Philosophically speaking -- is tanking good for the NBA?

[Saint Cy of JFC]

The draft shouldn't exist tbh.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I don't like tanking. I don't know that any one system or odds flattening can fix intentional losing. I think parity at the top of the league is pretty good... I'm not sure parity is great for the league when it comes to ratings and stuff.

I think we have to realize that tanking is a ownership decision... ownership cares about a few things... one of them is money. Tanking certainly hurts gate receipts... but I wonder if they could tie some financial incentives to wins. So the luxury tax money that comes in gets distributed to non-tax teams. What if part of that formula depends on wins... so you have a bottom feeder team that lives at the salary floor... well your distribution gets cut substantially. You have an awesome team and because of smart planning it isn't a luxury tax team... boom you get a big financial reward.

With every incentive and manipulation it adds a ripple effect... so not sure there is any bullet proof method to reduce intentional losing.

Yeah, so under that system teams with owners who have more money and are willing to bite the bullet win.

Just get rid of the draft. It's the easiest fix.

 

[LogGrad98]

I mean the NFL just gives the worst team the #1 pick... that any better? Its different because 1 player can make such a dramatic difference in basketball.

To truly even the field I'm not sure the draft lotto odds are the spot to do it. I wonder if giving compensatory picks to teams that lose stars via FA would help. Or if you retain your own players it doesn't count against the tax or some ****.

The compensatory pick thing is what cost us Magic Johnson. Not a fan.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

If you have no draft every team is highly incentivized to be good.

I think you can do some cap stuff so you assure one team doesn't get all the good rookies constantly. Yes, big markets will have an advantage but big markets have an advantage under every system you can create.

 

[LogGrad98]

Yeah, so under that system teams with owners who have more money and are willing to bite the bullet win.

Just get rid of the draft. It's the easiest fix.

Just shuttle everyone through LA and Miami and Boston and maybe New York. Then take anyone left and fill up the next tier of teams. The official NBA farm system is then set up to support the true money-makers: the Lakers, et al. Really bad idea to not regulate where the players go somehow. Otherwise why wouldn't the best talent just immediately pick the Lakers, then the next tier once they are full, then maybe the Jazz get the equivalent of un-drafted rookies in today's system. Then, of course, once the rings are won, those players move from the Lakers into the lower-level teams where they get their payday. And occasionally one of these teams get enough players together to win a ring maybe. So we go from 7 teams winning the ring in the past 10 years (the best 10 year stretch since the 70's actually for multiple teams winning it all), to 3 or 4, with lots of back to backs. Yay?

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Just shuttle everyone through LA and Miami and Boston and maybe New York. Then take anyone left and fill up the next tier of teams. The official NBA farm system is then set up to support the true money-makers: the Lakers, et al. Really bad idea to not regulate where the players go somehow. Otherwise why wouldn't the best talent just immediately pick the Lakers, then the next tier once they are full, then maybe the Jazz get the equivalent of un-drafted rookies in today's system. Then, of course, once the rings are won, those players move from the Lakers into the lower-level teams where they get their payday. And occasionally one of these teams get enough players together to win a ring maybe. So we go from 7 teams winning the ring in the past 10 years (the best 10 year stretch since the 70's actually for multiple teams winning it all), to 3 or 4, with lots of back to backs. Yay?

There are ways to limit those things that are much easier to do around a cap-based rookie system.

Also top rookies would rarely join stacked teams. They would look to join teams they know where they can play a bigger role. Of course you would get the case of that happening, but there are ways you could limit it.

I think this is a great system for the "middle class" of the NBA. I've gone deeper on this kind of system and how I would set it up in the past, and maybe I will revisit it, but overall it would be a more beneficial system for the on court product and it would reward smart well ram teams. But yesz the LA/Miami would do well too (they will do well under any system)

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Tanking is very bad for the NBA product, but I do believe it is also related to the championship or bust mentality. These two work hand in hand to make the regular season largely meaningless, and that is very bad for the NBA. Players/teams may care about the championship above all else, but a healthy league needs to have an engaging regular season. The laser focus on the playoffs and championships doesn't make the league more interesting, it's a boring slog until the finals which often ends up anticlimactic. You need a good regular season that has meaning and value to build narratives and anticipation over time.

Teams losing on purpose to get high draft picks is bad, but it's part of a larger issue where regular season games hardly matter for any team. Good, bad, mediocre....the games don't have much consequence in a championship or bust league like the NBA. Compared to other sports like European Football, the format of the league is horrible.

If European sports had drafts there would be tanking.

