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Solving For Tanking, We're smart, let's figure it out

SoberasHotRod

SoberasHotRod

Well-Known Member
2025 Award Winner
I think the majority of us would agree that sitting a healthy 23 year old Walker Kessler to make it more likely that we lose a game to have better lottery odds is a problem in the NBA. Teams should be incentivized to win as many games while achieving other goals like player development, etc. Flattening the odds has probably helped, but we are proof this year that it didn't fix the problem. It's possible that any proposal to fix the solution would create more negative effects than we currently have, but we should at least try.

This thread is to post your proposed solution (it doesn't have to be your idea) and then I will compile the proposals in to a poll that we can vote on. Please only post one solution per post so that it is obvious to me that it is one idea that should be voted on.
 
My first proposal that I've brought up is to give small market teams an alternative to the draft to build a contending team. In order to do this I would de-emphasize the draft, increase free agency, and de-emphasize location advantages of big markets. I would do this by:

- Reducing the number of years of a draft pick's team control either by shorter contracts or removing restricted free agency.
- Create a hard cap
- Remove max contracts

Teams would then need to pick a lane on building a team. They could try and build through the draft, but would have less guaranteed time of team control of the player while they are a positive contributor. More players would be available in free agency every year as rookie contract players expire sooner, and teams aren't able to retain players because of the hard cap.

Small Market teams are able to compete with large market teams for free agents because there is nothing preventing them from offering more money, and because of the hard cap, if they manage their cap more efficiently will have more to offer.

Obviously the negatives are more player movement and not being able to keep guys you like. It would be awful to draft a great player, develop him in to a stud, and then see him leave and lead another team to a title. The other negative would be that having a sustained contender would be almost impossible.
 
Two must haves:

1) Incentives for winning - Everyone talks about the incentive for losing, this is obviously an issue but I think it is as equally as important that there are no incentives for winning. Even if the rewards for tanking are tiny and minute, there really is no reward for not tanking. The NBA can incentivize this on two fronts - players and franchises.

Players can be incentivized by money. I would be interesting to see a model where each team needs to allocate a certain amount of money that is incentive based. For example, what if 10% of a team's payroll must be tied to some winning related goal? This "bonus" doesn't necessarily have to count against the cap.

Franchises can also be incentivized by money, but also cap mechanics. Winning can be tied to an exception that is granted to teams who win more, again this doesn't have to count against the cap. Increasing the ability to spend (without tax penalty) could provide more incentive for a team to finish higher in the standings and gives a natural progression towards team building where winning is rewarded.

2) The lotto odds need complex and involve more factors - One of the worst things about tanking is feeling like you need to lose on any given night. The reason why this is a thing is because you can directly look at the standings and see the impact right away. If you based the lotto odds on more years, you wouldn't have that acute reaction to a certain loss....or at the very least it would be fractional compared to the current system. It's more tempting to bench Kessler out of the blue when you can see the standings and understand the impact immediately. But what if odds were based on the last X years.....It would be 1/X as important....you still benching Kessler? And are you benching him if both the players and teams get something advantageous for winning?

This would also prevent teams from doing a one off tank where they just decided to pack it in for one year. Being bad would still help their overall lotto odds, but it wouldn't have the direct and instantaneous impact it does now.

Additionally, I don't think you should be able to win the lotto more than once in a certain time. I think lotto odds should be dynamic and based on a long period of time and also the amount of "luck" you've had in recent years.

IMO, these are changes that aren't too difficult to implement and are also things that the players, league, and teams would be open to agreeing upon.
 
My second proposal is to have draft picks bid on with cap space and not tied to record at all. The basic ideas is that your cap space for the upcoming year can be used in a bidding process for each pick. Teams wouldn’t “own” draft picks. Each year a team would have to bid on picks. Teams with no cap space would only have a “minimum bid.”

Potentially at the end of each season, so when the finals end, teams have to submit their bids to the league office. In the meantime, free agency starts and teams cannot use cap space that is tied up in draft pick bids on free agents. Teams would essentially be choosing between building through the draft and free agency each year.

The obvious negative for this idea is that if teams don’t own draft picks, then how do they complete trades? Maybe it’s enough to trade the cap space that can go in to draft pick bidding? The players union would hate the idea of teams hoarding cap space. You would still likely have a minimum salary, but in this scenario you would have a bunch of teams at the minimum to bid on cap space. Yeah, there are a lot of problems that would have to get figured out.
 
Alright. I have a solution I was waiting for the pod to release but too much other stuff.

