The NBA and its stakeholders have started talks on finding new solutions to prevent tanking

[Coach Ellis]

I think there’s been a lot of good ideas thrown out there, but I think the main thing is to incentivize teams to win and to remove incentives for teams to lose.

My solution would be a combination of several things I’ve seen others suggest.

Any team that misses the playoffs gets a top 10 pick, but they have equal odds for all 10 picks in the lottery. You are not eligible for the lottery if you make it to the play-in games or post season. If you move up into the top 3 picks, you are no longer eligible to participate in the lottery for the next two seasons and are awarded the next highest pick after all of the lottery teams have been assigned their picks. The four play-in teams that don’t advance to the playoffs are awarded picks 11-14.

This would allow the NBA to televise the lottery live - starting with the lowest pick and moving their way up. You know which teams are in the lottery and everyone has the same odds for every single pick. If you have 10 teams in the lottery, do pick #10, then pick #9 and so on. . . with the odds getting better for each team remaining until the last two have a 50/50 shot at #1.

You either make the playoffs, or you get a top 10 pick with equal odds to move up to #1. Pick protections should be limited to two options - top 3 or unprotected. No more lottery protection and if you fail to make the playoffs, you’re more likely to lose the pick than to keep it.

Also, I’d like to see the league implement two strategies to help incentivize teams to win more games - even if they don’t make the playoffs. #1 - the bottom 5 teams are ineligible to earn extra tax money that is spent by tax-paying teams. That money is split evenly between all of the other non-tax paying teams that are not bottom 5 in terms of record. #2 - the league creates a players bonus fund that rewards non-playoff teams players based on total wins, wins vs. division and conference opponents, and even NBA cup wins (why not?) and is distributed more to lower-earning players who get extended playing time. Give the players on these non-playoff teams even more reason to win games and be competitive. Make it a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom.

 

[slc]

I think there’s been a lot of good ideas thrown out there, but I think the main thing is to incentivize teams to win and to remove incentives for teams to lose.

My solution would be a combination of several things I’ve seen others suggest.

Any team that misses the playoffs gets a top 10 pick, but they have equal odds for all 10 picks in the lottery. You are not eligible for the lottery if you make it to the play-in games or post season. If you move up into the top 3 picks, you are no longer eligible to participate in the lottery for the next two seasons and are awarded the next highest pick after all of the lottery teams have been assigned their picks. The four play-in teams that don’t advance to the playoffs are awarded picks 11-14.

This would allow the NBA to televise the lottery live - starting with the lowest pick and moving their way up. You know which teams are in the lottery and everyone has the same odds for every single pick. If you have 10 teams in the lottery, do pick #10, then pick #9 and so on. . . with the odds getting better for each team remaining until the last two have a 50/50 shot at #1.

You either make the playoffs, or you get a top 10 pick with equal odds to move up to #1. Pick protections should be limited to two options - top 3 or unprotected. No more lottery protection and if you fail to make the playoffs, you’re more likely to lose the pick than to keep it.

Also, I’d like to see the league implement two strategies to help incentivize teams to win more games - even if they don’t make the playoffs. #1 - the bottom 5 teams are ineligible to earn extra tax money that is spent by tax-paying teams. That money is split evenly between all of the other non-tax paying teams that are not bottom 5 in terms of record. #2 - the league creates a players bonus fund that rewards non-playoff teams players based on total wins, wins vs. division and conference opponents, and even NBA cup wins (why not?) and is distributed more to lower-earning players who get extended playing time. Give the players on these non-playoff teams even more reason to win games and be competitive. Make it a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom.

All these ideas sound great but the brilliant NBA sports minds will find some way to make the tanking dilemma even worse
They have fouled up every other way to make the game watchable and enjoyable

 

[framer]

All these ideas sound great but the brilliant NBA sports minds will find some way to make the tanking dilemma even worse
They have fouled up every other way to make the game watchable and enjoyable

Once you realize that every change in a way a league does business is not meant to make things fair but to make money for the league, things become much clearer. There is not a sports league in the world preoccupied by team or player equity.

 

[LogGrad98]

I think they should do a weighted rolling 3-year win-loss record to determine top pick odds for the draft, so the teams that really are struggling have the best chances. They should combine this with no more than 1 top-3 pick and 2 top-5 picks in any 3-year period. So if you get #1 one year then you can't get another top-3 pick for the next 3 years. If you get #2 one year then #4 the next then no more top-5 picks allowed in the next 3 years. Something like that. This means teams either need to really commit to the tank, for like a decade, or they work much harder to build around their top picks to get better. Much more likely they'll work harder to get better than commit to losing for a decade. Something along these lines would help at least and keep teams like the Spurs from stocking up on top-3 picks for 4 years in a row.

