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My Redo of How NBA Does the Lottery

The new CBA will go a long way to creating a greater competitive balance. The Draft should be next. Here is what I would do:

I will not be proposing a system that allows for a Charlotte to fall to #14, but I also want to prevent the tanking that happens by teams in an effort to get more ping pong balls. Another goal of mine is to make the lottery more interesting and beneficial to teams that are stuck in the 11-14 rut that perpetuates mediocrity. Their is currently roughly a 5% total chance of them to move up into the top 3 and nothing else.

My Solution:

1) All draft slots should be up for grabs to every team at much more even odds. I would keep in place the rule that no team with one of the worst 3 records can fall more than 3 slots down. Then, teams 4-14 can't fall more than 5 spots. This way the worst 3 teams worst case scenario is to drop to 4, 5, and 6. The worst case scenario for the 4th worst record is to fall to 9th.

2) Considering the statement above the following should be the percentage chance each team has of winning the initial 3 picks. (But again 4-14 will continue to pull balls for teams higher in the lottery to still move up, whereas the current rule allows for no one to move out of their slotted position once they miss out on jumping into the top 3.)
1- 10%
2- 9%
3- 9%
4- 9%
5- 8%
6- 8%
7- 8%
8- 7%
9- 7%
10- 7%
11- 5%
12- 5%
13- 4%
14- 4%

3- How it works: You put 100 Balls in the hopper with each team getting their allotted number. You pull them one at a time and start placing team placards on the BIG BOARD in the order of selection.

The one issue that has to be addressed is before you pull a ball for the 4th slot and onward, you need to make sure teams haven't dropped more than their 3 - 5 slot worst case scenarios.

So if the 4th worst record team still hasn't seen their ball pulled when it is time to slot the 9ths position in the draft.... No ball needs to be pulled and their placard goes up on the BIG BOARD in the 9th slot.

This raises the excitement of the draft. More importantly teams play to win every game all year and we stop the tanking.

When you look at the standings right now Detroit is in the 9th position in the draft with just 23 wins. But they only have 2 more wins than the 3rd worst team #3 Washington and 2 fewer wins than #11 Toronto.

Its time to make the last 30 games of the season mean something and give all teams a proper shot at improving their franchise. I mean really, if the season ended today should the Pistons or Raptors really be penalized because they won 2-4 more games than Washington and thus miss out on a really good player?

Lets make the Lottery an event to watch... and YES the ball and hopper thing should be shown live.
 
The only way this will ever be fixed is if the NBA gets rid of guaranteed contracts. If contracts aren't guaranteed, then players won't tank, because they will ALWAYS be fighting for their jobs.

That is why tanking is a lot harder to do in the NFL. If your coach tells you to tank, you will think twice about that if you know that tanking means you will get cut. Also, non-guaranteed contracts gets rid of Boozer sitting games out.

As long as there are guaranteed contracts, players won't feel too bad about tanking.
 
I don't mind if the team tanking is REALLY BAD like the bobcats or the magic.

But when you get teams like GSW intentionally sit their best players like Curry, Bogut, Thompson, David Lee - it's pathetic, and the NBA should do something about it.

If the NBA fined the Spurs for sitting their big 3 - why can't they also fine the GSW last year?

It's these inconsistencies that get to me.
 
I don't mind if the team tanking is REALLY BAD like the bobcats or the magic.

But when you get teams like GSW intentionally sit their best players like Curry, Bogut, Thompson, David Lee - it's pathetic, and the NBA should do something about it.

If the NBA fined the Spurs for sitting their big 3 - why can't they also fine the GSW last year?

It's these inconsistencies that get to me.

Golden State did have some legitimate injuries. Bogut was recovering from microfracture surgery, and wasn't even ready to go for the start of this season. Curry probably could have come back last season, but with his weak ankle there's at least a weak argument for holding him out. David Lee had surgery to repair some abdominal muscles right after the season and ended. Mark Jackson definitely had Thompson sit a few fourth quarters of winnable games.
 
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