The three lottery reform concepts that the NBA presented at last month’s Board of Governors meeting haven’t generated much enthusiasm around the league, according to Anthony Slater of ESPN, who says the reaction to those proposals was lukewarm.
Each of the three proposals would expand the lottery to at least 18 teams (one of the three would include 22 teams) and would further flatten the odds for the league’s very worst clubs. The three ideas were viewed as frameworks that could use some tweaking rather than finished products.
However, as Slater details, the NBA faces two problems as it attempts to revamp the lottery and alter other rules in an effort to deter tanking. For one, there’s a “wide array of opinions” around the league on the best way to tackle the issue, with little consensus on the ideal solution. Additionally, Slater writes, some of the most popular concepts – such as beginning to count wins as losses for lottery purposes midway through the season – are complicated and wouldn’t be easy to explain plainly to casual fans.
Still, the NBA is determined to do something this offseason to address its tanking problem, which has, in Slater’s words, gone from a “largely ignored side issue to a full-on epidemic.” As he points out, the average margin of victory in games this season is 13.1 points, which would be the highest mark in league history. There have also been a record 89 games decided by at least 30 points.
John Hollinger of The Athletic took a closer look earlier this week at the one-sided nature of many of the games played during the second half of the season, noting that the nine lottery-bound teams that own first-round picks (all but New Orleans) have posted a 17-148 record against the 20 playoff and play-in teams since the All-Star break. To put that in perspective, Hollinger writes, the Bulls alone won 18 games against those top 20 teams prior to the end of January.
Here’s more on the NBA’s tanking problem:
- As Slater observes, teams have gotten more creative about their approach to tanking — one strategy that has been employed this season by teams like the Jazz and Grizzlies is signing non-standout G League players, then having them play significant roles at the NBA level. For instance, rookie guard Bez Mbeng is playing a more significant role in recent weeks for Utah than he did for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, and the Jazz have a net rating of -18.1 in his 406 minutes. “These teams are doing the whole gamut: sitting guys in the fourth, playing analytically bad lineups, drawing up plays for bad shots,” a Western Conference general manager told ESPN. “The creativity is impressive and I don’t blame them. (Losing to get a high lottery pick) is the best strategy to get better.”
- That sort of lineup manipulation is especially frustrating for the veterans who are losing playing time as their teams go into tank mode, Slater notes. “It’s easier to stomach if it’s a young player they’ve just drafted with a future in the franchise,” one Western Conference player told ESPN. “But when they’re just bringing in dudes off the street and playing them over you in a contract year? That s–t will piss anyone off.”
- Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said on Tuesday that he’s a “huge proponent of doing everything we can to make sure that every night is as competitive as humanly possible,” per Jay King of The Athletic. “We have the best players in the world and I think it’s important to let them be that on that stage,” Stevens said. “There are a lot of discussions going on about how to best focus on that, both in the near term and long term, and maybe there is a near-term solution that is a stopgap before a longer-term solution, when people have time to really think about it and break it down.”
- Warriors forward Draymond Green would like to see the NBA be more liberal with the fines it hands out to tanking teams, according to Nick Friedell of The Athletic. The league handed out penalties of $500K and $100K to Utah and Indiana, respectively, earlier in the season, but hasn’t been fining teams for tanking or dubious player management since then. “Just fine the hell out of people,” Green suggested. “We love taking money from players, keep fining the teams. I’ve seen two fines. And we all know everybody tanking. But you’ve seen two fines. … Everybody loves money. The punishment for players is always, let’s take the money. Well, now it becomes time to punish teams and all of a sudden nobody don’t know what to do. Why not? We know exactly what to do when somebody gets a technical foul. Or suspended for a game. We know exactly what to do.”
What a crazy turnaround the NBA has done here. The league literally went from allowing a team to MARKET their tank job with “Trust The Process” to now claiming that “Process” is the worst thing to happen to the league. Wow.
No shot your next big thing is being pro tanking ahahahahah
I guess anything to boost GS’ playoff chances
There is basically no way to fix the tanking issue unfortunately. Flattening the odds just hurts the actually bad teams that need young talent to compete. Flattening the odds would mean the teams that are bad will have to be bad for longer if they don’t get the high draft picks.
So ruin the product. What I rather see sorry team competing then non NBA player play. You are killing your product for a hypothetical player. What player in this draft is a bonfid Star? Paterson could be good. Could be hurt his whole career. Boozer looks like an all star. Not a superstar you build a team around. Aj not really sold on him either. Maybe low level all NBA player. All offense no defense. So unless there is a generational player why tank.
They’ll never be as good as you were so what’s even the point?
The draft is always a crap shoot some years better than others but the likely hood of getting the player or players that change a teams ability to compete are naturally disproportionately way higher the earlier you draft.
Flattening the odds just makes it so the bad teams will be bad for longer. Do you think teams like the Kings, Jazz, Grizzles, Bulls, and Nets that don’t have the players to be competitive are suddenly going to start trying harder if they have lower odds to get high picks? No they are just going to be bad and uncompetitive for that many more years.
Just type in to google and look for yourself the odds of drafting an all nba player 1-5 vs 6-10 vs the rest of the draft. As you would expect there is a massive market discrepancy just between 1-5 and 6-10 let alone 1-5 vs the rest of the draft.