 

[Park Bites]

Why not get rid of the lottery and have a 30 year rotation? Every 6 years you'll get a top 5 pick. Also, it's not as risky to trade draft picks as you'll know exactly which position they come from. The Jazz would have made out in this scenario over the past 30 years.

This is the best solution but also the potential to develop dynasties. It would take 30 years to see if it works.

 

[Park Bites]

Ok spitballing an idea here. This is not fully thought out but what if you did a few things.

Ok first you have an expansion. 32 teams.

Everyone makes the playoffs. Maybe make the first round 5 game or maybe 3.

That would eliminate 16 teams. (Might even have upsets. Would be kinda fun) this will also generate revenue for teams and the nba.

These 16 losers would be who is eligible for the lottery. Now you could base the lottery odds on how the perform in first round some how. (Again spit balling) points for and against. Wins and loses.

This would eliminate some tanking as teams wouldn't want to get the best teams in the first round and get wooped.

Again not a fully formed idea.

 

[Park Bites]

Ok spitballing an idea here. This is not fully thought out but what if you did a few things.

Ok first you have an expansion. 32 teams.

Everyone makes the playoffs. Maybe make the first round 5 game or maybe 3.

That would eliminate 16 teams. (Might even have upsets. Would be kinda fun) this will also generate revenue for teams and the nba.

These 16 losers would be who is eligible for the lottery. Now you could base the lottery odds on how the perform in first round some how. (Again spit balling) points for and against. Wins and loses.

This would eliminate some tanking as teams wouldn't want to get the best teams in the first round and get wooped.

Again not a fully formed idea.

Just to add to this.

So if a team wins a playoff game they increase their lottery odds slightly. If they perform well in other stats they increase their lottery odds.

It will still be weighted but a team that doesn't throw away talent to get worse could actually be reward with better odds at a better pick.

Anyway I think this fixes some of the nba issues it generates more money and makes the NbA more watchable.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Ok spitballing an idea here. This is not fully thought out but what if you did a few things.

Ok first you have an expansion. 32 teams.

Everyone makes the playoffs. Maybe make the first round 5 game or maybe 3.

That would eliminate 16 teams. (Might even have upsets. Would be kinda fun) this will also generate revenue for teams and the nba.

These 16 losers would be who is eligible for the lottery. Now you could base the lottery odds on how the perform in first round some how. (Again spit balling) points for and against. Wins and loses.

This would eliminate some tanking as teams wouldn't want to get the best teams in the first round and get wooped.

Again not a fully formed idea.

This is interesting and unique, I don't think I've ever seen this idea, well done. It basically makes the regular season almost completely irrelevant in both good and bad ways.

I think I might be more interested in this idea if there was a first round bye for the top teams so that there was some advantage to playing well in the regular season.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

This is interesting and unique, I don't think I've ever seen this idea, well done. It basically makes the regular season almost completely irrelevant in both good and bad ways.

I think I might be more interested in this idea if there was a first round bye for the top teams so that there was some advantage to playing well in the regular season.

Adding on to Park Bite's idea. Maybe the top 3 teams in each conference get a bye. Teams 4 to 8 play teams 9 to 13 in a 5 game series (reduce the regular season by 5 games). Teams 14 and 15 in each conference are given equal odds in a lottery for 3 to 6 picks. The losing teams in the first round are given flattened odds according to their record in the regular season for the top 2 picks.

Teams can only win a top 2 pick once every 5 years.

 

[GunterD]

The things the nba seem to be considering are all fine ideas that won’t hurt anything and may make the draft process a bit better, but still won’t in any way actually fix the issue they are trying to address. So long as there is incentive to be worse and no incentive to be mediocre, the optimal strategy for any team that can’t be great will be to lose as much as possible, and none of those proposals change that in any way.

If they want to fix tanking completely, the solution is the wheel, full stop. It creates a few other balance problems; makes it harder for smaller market teams to compete, but it eliminates lose on purpose as a strategy completely.

I still think if they don’t want to completely eliminate tanking but want to significantly reduce its impact, they’d do better just chucking out all the fancy rules, tossing the lottery completely, and going back to a simple reverse order.

All the lottery does is extend the amount of time it takes for a tank to pull off its goals. Since it takes longer, teams tank for longer, and more teams end up tanking at once. If you got rid of the fancy stuff you’d still have tanking, but teams would only be able to do it for a few years in a row, and then would bounce back up. You’d get more up/down churn instead of so many teams hitting bottom and staying there forever.