okafor
2. Charlotte- Luke Jackson
3. Chicago- Andris Biedriņš
4. Washington- Robert Swift
5. Atlanta- Sebastian Telfair
6. Toronto- Al Jefferson
7. Philadelphia- Kirk Snyder
8. Cleveland- Josh Smith
9. Boston- Dorell Wright
10. Atlanta- Jameer Nelson
11. Miami- Pavel Podkolzine
12. New Jersey- Delonte West
13. Boston- Tony Allen
14. Indiana- Beno Udrih

West:
1. Clippers- Dwight Howard
2. Phoenix- Ben Gordon
3. Golden State- Devin Harris
4. Seattle- Josh Childress
5. Portland- Luol Deng
6. Utah- Rafael Araújo
7. Utah- Andre Iguodala
8. New Orleans- Kris Humphries
10. Denver- J.R. Smith
11. Denver- Viktor Khryapa
12. Utah- Sergei Monia
13. Portland- Kevin Martin
14. Sacramento- Sasha Vujačić
15. San Antonio- David Harrison

[CubanMustGo]

Here's how you prevent tanking.

The bottom four teams in the NBA are relegated to the NBDL, and the top four NBDL teams get promoted to the NBA. Get relegated and get no TV money. Simple.

[slayermin]

Here's how you prevent tanking.

The bottom four teams in the NBA are relegated to the NBDL, and the top four NBDL teams get promoted to the NBA. Get relegated and get no TV money. Simple.

Are you serious?

So finally Spurs Fans in Austin get to see their team?

[T-Pain]

god damn your a genius

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

Lottery tournament for the most balls.

[diego]

Are you serious?

So finally Spurs Fans in Austin get to see their team?

actually that is how most professional sport leagues outside the us operate. tv money is a big enough incentive, the problem is that the gap between the nbdl and the nba is large enough so that the tv people may not want to give that money to some crappy nbdl team nobody wants to see.

and if nbdl teams cant draft top players they are never going to narrow the gap.