NBA Fixing the NBA

[DAF86]

I’ll never be in favor of shortening the season or eliminating conferences

Why?

 

[scott]

Aside from the competitive aspect, you aren't considering the monetary aspect of it all. With flattened odds, there should also be a monetary incentive to making the playoffs. It has to be significant enough for the players, coaching staff and franchise as a whole so as to not risking it losing it for a 6% chance at a #1 pick that could or not end up being a bust.

Where is the monetary aspect going to come from? There is already a monetary incentive to make the playoffs… how does flattening the odds change that? There is no way around the fact that flattened odds benefit the teams at the end of the lottery. If you make the end of the lottery more lucrative, then more teams will be attracted to it.

 

[DAF86]

I don't totally agree with the flatten odds for every non-playoffs team.

Fixing the "team trying to lose is 1 issue". But we need to keep in mind that league also need to "help the weakest team" through the draft so that the league can be competitive. Imagine a real bad team keep getting bad lottery order (due to flatten odds), it will be hard for them to bounce back and future prospective owner will not be interested to buy a NBA team.

There should still be a system to give higher odds to the weakest team....but now the issue is those middle team trying to pretend as the weakest team...

If the Bulls get the #1 pick instead of the Nets, does it really change anything?

If you are a bad team for many years, there will come a time where you get good picks, even with flattened odds. If you don't make the most out of it, then it's on you, tbh.

 

[tearsofmorningdew]

Why?

Re: 82 games. I like watching as much NBA as I can. Plus it’s just not realistic—players would have to take a salary hit and owners want the stadium revenue. Plus would be a nightmare for comparing stats across eras, even if we’re in an inflated stat porn era.

Re: conferences. This one’s just preference. I like how much better the western conference is than the east like a point of pride almost. If we’re worried about leaving teams out of the playoffs most finals winners are top 3 seed anyway and lowest seed in recent history was 6 seed rockets mid 90s

 

[Robz4000]

Re: 82 games. I like watching as much NBA as I can. Plus it’s just not realistic—players would have to take a salary hit and owners want the stadium revenue. Plus would be a nightmare for comparing stats across eras, even if we’re in an inflated stat porn era.

Re: conferences. This one’s just preference. I like how much better the western conference is than the east like a point of pride almost. If we’re worried about leaving teams out of the playoffs most finals winners are top 3 seed anyway and lowest seed in recent history was 6 seed rockets mid 90s

If conferences didn't exist the Spurs might legit have 2-3 more rings tbh.

 

[DAF86]

Where is the monetary aspect going to come from? There is already a monetary incentive to make the playoffs… how does flattening the odds change that? There is no way around the fact that flattened odds benefit the teams at the end of the lottery. If you make the end of the lottery more lucrative, then more teams will be attracted to it.

Well, it's obviously coming from the league and the monetary incentive should be significant enough for teams not to tank a playoffs spot just for a 6% chance of getting a #1 pick that could end up being a Zaccherie Risacher.

Heck, forget about Risacher, would you tank a playoffs spot (and significant money) for a Paolo Banchero or a Zion Williamson? I wouldn't, tbh.

 

[scott]

Conferences and divisions are mostly helpful as a scheduling mechanism to try to optimize travel, but they can do that but still have the playoffs be conference-agnostic. But if you did that, they would actually be no impact on the playoffs, since of the 16 teams with the best records are 8 West and 8 East.

So, unless you are going to balance the schedule out (and create more travel… which the owners and probably the players will be against), historically there would be very little impact except now you might have east and west teams face each other in earlier rounds (which again, might create a travel problem the teams and players don’t like)

 

[scott]

Well, it's obviously coming from the league and the monetary incentive should be significant enough for teams not to tank a playoffs spot just for a 6% chance of getting a #1 pick that could end up being a Zaccherie Risacher.

Heck, forget about Risacher, would you tank a playoffs spot (and significant money) for a Paolo Banchero or a Zion Williamson? I wouldn't, tbh.

“The League” is the owners. They already have the money. What financial incentive are they going to create that they don’t already have? Currently if you make the playoffs, you get more games and generate more game day revenue, and players get more paychecks. What other new incentive are you going to create? If you are suggesting all 30 (or 32) pick some cash into escrow to split up amongst the top 16… I’m actually down for that (and it aligns with the idea I already posted). But playoff teams already get monetarily rewarded.

Risacher being the #1 pick didn’t stop teams from tanking that year either, btw. And yes… tons of teams did (and would again) tank for Zion… you’re applying some convenient hindsight… he was highly regarded entering the draft. The worst team in the league this year will finish with a better record than the TWO worst teams in Risacher’s year.

 

[DAF86]

“The League” is the owners. They already have the money. What financial incentive are they going to create that they don’t already have? Currently if you make the playoffs, you get more games and generate more game day revenue, and players get more paychecks. What other new incentive are you going to create? If you are suggesting all 30 (or 32) pick some cash into escrow to split up amongst the top 16… I’m actually down for that (and it aligns with the idea I already posted). But playoff teams already get monetarily rewarded.

Just grab a % of the money from the TV deals and make a "playoffs teams fund" to divide among all playoffs teams. Make it significant enough so as to prevent low end playoffs teams from tanking.

Risacher being the #1 pick didn’t stop teams from tanking that year either, btw. And yes… tons of teams did (and would again) tank for Zion… you’re applying some convenient hindsight… he was highly regarded entering the draft.

I was trying to make a point that you get a Wemby only so often. I know Zion was a highly regarded prospect, that's precisely why I brought him up. If you are a good enough team to make the playoffs, you shouldn't be tanking, because the chances of, a) getting a top pick are slim, and, b) you not only need to get lucky with the lottery, you also need the pick to pan out, lowering even further the chances for success. If you are a playoffs team just make the playoffs, let the lottery picks come when you are bad.

