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Last week, my friends at 18to88.com sent out an email discussing their unique idea to fix the NBA draft. This caused some discussion that may or may not caused some people to catch some feelings, but either way it turned into a great debate amongst all of us at Bloguin. We had people analyzing every argument and giving their own take. Multiple other solutions came out of the original idea as well. It was a really unique conversation that we wanted to bring to all the readers of our sites. We decided the best way was to turn the topic into the second NBA Bloguin Roundtable.
Participating in the 2nd NBA roundtable are some of the best writers and greatest thinkers on Bloguin. The participants consisted of the demiurgic threadstarters Demond & Deshawn (18 to 88), the gift of gab Zach Harper (TalkHoops.net), Mr. Howl of a Good Time Dave Kelsey (Twolves Blog), and your favorite blogger's favorite blogger Gene Zarnick (Favre Dollar Footlongs).
   
18 to 88
In the offseason, 18to88 covers other sports than just the NFL. After watching my Pacers ring up a 5th win in a row, it occurred to me how depressing wins are at this point of the season. Each win keeps us that much further from a great lottery pick.
Then it came to me...the perfect way to fix the NBA draft: award draft picks based on the number of wins a team has after it is officially eliminated from playoff contention. The worst teams still get the most opportunity to get the top picks because they are eliminated first.
The catch is they have to keep working hard to improve. Their fans will have a reason to care...a reason to go to the games. Imagine you are a fan of an eliminated team, but each win brings you CLOSER to Wall or Turner and not further away from them! It would radically alter the way teams play down the stretch and raise the level of competition in the entire league.
http://18to88.com/2010-archives/march/i-just-fixed-the-nba-draft.html
Favre Dollar Footlongs
I like the idea, but I don't think it could work.
The problem with it is that if you take a team like New Jersey, even if they are mathematically eliminated first they still won't get many wins and will end up with like the 10th pick or worse. Bad teams are bad for a reason and even if they have more games to get more wins they won't.
Next, conferences are completely different. It would favor one conference over the other depending on records by each. The worst team in one conference could be eliminated weeks before the other conferences worst team and they could have the same record.
Lastly, there's always manipulation. You could take a really bad team that is out of contention by the trade deadline and then trade for a top player or two at that point and have a great record for the rest of the season and also grab the #1 pick.
18 to 88
It hurts the abysmal teams. But do we really want the best young stars going to a team so poorly run that it wins just 10 games? When a team is a bad off as the Nets, I don't mind if they are penalized. They need to get better at a lot of front office stuff before they come close to knowing how to handle a Jon Wall.
The conferences are different, but so what? A team in the west needs the help MORE than a team in the East anyway. What's the harm in a slight advantage to a team that needs it more?
Finally, so what if teams make trades? If a team wants to make a deal to get better and win games...that's a good thing. Shouldn't we encourage bad teams to make trades to get better and win games? What's wrong with a team saying, "we're out of it, but let's try to get crazy good and get the number one pick!" Wouldn't that energize their fans?
Favre Dollar Footlongs
Yes we want the young stars going to poor teams. What happens then is they can improve and then a team can build around them. Hence, LeBron James. Dwayne Wade in Miami. Even, Carmelo Anthony in Denver. None of these teams were doing great at the time, especially the Cavs.
The conference logic is way off. There's two major problems. One, with your way of thinking you are assuming the talent is all staying there. With free agency it can switch and therefore it's a vast disadvantage for the other conference. Second, if one conference has way more talent and you push the rest of the talent there then the other conference is completely useless. This is not good for the league and not good for the fans.
The last point about trades is the one with the most variance. I think the major problem here is say the Knicks want John Wall. They won't do anything in the previous off season and keep their current, bad roster. The team is horrible at the beginning, which is bad for the fans, and then at the deadline they decide to grab up good players and make a run for the pick. That's not good for the league. You don't want to start out the season knowing the franchise did nothing because more than likely they just want to make a run at a draft pick.
The first two points are the most blatant problems though. You just can't have a league like that.
18 to 88
1. The worst teams still have the best chance to get the picks. They just have to try. They'll have more opportunity to post wins by virtue of being eliminated first. It's better than rewarding them for losing on purpose.
2. the Conference problem isn't the obstacle you think it is. Right now, the 8th team in the West is about 7-8 games better than the 8th team in the East. That means, that a western team would get eliminated about 8 games faster than an eastern team with the same record. The difference is that the western team would have to actually win some of those games for it to matter. In the end, we are talking about a 'head start' of probably no more than a handful of wins (usually 3-4). I'm not sure that it would create the imbalance you think it would.
