Around the NBA: Week 23 (3/23- 3/29)

[Superbone]

I like it. I think it gives even us a chance. If we had a pick.

[MightyMoog]

I think it should be an auction for positions. Not all #1 picks are the same. Also we should be rewarding proper scouting, talent evaluation and development.

You get draft capital based on reverse standings. You also get draft capital for other metrics, such as playoff appearance streaks, most win improvement from previous seasons.

Get rid of trading picks, you only trade draft credits. You use the credits to bid on draft position each year.

So getting a prospect like Wemby should cost you most if not all your capital. Meaning, you don’t get to have Castle and Harper as well. Also, no sense in continuing to try to tank after drafting Wemby as you’ll need a few years to accumulate more draft capital anyway.


It rewards proper scouting. So if you’re able to pay little for later picks but pick better, allows you to save your draft capital.

Basically, take chance out of it and yet still allow all teams with the opportunity to get a top pick if they want. While still helping out underperforming teams but awarding them slightly more draft capital.

[AmareIsGod]

Gonna need someone smarter than me to explain all this and tell me what to think

Proposal 1: Bigger lottery, flatter odds. Right now 14 teams are in the lottery. This expands it to 18 (every non-playoff team). The big change: the worst 10 teams would all have the same 8% chance at the #1 pick. Being the absolute worst team no longer gives you a meaningful edge, so there's less incentive to tank. All 18 picks would be drawn randomly rather than assigned by record.

Proposal 2: Two-year record + win floor. The lottery grows to 22 teams (non-playoff teams plus first-round exits). Instead of using just this season's record, they'd use a two-year combined record to determine odds — so one bad season doesn't reward you as much. There's also a minimum win floor (like 25 wins). If a team tries to go full tank mode and dips below that, they get slotted at the floor anyway, removing any benefit of being historically terrible. Top 4 picks still drawn randomly like today.

Proposal 3: "5 by 5" equal-odds pool. Back to 18 teams, but the bottom 5 all get identical odds at the #1 pick, and the lottery only covers picks 1–5. This means finishing 30th vs. 26th makes zero difference — again killing the incentive to out-tank other bad teams. Those bottom-5 teams also can't fall past pick 10, so they're still protected. Teams that "lose" the top-5 lottery get sorted in a separate drawing.

The common thread across all three: make being the *worst* team no more valuable than being just *bad*, so teams stop racing to the bottom. This matters less for us right now, obviously, but it'd reshape how rebuilding teams operate league-wide.

[SunsRIt]

I don’t know why this is such a point of emphasis with the NBA. In the NFL the draft literally goes in order of record. It seems like it’s just a pet peave of Silver.

[Split T]

I don’t know why this is such a point of emphasis with the NBA. In the NFL the draft literally goes in order of record. It seems like it’s just a pet peave of Silver.

Much harder to track in the nfl…it’s an issue because the nba by far has the biggest problem with teams tanking.


I don’t really like those proposals. Just go to the wheel

[Superbone]

I don’t know why this is such a point of emphasis with the NBA. In the NFL the draft literally goes in order of record. It seems like it’s just a pet peave of Silver.

Much harder to track in the nfl…it’s an issue because the nba by far has the biggest problem with teams tanking.


I don’t really like those proposals. Just go to the wheel

I totally get what Silver is doing. Tanking is a huge problem in the NBA. Holding out team's best players for a better shot at losing. It sucks that teams can load up on the best talent by being as bas as possible. I'm really glad Silver is making changes to combat it.

[Split T]

I’m good with changes…this just seems to be taking our current model and going further…at that point just go to the wheel.

[Superbone]

I’m good with changes…this just seems to be taking our current model and going further…at that point just go to the wheel.

What wheel? What are we talking about? Every team on the wheel? Just lottery teams?

[AmareIsGod]

I’m good with changes…this just seems to be taking our current model and going further…at that point just go to the wheel.

What wheel? What are we talking about? Every team on the wheel? Just lottery teams?

Agreed. There's nothing about the current model that works. Look at Utah and some of these tanking teams. It's pathetic. Something needs to happen.

[JJ Slim]

They just need to put all the teams that have never won a championship in the lottery all with the same chances. As they win a championship, they get removed. All the ones outside the lottery are in a separate evenly weighted lottery for the remaining spots. Once all teams have won one then they start over with all teams in the lottery with even chances. Obviously this isn't realistic but it was fun thinking it up.

