http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...e-year-lottery
Fix tanking: The five-year lottery
March, 29, 2012
10:25
By Henry Abbott
ESPN.com
It is universally acknowledged that there is something odd about teams being rewarded for playing badly, as discussed when HoopIdea first addressed tanking. But it's not a simple problem to solve. In that spirit, we present a number of different proposals.
TrueHoop reader David Lee (a corporate restructuring attorney who does not play power forward for the Warriors) says that he agrees with Jeff Van Gundy that a "flatter lottery" would be the way to go. His idea:
Instead of helping teams out who are really bad for a one-year period, the league should distribute lottery chances based on how many times a team has missed the playoffs, or failed to advance past the first round, during the last five years.
For example, lets give team two lottery balls for every year over the past five in which they failed to make the playoffs and one lottery ball for making the playoffs but failing to get past the first round.
This system will achieve a number of goals.
First, it arguably better helps the really needy teams: teams that are not just bad for the current year, sometimes due to injuries or intentional tank job (like when the Spurs lost David Robinson, got to draft Tim Duncan and have Robinson back the next year) but have been stuck outside of the playoff picture and contender status for a sustained period of time. To me, it seems like a team that flounders between, say, 25 and 40 wins for five years is more deserving of help than a team that suffered significant misfortune for one year.
Second, it removes the incentive to be really really terrible because barely missing the playoffs for a year is going to give team is the same increase in lotto odds as winning only 13 out of 82 games.
Third, it makes strategic tanking much harder to pull off, for a couple of reasons:
A team will have to sign up for more years of pain to maximize its chances for a particular super prospect.
It will be tough to anticipate which players will be good (and declare for the draft) several years in advance in order to time its tanking efforts correctly (i.e. to have lottery balls in the LeBron James draft rather than the Kenyon Martin or Kwame Brown draft).
The example I gave above (two balls for missing playoffs, one for a first-round out) would be "flatter" than the current odds, but the flatness or the lack thereof can be tweaked.
The idea is that it will address both the disadvantages of the status quo and the concern (by Joel Litvin and others) to give help to teams that truly need it.
I agree with just about all of this, except that it doesn't really serve justice to teams that lose their star player. For example, if they implemented this last year, the Cavs would have had a really low chance at getting the 1st pick to get Irving, even though they desperately needed him to replace Lebron as the star player.
I'd rather they fix players like Stephen Jackson quitting and stabbing his coach in the back and then Pop running right over with a contract and acting like it's shaved pussy.
C'mon.
I highly doubt Stephen Jackson will ever be near the top of the league's agenda.
Of course not. Ipso facto, must be okay then.
You'd rather the league focus on Stephen Jackson than try to fix tanking?
They could always do both at the same time.
'seppe has no room... Kobe quit and killed his coach
spurs just got luck to have the #1 pick in 97 the year tim duncan was in da pool, if they got it some other year (02' for example) they wouldn't get with it tbh
But, now I got company, ever more.
Let us proceed...
You GD rights.
God loved David Robinson more than the entire Celtics organization. Tim Duncan was his way of showing that love.
Kobe: 5
the tired old bag Duncan: 4
(God forgot him). tee, hee.
You're just scared... you know these rapists, coach killers are cold-blooded... and they scare you when they're in the compe ion.
This is true. And you got a rapist in Neal and a quitter and coach killer in Jackson & Diaw.
And the requisite consciousless enabler in Pop.
Let us proceed...
Did you already forget about Magic killing his coach way back when....oh yeah that's right....you were riding a DIFFERENT bandwagon back then...
I never defend my fandom.
It's my religion.
Bandwaggoners are not actually fans of a team...they are just fans of any team....that they are currently riding...
so there would be nothing to defend.
I never defend my fandom.
Its my religion.
Enjoy it while you can 'seppe
If they want to get rid of tanking, they should go back to having the lottery like it was in the 80s: having the order for non-playoff teams drawn uniformly random, so that everyone has the same shot at each pick.
Magic stuck Westhead in a shallow grave.
This is true.
Absolutely. And now I got company. Jackson & Diaw quit, killed their coach and Pop signed 'em.
Congratulations.
Just wife beaters and child abuser love to claim I never defend my fandom..
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