3. "The team is horrible at the beginning, which is bad for the fans, and then at the deadline they decide to grab up good players and make a run for the pick. That's not good for the league. You don't want to start out the season knowing the franchise did nothing because more than likely they just want to make a run at a draft pick."
How is that any different from happens now? Now, you know the team will suck ALL YEAR. At least under this plan, they'll try to win at some point. Fans will have something to root for...a REASON TO GO THE GAMES!
Favre Dollar Footlongs
Trying and doing is a way different thing. The Nets are the first team eliminated this year. They are not winning enough games no matter what to get the 1st pick then. Do you think they aren't trying? They don't want to be stuck in single digits. They just suck that's the problem. You can't have a system like this because it is totally variable from year to year.
The conference thing is a major problem. 3-4 games could mean 5 draft spots. I don't think either of us knows the exact numbers. I think it's a really unique and thoughtful theory, I just don't think it would work.
If you really want to show the credibility of it then you need to take the numbers from this year and even previous years and show how draft pick order would be sequestered compared to how it actually went.
18 to 88
The Nets are a historically bad team. They aren't 'normal bad'. If the Nets were your typical putrid 15-20 win worst team in the league, this system would work just fine. The Nets are the kind of once every 30 year nightmare that would blow up any system that develops.
How is this system more variable than a lottery? That's basically as variable as it comes!
I'm not sure that 3-4 wins would mean 5 draft slots. The way the standings look right now, you could have Sacramento jump a couple of slots, but that's probably the only team it would effect. Washington and Detroit would conceivably drop a couple of spots and Sacramento would go up. When you look at how it shakes out, it's not as big an advantage as you think.
I plan on running the numbers on it, I mostly just wanted to see if anyone had come up with something similar before.
TalkHoops.net
The problem is you're failing to accurately evaluate the Nets in this situation. They are having a close to historically bad season but they aren't built to be historically bad. This roster was good enough to win 20 games this year but they had some shitty luck. It's not like the Cavs in 2003 when they specifically built a bad team to try and get LeBron. The Nets aren't as bad as their record. They have a good young core. Two All-Star caliber players are on that team.
This idea is fine in theory (also don't think it's new) but it's unrealistic at this point. The lottery is designed to level the playing field and give the bad teams a good chance to get better. You're doing the opposite of that. If you're concern is to eliminate tanking then the only realistic solution is to give all of the lottery teams the same odds to win the lottery. They used to do this but decided to change it to help the competitive balance even out. There are plenty of situations in which the bad teams draft good young players and actually get better.
Favre Dollar Footlongs
The other thing I forgot to mention, why would some of the players want to play for a draft pick? Do you really think they are going to be out of contention and they are going to bust their ass and risk injury so the team can draft a better player who will make more money then them and take their spot?
Maybe a solidified vet on the team, but not younger guys.
Twolves Blog
I applaud efforts to fix the lottery, I really do. Two years ago Derek and I wrote an epic "Fix Tanking" post on Twolvesblog that got some interest. Don't have the link on my Itouch but you could google search or search our blog. At the time I thought they were great ideas, and I still think they are good. But as time as gone on, ive realized the only way to truly elimate tanking is to give all lottery (non-playoff) teams an equal chance at the top three picks via lottery. Then after the top three it would go by record as it does now.
Its not the most "fair" for the worst teams, but no organization would ever be able to justify missing the playoffs to lose on purpose in that scenario. And bad teams wouldn't lose on purpose because it wouldn't change their odds. There's just no other good way to do it, no matter the creative things people come up with.
TalkHoops.net
That's an excellent point. NBA guys don't care about draft picks. It's not like the entire Pacers roster is clamoring to go out and win the rights to John Wall. You think TJ Ford would try extra hard for that right now?
One more thing, there's this misnomer that tanking begins in January, which is just false. Typically, teams don't start tanking until around mid-to-late March. There are occasions in which the Celtics held out Paul Pierce or the Heat held out Dwyane Wade earlier in the season because they "didn't want to risk injury to them on bad teams" (aka tank-a-palooza) but for the most part, it's mainly a handful of games at the end of the season when they start letting guys like Mark Madsen jack up threes in a game.
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overwhelming contest after the game was featured on 
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