Are there great player drafted 6-10 or later in the draft absolutely. But the likely hood of it happening is way lower. The worst teams have to get better somehow. Giving bad teams bad draft picks will only lead to having exactly what is happening now which is a chunk of teams that can’t even compete.
To be clear I don’t like it or support tanking but I legitimately don’t see how you fix it.
Well what your saying is inaccurate.
The jazz have a playoff team. The article just explained what they’re doing.
Sacramento has had 500 different first round picks and they don’t draft right every single year and then they just turn around and tank year after year.
Brooklyn has ruined their team three times in a row over the last 7 years. They just had KD Kyrie Irving and a bunch of good players that made the playoffs before they came.
So allowing teams to tank. As I said the product is bigger than the teams. There’s nothing wrong with not being a good team and just losing games because you can be competitive. You can be out there, but when you’re signing players that have no business being in the NBA to try to improve your odds tanking to get hypothetical players, especially when we don’t see any Superstars in your drafting players at 19 years old. The difference is back in the day you had players coming into the league that were 20, 21, 22 years old that you could see whether they were going to be a star or not. We don’t know except for super 19-year-olds if they’re going to be a star or not and most of them don’t pan out if you look over the last 5 to 6 years of draft
What I am saying isn’t inaccurate it’s just the truth. The Jazz were 11-19 through the first 30 games before the obvious tanking started. The win percentage doesn’t get them in the playoffs in let alone playoffs. The kings and nets being poorly run doesn’t have any bearing on the over arcing statement that bad teams will always be bad unless they are given the opportunity to draft higher thereby increasing their likely hood of drafting a great player. Unless we are talking about every non play off team having the exact same odds then this will continue. I don’t like it but it’s the reality of the situation and I haven’t seen anyone come up with a proposal or solution that will actually get approved.
When some get away with a scam, there will always be others that copy it, and still others who are willing take it to the next, ever more shameless, level. I never associated this with creativity.
Fortunately for the tankers, tanking is a simple and straightforward process, no creativity is required. The solution is equal simple and straightforward. For that reason, I can see why there isn’t much enthusiasm for Silver’s most recent complex non-solutions. Why go incur the brain damage of exploring these byzantine proposals, when like Silver’s prior efforts, they’re designed (at best) to modify the details of tanking (hopefully masking it for awhile), not to eliminate or material reduce it longer term. Which is why the league is back dealing with it again.
Get rid of in season tournament
Replace it with end of season tournament
Non playoff teams compete for number 1 pick
Seeding is randomized not based on record
Winning games increases percentage (%) for #1 pick
Losing games decreases percentage (%) for # 1 pick
I actually like that idea but the idea I like the best is you can’t pick in the top three 2 years in a row. That just eliminates tanking multiple years. So if you tank this year, you have no incentive to take next year because you can’t get a top three pick
The problem with the tournament for pick is why the hell am I as a player going to work hard for you the org to get my possible replacement?
why wouldn’t they work hard for the pick?
These are bad teams. You’re saying the players rather stay on bad teams like the bulls instead of increasing chances they turn their team into a competitor and play meaningful games?
Yeah that’s it. Players rather play 82 meaningless games every year than play max 4 games to hopefully increase the odds they’ll actually play meaningful games and possibly playoffs sooner rather than later by getting higher draft picks
Get rid of stupid in-season tournament altogether. Go back to regular East-West All-Star Game. Tanking? Go ahead and lose. You can’t prevent it. Bring the NBA back to 1976 when it was good. Not the garbage they have today.
Next thing you know they will accuse teams that win of trying to sell more tickets. Parity in the league has never been higher right now so it’s not entirely easy to throw games. Surely some players are rested more than others and if they are max contracts they should play when healthy. Maybe make max contracts non-tradable… oh right, we don’t do that here. Don’t even ask us to reel in these refs during the season.
flatten the lottery odds .. every non-playoff team gets a single ping pong ball .. can’t pick top two .. two years in a row .. top five .. three years in a row
Love that idea would kill the tanking. Tanking is bad for the league. Not sure what fans on this site like about the NBA if half the games are not competitive. What are you watching. O wait most people on here aren’t even watching.
Dray is just too much right!
Fine a few million dollars per game per team!
Them greedy owners would really put a stop to tanking, right?
I’d rather they focus on flopping and foul baiting than tanking. That’s what’s making the games really hard to watch.
They should do what they did in Hunter x Hunter and lock all the owners in a room and go through as many rounds of voting as necessary until a minimum % threshold is reached for a specific proposal. Not even joking lol.
Teams that are trash for a long period of time like hornets, nets(who mortgaged their future multiple times, blazers, wiz, kings; who can’t draft) don’t deserve top 10 picks period.
Jazz made moves for next year, we know Hali is hurt so not pacers fault and they still got Zubac, Jimmy got hurt for dubs which hurt their chances to be better. Oh yea nobody will cry for Memphis if they don’t get a top 10 pick. Surely we would trust dubs, pacers, bucks, jazz to draft well.
Never thought Draymond Green would be the voice of reason in any situation, but here I am agreeing with him.