[Furlanfufi]

I would love to see a division like league on basketball, like most of soccer leagues have around the world.

Sometimes, to not be relegated to the lower divisions, the competition is fiercer than to win it all.

[rhylek]

I really like the bidding idea.

Furlanfufi's proposition is, I think, the only real proposition that would prevent tanking. Tanking can only happen in a "static" league.
With the expansion, you could consider making it a 2-levels league. The best teams are in league A, the worst in league B.
At the end of the regular season, x bottom teams from league A battle vs x leader teams from league B to win/keep their place in league A.
Then playoff with league A teams only (all of them or not depending on the size of the league).
Lottery with all teams from league B for 1st pick, then lottery with all teams for other picks. To prevent worst league A teams from tanking, you could even make the lottery before the "relegation matchups".
That's just a quick thought, many tinkerings / incentives could be added.

[The Bobster]

I don’t know why this is such a point of emphasis with the NBA. In the NFL the draft literally goes in order of record. It seems like it’s just a pet peave of Silver.

With the NBA the top talent almost always goes in the top to to 15 picks - so there's a lot more tanking.

In the NFL you can sometimes find a Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Dak Prescott, Tony Romo, Derek Henry A.J. Brown, Shannon Sharpe, Antonio Gates, A.J. Brown or Travis Kelsey outside of the first round or even undrafted.

It's pretty rare when you find a Nikola Jokic, Manu Ginobili, Jeff Hornacek, Marc Gasol or Draymond Green in the second round.

[Mori Chu]

You have to come up with a proposal that the teams would be willing to vote for. I don't think many owners would vote for a system that could relegate their own team to a B-tier league, making much less revenue, if they have a bad season.

A lot of the proposals that involve flattening the odds to varying degrees, it seems to me that these will not eliminate tanking but just change which teams will tank. If you make it so the bottom 8 teams all have the best odds, teams around the bottom 7-10 will tank to remain in the bottom 8. I think the change about including play-in teams in the lottery is interesting. You might imagine that a team in 6th place would "tank" to 7th to get in the play-in and be in the lottery. But I think teams really want to avoid the play-in, so I doubt they would do that.

I also think they should draw more picks in the lottery and not just the first 4. That way you don't have as much of a guaranteed benefit from being bad. That is, right now if you get the league's worst record, even if you completely whiff in the lottery you know you'll get the 5th pick. That is worth shooting for. If the first, say, 10 picks are all lottery-drawn, you really have no guarantee of anything special for being one of the worst teams.

I also think the league should do more during the season to immediately slap teams that do something that appears to be obvious tanking. If the league office sees a team obviously rest their guys in the 2nd half to lose a game, they should hit them with a tanking violation. And those violations should slightly hurt your lottery ball count; not a huge amount, but enough that teams will absolutely not want to be hit with one. Make these teams afraid to pull this crap. Don't be too strict about it; I don't want teams terrified and playing guys who are still hurt to avoid a tanking penalty. But just make it so that they know they'll get a consequence if they do this blatant stuff that we're seeing this year.

[Split T]

Yep, tanking violations should impact lottery balls…also if you’re gonna stick with a similar structure for the lottery, the big changes I’d make would be you can’t move up in consecutive years and you’re limited to moving up a certain amount of picks…so if you win the lottery from say the 14th lottery position, you move up to like 7th, not 1st.

[JJ Slim]

I think no matter what rules you make that teams will find a way to push the limits and abuse the rules in unforeseen manners. It's just the nature of business.

[Superbone]

I think no matter what rules you make that teams will find a way to push the limits and abuse the rules in unforeseen manners. It's just the nature of business.

Yup, all you can do is try to make it harder and less advantageous.

[Split T]

But that’s not true…The Wheel completely eliminates tanking…doesn’t just make it harder and less advantageous. It makes it impossible.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

But that’s not true…The Wheel completely eliminates tanking…doesn’t just make it harder and less advantageous. It makes it impossible.

What about convincing $$$ a prospect to stay one more year at college or abroad in order to play for the Lakers instead of Washington?

The team can do it through their agents or some booster, and even with inherent injury risk, the payoff on exposure, sponsors and life quality might affect many athletes plans.

And we are assuming as well that every team will start competing after getting their #1 pick, but some Teams might prefer to monetize it.

[Superbone]

But that’s not true…The Wheel completely eliminates tanking…doesn’t just make it harder and less advantageous. It makes it impossible.

Again, what Wheel are you talking about?!