Improving the lottery

Could Draft lottery be improved? These tweaks could help
by Scott Howard-Cooper
Posted May 21, 2014 10:55 PM

SHC has several suggestions for improving the lottery. Here's a couple:

...2. Increase the odds for the teams with the three worst records and especially the absolute worst. That creates the risk of rewarding the ultimate in tanking, but also bends to the reality that the worst is often the worst without trying and that the system in place isn't working. Take the ping-pong balls from No. 9 in the conference, shave some off the current format for the other teams, make a market adjustment to react to the results of more than 20 years.

3. Create tiers. Hold a lottery for the teams with the worst three records to determine one through three, draw another set of ping-pong balls for the next four, then the next four, and then the next three. Some combination. But no one goes from ninth-best odds to No. 1. Thresholds work...

http://www.nba.com/2014/news/featur...tional Newsletter&utm_campaign=GMIB 5/23/2014

Interesting. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, the problem isn't necessarily the lottery but the league's structural issues which make the draft the most important, if not the only, way for a number of teams to have any hope of improving. Tweak the CBA to make free agency a more viable option, and maybe more teams can realistically aim to be competitive year in and year out.

Whatever "tweaks" they may suggest, something has got to change. Too many teams have been in lottery purgatory. I'm not saying that's solely because they haven't lucked out in the lottery, but still...teams depend to find that superstar via the draft obviously because many small market teams can't afford to bring in top notch FA's.

A poster here had mentioned on his FB something about tieing pick position to years out of the playoffs, which would prevent a Lakers/Celtics style tank job (would have kept San Antonio from Duncan too).

You could still have a lottery (maybe like the NHL style where the amount of picks you can move up is fixed?).

But so seeding would first take the years out of the playoffs and then go by record?

This could allow teams to build winning culture while still restocking their teams, and give teams that constantly flirt with the playoffs but just miss a boost rather than punishing them for refusing to tank.

that would have to go hand in hand with some serious remodeling of the whole cap thing, at least as long as certain teams have massive advantages in luring free agents.

teams like the Cavs, no?

I got an idea (inspired by a friend), and it's quite lengthy to explain, so I will do my best....

Create a playoff system for the "non-playoff" teams......
The winning team picks 1st, the runner-up picks 2nd.....
The two losing conference finals teams play each other to determine who picks 3rd and 4th (winner picking 3rd, obviously)
The losing conference semi finals teams play each other to determine who picks 5th - 8th (winner picks 5th, runner up picks 6th, 2 losing teams play each other to determine who picks 7th and 8th)
The losing conference quarterfinals teams play each other to determine who picks 9th - 14th (winner picks 9th, runner-up picks 10th, losing teams play in another mini tournament to determine who picks 11th - 14th --- winner of that tournament picks 11th, runner-up picks 12th, 2 1st round losing teams play each other to determine who picks 13th and 14th)

Now, on to the playoff teams.....
NBA Champions pick 30th
Runner-Up picks 29th
Conference Finals losing teams play to determine who picks 28th and 27th.....Winner picking 28th, loser picking 27th)
Conference Semi-Finals losing teams play to determine picks 26-23, winner picking 26, runner up picking 25, 2 first round losing teams playing each other to determine who picks 23 and 24)
Conference Quarter-Finals losing teams play to determine picks 22 - 15
Winning team picks 22, runner-up picks 21
Semi Final losing teams play to determine who picks 19 and 20
Quarter Finals losing teams play each other to determine picks 15 - 18 (champions of that tournament picks 18th, runner up 17th, two 1st round losing teams play each other to determine picks 14 and 15)

It's getting pretty late now, and I probably should head to bed. I will see if I can create a spreadsheet and/or document to further illustrate my proposal, and will upload it here once I am able to get to it (probably Sunday afternoon or evening). For the time being, just think of my proposal as one which contains a bunch of tournaments to determine the draft order....

^ That would lead to teams in the 6-8 range tanking to become prohibitive favorites to win the draft playoff. It would dilute the main playoff pool and accomplish everything the lottery tries to avoid.

Increasing the odds might result in more tanking....think about it....if teams are tanking right now with the current odds the way they are, don't you think teams will tank more if top 3 odds are increased?????
His other idea seems more feasible, in my opinion....