Also, not a European sports expert by any means, but most here would hate to be setup like European sports. Smaller market teams are way more "farm teams" than ones here. It's an even bigger big market bias. There's like what 20 premier League teams and basically only 4 teams ever win. The others are just fighting for the privilege of playing in the league and that's how they measure success and every now and then a David rises up and wins it all then returns to being another team.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Yeah, so under that system teams with owners who have more money and are willing to bite the bullet win.

Just get rid of the draft. It's the easiest fix.

I think you could tinker with it to make it so that maybe to get the distribution you have to win x amount of games... say 25. Might be enough incentive for teams to do multi-year tank jobs.

I think making the draft an auction style draft might also be a solution but it would be complex. Teams could get a cap allotment on what they can bid based on where they finish the season.

They will never get rid of the draft. They are hesitant to make any draft related changes because of prior trades executed.

They could do things that weight the odds based on if you are drafting in the top 5-10 in prior years. So you win the lotto and jump into the top 4 then your odds decrease by 50% next year no matter where you land in the lotto. The odds are allocated amount the non-repeat offenders pro-rata. Reward teams for not being in the lotto. Maybe doesn't have to be that extreme but some reduction of the draft odds for each year you draft in the lotto or top 10 starts to make it a bad bet for a team like OKC that has 2 years in the tank already. Teams like Sacramento that are perpetually in the lotto is primarily because of their own stupidity but I could see an issue arising with teams stuck upper lotto class.

You could also kinda combine things a bit... make the lotto 10 teams by excluding the play in teams. If you are a lotto team you don't get a tax disbursement. So the financial incentives to make the play in and playoffs becomes pretty big between gate and the disbursement. Then you can flatten the odds a bit more with the 10 lotto teams. Maybe even make it completely flat... and penalize the repeat lotto offenders.

Tanking is profitable in multiple ways. Business wise operating at the salary floor and missing the playoffs likely produces a bigger net profit than being a middle of the road playoff team and bumping up against the tax. Because getting one star can change your fortunes... it is also completely worth it to suck for a chance at those guys.

 

[cctrackstar]

The true way to kill tanking is for fans to stop going entirely, along with cancelling their viewing option (yeah, that's tough because other stuff is on tv.) an empty stadium is a pretty strong notice to teams that we don't like it. i do also approve of basically eliminating the lottery odds, making it the same likeliness for the entire bottom of the draft to get a good pick. as for us specifically, high draft picks will bail on us as soon as they can, right at the beginning of their first free agency, so who cares about draft picks. i would rather see how far a group of players who want to be here can get than see the team cheat the system to try and win it all.

it was so ironic to see after all the talk about whether we should have drafted deron williams or chris paul, to watch them both leave their/our team whether by choice or by arguing their way off the team. if players don't want to be here, they don't whether we draft them or try to sign them.

 

[Gameface]

There isn't anything philosophically wrong with tanking. That's because tanking is something the front office does, not the players.

If players are missing shots on purpose there is an issue.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

There are ways to limit those things that are much easier to do around a cap-based rookie system.

Also top rookies would rarely join stacked teams. They would look to join teams they know where they can play a bigger role. Of course you would get the case of that happening, but there are ways you could limit it.

I think this is a great system for the "middle class" of the NBA. I've gone deeper on this kind of system and how I would set it up in the past, and maybe I will revisit it, but overall it would be a more beneficial system for the on court product and it would reward smart well ram teams. But yesz the LA/Miami would do well too (they will do well under any system)

I think getting like a rookie cap exception could work, but I would want it tied to record in some way. I would also want to have the ability to bank a certain amount of that exception for future years. I think you'd need some sort of bid draft auction of some sort as I do think some guys would head to markets that are stacked... they do it in college.

I think it would also help do away with the problem of some drafts the #1 pick is a transcendent talent... sometimes its a bad draft... so you don't allocate as much of you draft cap exceptions.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

The true way to kill tanking is for fans to stop going entirely, along with cancelling their viewing option (yeah, that's tough because other stuff is on tv.) an empty stadium is a pretty strong notice to teams that we don't like it. i do also approve of basically eliminating the lottery odds, making it the same likeliness for the entire bottom of the draft to get a good pick. as for us specifically, high draft picks will bail on us as soon as they can, right at the beginning of their first free agency, so who cares about draft picks. i would rather see how far a group of players who want to be here can get than see the team cheat the system to try and win it all.

it was so ironic to see after all the talk about whether we should have drafted deron williams or chris paul, to watch them both leave their/our team whether by choice or by arguing their way off the team. if players don't want to be here, they don't whether we draft them or try to sign them.

Flat odds for the entire lottery? Then you just going to have teams tanking out of the 7th/8th seeds.

And only one player has actually left Utah in all these years.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

There isn't anything philosophically wrong with tanking. That's because tanking is something the front office does, not the players.

