I really liked Chawx' copyrighted idea. It seemed to award effort - which was my simple idea (my idea was no lottery but have the first pick go to the best team that just missed the playoffs on down). Chawx's idea was more complicated - I think I kinda got it but not really, but that's good 'cause I don't expect the average NBA player to understand it either. All they know is that they're pretty much only rewarded for winnning.
Freak's rebuttal to this system:
The obvious problem here is that the truly bad teams could be stuck at the bottom for 5-10 years, or possibly even longer.
I can see how you might think this but Stoked had an astute reply:
What makes a constant losing team is management. The management fails to put together a competative team. Utah does not have this problem.
I'm guessing if Utah was at the bottom, you would probably think this was a really, really bad idea. Seriously, this idea could ruin francises to the point that you're not talking about moving the team, you're talking about contraction.
Teams should work their way out of the bottom - and by doing so they improve their draft order.
We've all witnessed some franchises remain bottom feeders in spite of their high draft picks. They keep being rewarded the best players only to do nothing with them in the W column. Management is what keep a bottom feeder a farm team. Teams that are poorly managed maybe should be contracted - they're farm teams anyway, just get it over with in one fell swoop.
Reward teams that are well managed, always producing a competitive product. This will also help create parity in the NBA as say a team like Houston - who just misses the playoffs - gets Anthony Davis and boom, they're in contention with the top teams in the league. This helps the middle class, helps the competitive product.
The bottom feeder teams have to figure out how to do more with less to improve, and by improving they get better picks in the draft. OR they can just throw in the towel like the losers they are.
Note: perhaps I need to say this - team that make the playoffs are NOT in the lottery. This system rewards the best teams that miss the playoffs only.