Yeah, the thing that makes all of this so complicated is that it isn't a problem to be solved, its an optimization to be balanced. You can 'fix' tanking easily in a lot of ways. For example, you could reverse the odds in the draft so the best teams get the best picks. That'd completely remove any incentive to lose. It'd also set up a "scum"-like system where it was nearly impossible, or at least extremely time consuming, to ever scrape your way off the bottom when you fell. Completely balancing the draft odds would do something fairly similar, just not as intense.
So what makes it complicated is you have to balance removing the incentive to lose against reducing the ability for teams to rapidly move back up the ranks.
The Wheel is an interesting concept. It lets you know when you are going to pick well so you can make strategic plans to try to coincide a surge around that time. It would negatively impact the parity of the league though. The kids being drafted will also know when teams have the top pick in the wheel, and many of the top talent guys may manipulate their draft class in order to guarantee they land in a more favorable location. It also makes it so you can't get multiple high round draft picks you picked on your team at the same time, which means you have to also build through trades and free-agency, which will always benefit the larger markets.
It removes the losing incentive by decreasing league parity. (Moreso, actually I think, than doing a 30 team flat odds lottery would. In that case, there's more random chance that some lowly team can win multiple years within a timeline and still be able to build a competitve team completely through the draft. Randomness tending to favor the ones the system is biased against). Might be the best you can do, but its still a balance.
Part of me thinks that all this lottery stuff is counter-productive and they should just go back to a straight reverse-record seeding. Reducing the odds a team at the bottom of the barrel will get one of the best picks reduces the expected value of your draft position, but it doesn't remove the incentive to be at the very bottom. Basically it just means you have to hang out at the bottom for a longer time before you get what you want out of it.
If its reverse-record, you get to the bottom, you stay there for 2 or 3 years, then start climbing back out again. As it is, it can take 5-7 years of competitive tanking to get what you need. And since you are staying around for that much longer, so are all the other tanking teams. Makes a log-jam at the bottom, which means more teams competing for those bottom picks, which means more gross and blatant methods to ensure you suck enough to out-tank them.