If players are missing shots on purpose there is an issue.

No, but you are stacking the odds against the players and they are inevitably be giving less effort over time as the situation becomes more hopeless

 

[Jazzmix]

If European sports had drafts there would be tanking.

Also, not a European sports expert by any means, but most here would hate to be setup like European sports. Smaller market teams are way more "farm teams" than ones here. It's an even bigger big market bias. There's like what 20 premier League teams and basically only 4 teams ever win. The others are just fighting for the privilege of playing in the league and that's how they measure success and every now and then a David rises up and wins it all then returns to being another team.

As a soccer fan I agree. The draft system as imperfect as it is still gives the small markets nba teams some small chance to win a championship which majority of smaller soccer teams won't never have. The only way for euro soccer teams is to be bought by some sheik who will spend crazy amount of money for transfers and salaries. But even those rich snobs prefer to buy a well known franchises. One thing which I guess could help small markets would be to allow them to overpay the players in comparison with bigger markets to compensate for playing in the places nobody wants to live.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I think getting like a rookie cap exception could work, but I would want it tied to record in some way. I would also want to have the ability to bank a certain amount of that exception for future years. I think you'd need some sort of bid draft auction of some sort as I do think some guys would head to markets that are stacked... they do it in college.

I think it would also help do away with the problem of some drafts the #1 pick is a transcendent talent... sometimes its a bad draft... so you don't allocate as much of you draft cap exceptions.

They do it in college because being around talent makes you look better (generally) which will get you picked higher in the draft (so more money). There's also the whole thing of them knowing it's only going to be for a single year.

I would not do it as an auction. My idea is to do it as rookies having their entire own salary cap separate from non rookie players. Minimum rookies wouldn't count against that cap. Each team has the same set amount of money they can spend on rookies. So if you blow your entire rookie cap on Victor on a 4 year contract (the max contract would be the max cap), you are going to be relegated to only having the minimum amount to spend on rookies for the next 4 years. That's roughly my idea, there would probably be more to it, but basically a hard cap for rookies.

 

[slc]

One thing which I guess could help small markets would be to allow them to overpay the players in comparison with bigger markets to compensate for playing in the places nobody wants to live.

All the players are already overpaid. Thought that was the idea. You are being paid very generously to live and play some where
you may not prefer. When you retire after a very short career you can take your giant bank account and go live wherever on the planet
you want for the rest of your life. But that does not even appeal to some players.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Just the idea that we have to put up with a season of absolute dog **** for a relatively small % chance at top talent is really annoying.

Wouldn't the odds of Utah getting a top talent be better if we just had the ability to sign them? Is there not a chance Victor and his agent would have wanted to sign with a Donovan/Rudy team? Would Jabari Parker/Jimmer/Dame wanted to sign with Utah? (And yes I know Jimmer/Jabari turned out to be ***, but they were seen as top talents and Utah would have had a good shot to sign them, point being top talents do emerge that theoretically could value being in Utah and that could happen without having to be ******).

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

They do it in college because being around talent makes you look better (generally) which will get you picked higher in the draft (so more money). There's also the whole thing of them knowing it's only going to be for a single year.

I would not do it as an auction. My idea is to do it as rookies having their entire own salary cap separate from non rookie players. Minimum rookies wouldn't count against that cap. Each team has the same set amount of money they can spend on rookies. So if you blow your entire rookie cap on Victor on a 4 year contract (the max contract would be the max cap), you are going to be relegated to only having the minimum amount to spend on rookies for the next 4 years. That's roughly my idea, there would probably be more to it, but basically a hard cap for rookies.

I think that would obviously get rid of tanking but I think it would favor the better FA markets and they already have such a big competitive advantage that I'd hate it.

Nothing extreme will ever happen though... it will always be tweaks to the existing draft system as tanking is not as big of an issue as it seems.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

All the players are already overpaid. Thought that was the idea. You are being paid very generously to live and play some where
you may not prefer. When you retire after a very short career you can take your giant bank account and go live wherever on the planet
you want for the rest of your life. But that does not even appeal to some players.

This going to be wild to hear, but players are people with their own desires and they don't have to placate you. If you had the power to get paid and have your choice of location to live, you'd probably do it.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Flat odds for the entire lottery? Then you just going to have teams tanking out of the 7th/8th seeds.

And only one player has actually left Utah in all these years.

If you moved to a ten team lotto and there was a $25M+ incentive for teams to at least make the play in then teams won't tank out of the playoffs.

You could flatten out the lotto odds on those 10 teams and make every pick one that subject to the percentages. If you drafted top 3 last year your odds decrease by 50%.