14th pick should get the Number one pick and the worst team should get the 14th pick!! We would be stacked if it was like this haha!
A 6th seeded team isn't going to win a championship unless they are the Houston Rockets with Hakeem. Most playoff teams are also-rans. I think a truly terrible team has a good shot of getting a good draft pick. But what this system does is completely take away the reward of being truly terrible. If you are truly terrible, then you can try to actually get better players and make some decent decisions. Too many "truly terrible" teams are that way because the management can gut the team, pay nothing, and know they will get rewarded with a top draft pick. Take that away and all of a sudden you might not have so many "truly terrible" teams.
A straight lottery for every team regardless of records. If you go this route (which I think is the only feasible way to discourage tanking), you'll have to either (1) have a hard salary cap, or (2) get rid of max contract, to prevent super teams forming. So the lucky teams will eventually have to give up some of their talents to meet the cap limit.
Would be an awesome idea, but you'd have to eliminate conferences altogether. Also lol at only 5 teams out of the 16 mentioned are from the East, that's how bad they are.
One option is the Last 4 teams get 20 tickets / ping pong balls, next 5 get 15, next 5 get 10. Everyone gets drawn until all lottery teams are drawn. There are in guarantees in place, for example the last team if fate or luck of the draw should have it picks 14th than so be it. There should be no guarantee of a top 4 pick for anyone. Nationally televise live the draw, to put to death all of those conspiracy theories. As it stands Milwaukee Philly Orlando LAL Boston Sacramento Utah New York Cleveland Detroit New Orleans Denver Minnesota Memphis Would make up the groups. Or you could weight it just a little more, for example: Last two teams get 25 tickets / ping pong balls Next 3 worst records get 20 Next 3 worst records get 15 Next 3 worst records get 12 Next 3 worst records get 10 All teams have a decent shot at getting a top prospect. A revamp of the conferences would help too. Maybe a Northern Eastern vs South Western.
I believe the System stays in place. It's a business decision. The commenters here think in terms of how to create a "fair" sports system, when it's clear NBA officials run it as a business. The lottery system is the only way that most teams in the league can keep their fanbase. Because like Morey said, only a small number of teams have any genuine chance at a title run each year. And many teams in backwaters are truly hopeless due to their situation. Philadelphia, for example, is an exciting team to talk about because of their GM and their rebuild. Utah, Boston as well. Cleveland a laughingstock, but nonetheless this is far better than graveyard silence, no? So I'd bet the "perverse" incentive to lose stays.
Btw, this might be in part due to Morey's frustration with being unable to obtain Rondo by the trade deadline. For those who didn't follow the storyline, Boston wanted two unprotected 1sts. Which is a price I think Morey might have paid, but the Rockets' picks being late 1sts, weren't worth spit.
Unless it's a phenom with the b-ball IQ of a Lebron James, why would anybody care so much about draft picks unless you taking years to rebuild? Rookies, for the most part, suck.
Morey has an ulterior motive. When teams don't play to tank, his analytics will be less noisy and therefore more accurate. Hard to evaluate a player when he's not giving his best effort.
How about you just keep the lottery but have it to where every team that misses the playoffs gets the same amount of ping pong balls. It helps out the bad teams but there would be no incentive to try and be the worst team possible... every team would try and put the best roster they possibly could on the floor purely to get attendance up.
Exactly. Everything about the NBA is to make sure that ALL owners can make money. The draft lottery does exactly what it's supposed to do, which is reward terrible owners, that's not a flaw, that's what it is DESIGNED to do. Why do you think NBA franchises have increased in value astronomically every year, because even if you are a terrible owner, the system is setup so that you can still make tons of money.
This still punishes legitimately bad teams who need better talent to compete and survive. Why don't they just hold a true lottery with only the NBA champion excluded from getting the number 1 pick. All other teams have an equal chance of obtaining the top pick. After 7 random selections, the remaining 23 teams all receive a draft pick according to season record. This assures the worst team in the league will pick at worst 8th and have a chance to improve but no reason to tank. The lottery TV ratings would skyrocket with 29 fan bases interested. This also would help middle of the pack teams possibly add a great player to get over the hump. Preventing the reigning champion from the possibility of the number 1 pick is simply to avoid inadvertently creating an unbeatable dynasty.
Except you would have to completely overhaul salary structures too or it wouldn't work. Because of where the lowest max salary is set now, teams set like the Rockets without Howard could sign Embiid and Wiggins with Harden and be unbeatable. Sure it is still more of a risk than a lot of max guys but if you asked whether I could lock up Embiid (letting him backup Asik for a year) and Wiggins instead of Howard, I take the rookies every time. The potential of an under 25 core like that would be unbelievable. The Lakers could rebuild in a year with the best talent in these two drafts. Certain teams and cities would have absolutely no shot ever. It would be terrible for the league.