A lot of the odds stuff simply moves the target. You have to disconnect the teams own record from the draft positioning directly. I had this thought about Brooklyn. They have Johnson and are having this nice surprise start and their pick is roughly where the suns pick is. What if they didn't do the deal to get their own picks back and just said those guys can give us their picks... so we will just ball.

So here is my solution... you have a ****** team draft essentially at the beginning of the year. If you are the worst team in the league you get the first pick which other team you think will be the worst and you get their draft/lotto odds positioning. The order would follow whatever your record was. Lots of surprises happen each year and if teams aren't actively trying to lose it will be harder to predict who is bad and good. While you do get a slight benefit for being bad this year... the reward is like 2 years away since you get the first pick at the beginning of the season. It would also create some enmity potentially (players may not care) but one team is saying... "we bet you suck this year" so its not nice... we want some added competitiveness right? Its weird I know but it removes the conflict of interest teams have in losing.

On top of that I make rules that you can only draft #1 once every 4 years. You can only move into the top 4 2 out of 4 years. So like Houston moving up 4 straight years wouldnt happen... its spreads some of the luck around. I might say maybe 1 out of 3 years.

So you root for the demise of other teams... how many extra Minnesota games have you watched this year? Now fans have a rooting interest in at least two franchises. So you've created enough variances and uncontrollable factors that they will just "play it straight" for the most part hopefully.

I think with any of these solutions the owners will push back hard. These guys feel like they have more control/power and wouldn't relinquish that power easily.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
My second proposal is to have draft picks bid on with cap space and not tied to record at all. The basic ideas is that your cap space for the upcoming year can be used in a bidding process for each pick. Teams wouldn’t “own” draft picks. Each year a team would have to bid on picks. Teams with no cap space would only have a “minimum bid.”

Potentially at the end of each season, so when the finals end, teams have to submit their bids to the league office. In the meantime, free agency starts and teams cannot use cap space that is tied up in draft pick bids on free agents. Teams would essentially be choosing between building through the draft and free agency each year.

The obvious negative for this idea is that if teams don’t own draft picks, then how do they complete trades? Maybe it’s enough to trade the cap space that can go in to draft pick bidding? The players union would hate the idea of teams hoarding cap space. You would still likely have a minimum salary, but in this scenario you would have a bunch of teams at the minimum to bid on cap space. Yeah, there are a lot of problems that would have to get figured out.
Click to expand...

This combined with a hardcap might be my ideal state. Unfortunately I think it might just be too drastic of a change to implement.....but I do love the idea of teams having to make a true choice between talent that wins now versus prospects. Much more reasonable decision that losing on purpose or not.
 
My third proposal, which I find problematic, but maybe other people like this idea, is that each team would have a league appointed doctor on it’s medical staff. The doctor would be kind of like a spy, but also offer second opinions on rest requirements and practical injury management.
 
KqWIN said:
Two must haves:

1) Incentives for winning - Everyone talks about the incentive for losing, this is obviously an issue but I think it is as equally as important that there are no incentives for winning. Even if the rewards for tanking are tiny and minute, there really is no reward for not tanking. The NBA can incentivize this on two fronts - players and franchises.

Players can be incentivized by money. I would be interesting to see a model where each team needs to allocate a certain amount of money that is incentive based. For example, what if 10% of a team's payroll must be tied to some winning related goal? This "bonus" doesn't necessarily have to count against the cap.

Franchises can also be incentivized by money, but also cap mechanics. Winning can be tied to an exception that is granted to teams who win more, again this doesn't have to count against the cap. Increasing the ability to spend (without tax penalty) could provide more incentive for a team to finish higher in the standings and gives a natural progression towards team building where winning is rewarded.

2) The lotto odds need complex and involve more factors - One of the worst things about tanking is feeling like you need to lose on any given night. The reason why this is a thing is because you can directly look at the standings and see the impact right away. If you based the lotto odds on more years, you wouldn't have that acute reaction to a certain loss....or at the very least it would be fractional compared to the current system. It's more tempting to bench Kessler out of the blue when you can see the standings and understand the impact immediately. But what if odds were based on the last X years.....It would be 1/X as important....you still benching Kessler? And are you benching him if both the players and teams get something advantageous for winning?

This would also prevent teams from doing a one off tank where they just decided to pack it in for one year. Being bad would still help their overall lotto odds, but it wouldn't have the direct and instantaneous impact it does now.

Additionally, I don't think you should be able to win the lotto more than once in a certain time. I think lotto odds should be dynamic and based on a long period of time and also the amount of "luck" you've had in recent years.