You make a good, and valid point....back to the drawing board....

to improve nba basketball... you have to improve the ncaa,,, why are their two different sets of rules ? your over 18 play by the same rules.... 2nd get rid of the charge.. make ppl. play defense

scrap the draft. allow first year players to choose who they want to play for. franchises can then decide how to best attract good young players. despite best intentions, it is beyond the scope of the draft to reduce inequality within the nba, and perhaps just exacerbates the problem.

Not a good idea. Might as well get rid of the Eastern and Western Conferences and just call them the Los Angeles and New York Conferences. Also how would you determine salaries... is there a rookie base salary.. or would teams just be able to pay whatever they want based on potential.

Didn't the NHL change the format of the lottery and go from a tier-system to an NBA like lottery?

And kiss goodbye to the Kings ever getting a top prospect, ever.

yeah I guess they did last year. They only have one lottery winner I think, instead of 3 potential winners.

make them stay 2 years n college draft them and make them go to the d league 1 year.. every player from the draft.. the nba would benefit from them being humbled and focused on only b ball

Lowe has a post about the NBA's latest proposal on Grantland now: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-lottery-reform-is-coming/

Change is necessary. I am glad they are at least in the discussions for this and keeping an open mind.

Also, this may not be the thread, but on the theme of NBA rule changes... apparently summer league is experimenting with a "golden goal" second overtime period? Sounds crazy, but entertaining. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/b...-thing-and-the-mirage-at-vegas-summer-league/

This is getting back to the idea that every lottery team has a more equal chance at the top prize, but with those close to being in the playoffs getting a reduced % to possibly "win". Works toward eliminating tanking, but also makes it much harder for the bad teams to get good in the draft. Would generally make lottery draft picks more valuable overall but less weighted in importance to the really bad teams. This means that teams like the 76ers this year would not have a much higher value in trading their first round pick before the lottery than a team like the Kings. Which again hurts the "worst" teams.

Good.

All teams in the lottery have equal chances at positions #1 - #14. Tanking buys you zero. Plus, when you "win" #1 you may have won nothing. I am not impressed with the correlation between where a player is picked to success in the league when it comes to positions #1 - #14

Couple problems with this.

There is a legitimate argument that being bad =/= tanking. Sometimes it does, but what about a team that loses, say, a DMC to permanent injury? That's not tanking. And those teams need help in the lottery. They shouldn't be lumped in with teams that win 45 games and just miss the playoffs with an equal chance to win the lottery.

With all playoff teams getting an equal chance at the lottery, that will encourage teams at positions 7 and 8 to tank, especially if a good draft is coming up. Why get bounced by San Antonio or Oklahoma in 5 games when you have an equal chance to win the lottery and be much better set for next year?

If that's not an impressive correlation, then I'm not sure what qualifies.

^^^do you have actual correlation fiqure of wins shares in first 5 years by draft position? Interesting graph.

Change the odds back to 1991 before they changed them so dramatically. But, I would have them pick 5-6 slots before going by record. And some tiers wouldn’t be the worst idea.

It would reward a team doing what the Kings are trying to do. We aren’t there yet, but we aren’t trying to be miserable. Your odd of winning the lottery shouldn’t be remote if you aren’t trying to fail. And if you are trying to be bad, there should be some risk. The Bucks had no worse than the 4th pick in the bag. If you weren’t guaranteed anything more than a top 6 or 7 pick, you might be less inclined to loose on purpose.

More chances in the middle. More risk on the bottom.

Nope, in this case I piggybacked on somebody else's analysis!

That graph came from this article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-is-winning-the-nba-draft-lottery-really-worth/

As far as the proposal goes, it seems like a great idea if your goal is to reduce the incentive for tanking individual games.

I tend to think of tanking as a type of rebuilding where you're purposefully loading your roster with younger, cheaper players to gain cap space (possibly in a future year) and lose games while developing talent in the hopes that the lost games will give you a better draft pick. But that incentive would still exist with this new format. And I don't mind, I don't think that's such a bad thing.

What I do think is bad is when teams try to lose specific games. This format would make the difference between one or two games in the standings fairly meaningless no matter where you are. I definitely think that's worthwhile. The drawback is less ability for bad teams to get better through high picks, but I'm not convinced that is all that necessary anyway.