IMO, these are changes that aren't too difficult to implement and are also things that the players, league, and teams would be open to agreeing upon.
Click to expand...
Blending the years and also limiting the amount of times you can jump into the top 4 would be helpful and spread the love a bit. I think if odds were just based on win loss record and not relative position so that there isn't a huge difference between team 3 that won 20 games and team 5 that won 22 games. That would cause some play in teams to tank out of the play in though as they'd have bigger odds.
 
Maybe no guaranteed contracts like NFL
If player is a dud you can cut him and not be trapped by a contract
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Alright. I have a solution I was waiting for the pod to release but too much other stuff.

A lot of the odds stuff simply moves the target. You have to disconnect the teams own record from the draft positioning directly. I had this thought about Brooklyn. They have Johnson and are having this nice surprise start and their pick is roughly where the suns pick is. What if they didn't do the deal to get their own picks back and just said those guys can give us their picks... so we will just ball.

So here is my solution... you have a ****** team draft essentially at the beginning of the year. If you are the worst team in the league you get the first pick which other team you think will be the worst and you get their draft/lotto odds positioning. The order would follow whatever your record was. Lots of surprises happen each year and if teams aren't actively trying to lose it will be harder to predict who is bad and good. While you do get a slight benefit for being bad this year... the reward is like 2 years away since you get the first pick at the beginning of the season. It would also create some enmity potentially (players may not care) but one team is saying... "we bet you suck this year" so its not nice... we want some added competitiveness right? Its weird I know but it removes the conflict of interest teams have in losing.

On top of that I make rules that you can only draft #1 once every 4 years. You can only move into the top 4 2 out of 4 years. So like Houston moving up 4 straight years wouldnt happen... its spreads some of the luck around. I might say maybe 1 out of 3 years.

So you root for the demise of other teams... how many extra Minnesota games have you watched this year? Now fans have a rooting interest in at least two franchises. So you've created enough variances and uncontrollable factors that they will just "play it straight" for the most part hopefully.

I think with any of these solutions the owners will push back hard. These guys feel like they have more control/power and wouldn't relinquish that power easily.
Click to expand...

That's definitely an idea that I've never heard before and hadn't though of myself. Great Work!

I assume a team couldn't pick themselves which would defeat the whole purpose. Teams would also try hard to prove the team that picked them wrong, which would be funny.
 
I think the odds are basically perfect right now. There are things you can’t solve for, like that basketball is a sport driven by stars so teams will always pull outrageous maneuvers to get them in general.

I think there is room for some meaningful tweaks. One of I’ve never seen mentioned is that the higher draft order and odds placement should be given to teams that WIN tie-breakers. This would disincentivize tank battles which are the grimiest of the grimy.

Capping the frequency of hitting on the lottery would go a long way, also. Like, if we win the #1 pick this year, the conversation of whether we should tank again or not completely evaporates which I would be happy with and similar questions for similarly-positioned teams would be similarly answered.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Blending the years and also limiting the amount of times you can jump into the top 4 would be helpful and spread the love a bit. I think if odds were just based on win loss record and not relative position so that there isn't a huge difference between team 3 that won 20 games and team 5 that won 22 games. That would cause some play in teams to tank out of the play in though as they'd have bigger odds.
Click to expand...

Yeah....I just think a blend really hit's hard against "we have to lose this game tomorrow at all costs". This is especially the case if the record in the current year isn't included and it's only previous years. Instead of "we lost against Brooklyn and now that has directly increased our odds at top 4 pick by X%" it's now "we lost against BKN and now that will effect our odds by some small amount in the future". Then you can add in limits on the amount of times you can "win" the lottery or make it so winning the lottery greatly effects odds at winning it again. Honestly, I think the more convoluted it gets the better because then we won't see all these snap decisions with a direct tanking benefit. It's just too tempting right now to look at the standings and directly see the consequences of finishing one game ahead or below another team.

I think if you can combine that with just a little bit of incentive for winning it creates a much better situation. Let's just say you get a little exception that you get to use the next summer, it's based on standings, and it doesn't count against tax. At that point I think you can really start believing that winning that game against other ****** team is more beneficial. At the very least, you don't feel that sinking feeling in your stomach that winning the game is only bad.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Alright. I have a solution I was waiting for the pod to release but too much other stuff.

A lot of the odds stuff simply moves the target. You have to disconnect the teams own record from the draft positioning directly. I had this thought about Brooklyn. They have Johnson and are having this nice surprise start and their pick is roughly where the suns pick is. What if they didn't do the deal to get their own picks back and just said those guys can give us their picks... so we will just ball.

So here is my solution... you have a ****** team draft essentially at the beginning of the year. If you are the worst team in the league you get the first pick which other team you think will be the worst and you get their draft/lotto odds positioning. The order would follow whatever your record was. Lots of surprises happen each year and if teams aren't actively trying to lose it will be harder to predict who is bad and good. While you do get a slight benefit for being bad this year... the reward is like 2 years away since you get the first pick at the beginning of the season. It would also create some enmity potentially (players may not care) but one team is saying... "we bet you suck this year" so its not nice... we want some added competitiveness right? Its weird I know but it removes the conflict of interest teams have in losing.

On top of that I make rules that you can only draft #1 once every 4 years. You can only move into the top 4 2 out of 4 years. So like Houston moving up 4 straight years wouldnt happen... its spreads some of the luck around. I might say maybe 1 out of 3 years.

So you root for the demise of other teams... how many extra Minnesota games have you watched this year? Now fans have a rooting interest in at least two franchises. So you've created enough variances and uncontrollable factors that they will just "play it straight" for the most part hopefully.

I think with any of these solutions the owners will push back hard. These guys feel like they have more control/power and wouldn't relinquish that power easily.
Click to expand...
You might have some teams on the margins still happy to place themselves at the top of the selection order, but in general I think this is a great idea.
 
Personally I don't like the idea of capping the number of top picks a team can get. Drafts vary widely in the level of talent and especially the top end level of talent. It would not be fair to draft Risacher and then not be able to have a chance at Flagg, for example.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
That's definitely an idea that I've never heard before and hadn't though of myself. Great Work!

I assume a team couldn't pick themselves which would defeat the whole purpose. Teams would also try hard to prove the team that picked them wrong, which would be funny.
Click to expand...
Correct. So Wiz have to pick someone else. Maybe they pick Brooklyn and damn... now they are in the play in. Or a team that has an injury now doesn't hold the guy out for lotto positioning cuz that might be going to a long term competitor.

As @NUMBERICA mentioned... some teams would still be fine getting better positioning in the ****** team draft. But the benefit is going to be minimal and far removed and owners might be hesitant to hurt the business just for that.

I also think there would be a slight ratings and social media boost from hate watching other teams. I always check in on the Wolves (not the Cavs as much) but I am a sicko so maybe most fans wouldn's.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Personally I don't like the idea of capping the number of top picks a team can get. Drafts vary widely in the level of talent and especially the top end level of talent. It would not be fair to draft Risacher and then not be able to have a chance at Flagg, for example.
Click to expand...
Maybe its 2 out of 4 years to move into the top 4. I just think its also unfair that some teams don't get that chance when they suck for so long. Houston for example has moved up 4 straight years... we never have.
 
Last year (not going to look up the details now), I proposed a system with flattened (but still graduated) odds that included all teams in the draft lottery and all draft positions as part of the lottery.

Goal was to:
- disincentivize tanking (or and missing playoffs) by making the odds difference between different pre-lotto positions so small as to make tanking seem like a foolish proposition
- keep the overall system of rewarding bad teams through the draft more than rewarding good teams (retaining a kind of lifeline that, on the aggregate will help bad teams retool a bit, but not so strong a lifeline that it is seen as a better value proposition than winning and retaining good players)

Can't remember the details. But maybe worst record gets like a 5% chance of number one, and best record gets a 1% chance, with 0.3% chance difference for every change in pre-draft position. (And then similar, if slightly changing odds for all the rest of the picks.

Biggest downside I see:
- more conspiracy theorizing about lottery outcomes
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Correct. So Wiz have to pick someone else. Maybe they pick Brooklyn and damn... now they are in the play in. Or a team that has an injury now doesn't hold the guy out for lotto positioning cuz that might be going to a long term competitor.

As @NUMBERICA mentioned... some teams would still be fine getting better positioning in the ****** team draft. But the benefit is going to be minimal and far removed and owners might be hesitant to hurt the business just for that.

I also think there would be a slight ratings and social media boost from hate watching other teams. I always check in on the Wolves (not the Cavs as much) but I am a sicko so maybe most fans wouldn's.
Click to expand...

Having a rooting interest makes watching and following a sport much more enjoyable.

Maybe the only problem I can think of right now is that when your team plays against the team who's draft position it holds, then teams might try and pull off some dirty stuff.
 
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