 

[DAF86]

There's also something to be done regarding the luxury tax and making the playoffs. Let's say you build a contender through the draft and want to keep the core intact, every season you make the playoffs (AKA: you didn't tank) you get some kind of break with the luxury tax.

I'm not an expert on those type of money and contractual aspects of the game, so I can't provide a precise example of something that can be done, but you get the point.

 

[Thoodee]

100% eliminating conferences. East has been weak since i can remember.

Hell no to flattened odds as laid out. However a tournament style for maybe worst 6-15 spots would be awesome. Wont stop tanking for top 5 however, this for sure will provide fuel for the majority to try all the way to the end of the season. Each teams finishing rank will correspond to draft order placement from 6-15.

Also, cup champs get to swap one spot up.

 

[spurraider21]

They didn't get fined for that, they fined them for sitting so many healthy players. LM has barely played the last month despite not being injured.

jazz absolutely were fined for benching players mid-game. its the pacers who were fined for simply ruling healthy players inactive

 

[Robz4000]

jazz absolutely were fined for benching players mid-game. its the pacers who were fined for simply ruling healthy players inactive

I stand corrected tbh.

 

[DAF86]

100% eliminating conferences. East has been weak since i can remember.

Hell no to flattened odds as laid out. However a tournament style for maybe worst 6-15 spots would be awesome. Wont stop tanking for top 5 however, this for sure will provide fuel for the majority to try all the way to the end of the season. Each teams finishing rank will correspond to draft order placement from 6-15.

Also, cup champs get to swap one spot up.

I don't know why folks are so against this idea. I think it's the lesser of all evils.

 

[spurraider21]

completely flattened odds wont stop some teams from tanking to go from 9th seed to 11th seed, but we wont keep seeing the complete race to the bottom of all levels of the standings.

if the only goal is to eliminate tanking, yeah, you completely flatten odds and come down with HAMMERS if you find player participation policy violations or jazz type situations.

but i think that its misguided to think the only goal is to eliminate tanking. part of the goal is also to promote league parity... which means you do want to direct talent to teams that are bereft of talent, so im not sure this is really the way to go

 

[scott]

Just grab a % of the money from the TV deals and make a "playoffs teams fund" to divide among all playoffs teams. Make it significant enough so as to prevent low end playoffs teams from tanking.



I was trying to make a point that you get a Wemby only so often. I know Zion was a highly regarded prospect, that's precisely why I brought him up. If you are a good enough team to make the playoffs, you shouldn't be tanking, because the chances of, a) getting a top pick are slim, and, b) you not only need to get lucky with the lottery, you also need the pick to pan out, lowering even further the chances for success. If you are a playoffs team just make the playoffs, let the lottery picks come when you are bad.

Okay, you're first point is along the lines of what I suggested. I'd just go the extra step of having the players have at-risk pay as well. You don't need to flatten the lottery odds to to this, however. In fact, flattening the lottery odds kind of undoes what you are trying to accomplish by making the back half of the lottery more lucrative.

The point you are making about Wemby is undermined by the fact that teams still tank even when there isn't a Wemby or a Zion.

 

[scott]

There's also something to be done regarding the luxury tax and making the playoffs. Let's say you build a contender through the draft and want to keep the core intact, every season you make the playoffs (AKA: you didn't tank) you get some kind of break with the luxury tax.

I'm not an expert on those type of money and contractual aspects of the game, so I can't provide a precise example of something that can be done, but you get the point.

IMO, they should just do this for every team regardless of whether you make the playoffs - something like you get a discount on the cap/tax/apron hit for homegrown players. Naturally this would be most valuable to good (playoff) teams, because bad teams are less concerned about how they manage to keep together a shitty roster.

 

[ambchang]

Escrow work only on the owners. Otherwise no players would ever sign or stay on bad teams, and eventually hurt small market teams because now the penalties will impact them more

For lottery odds, use a running three year wins average so that bad teams will still be helped but you’d have to be bad for a while to get the odds. Also prevents teams that have injuries for one year get food picks to get loaded and rewards teams that are improving. It also prevents mass tanking for a single good draft

 

[CGD]

I don’t fully understand why people think the NBA is broken all of the sudden. It’s like all the podcasters had an agenda, decided to band together for 10 days, and created a narrative for content creation purposes.

That or there are some bad rating numbers that we will never see.

 

[DAF86]

completely flattened odds wont stop some teams from tanking to go from 9th seed to 11th seed, but we wont keep seeing the complete race to the bottom of all levels of the standings.

if the only goal is to eliminate tanking, yeah, you completely flatten odds and come down with HAMMERS if you find player participation policy violations or jazz type situations.

but i think that its misguided to think the only goal is to eliminate tanking. part of the goal is also to promote league parity... which means you do want to direct talent to teams that are bereft of talent, so im not sure this is really the way to go

Like I said in a previous post, if the Bulls get the #1 pick instead of the Nets, does it really make much of a difference?

 

[RC_Drunkford]

leave it as it is. I don't see a reason to change anything. Players getting injured so easily is a result of not training right. They wanted a shorter training camp, they got it. They wanted to get rid of 2 practices per day, they got it. Now they all getting injured and blaming the schedule for it.

 

[LeBowen]

leave it as it is. I don't see a reason to change anything. Players getting injured so easily is a result of not training right. They wanted a shorter training camp, they got it. They wanted to get rid of 2 practices per day, they got it. Now they all getting injured and blaming the schedule for it.

I don't understand how everyone is fine with NBA players not having any official games for between 4 (finalists) and 6 (lottery teams) months.
The contracts keep increasing and they're trying to convince us that keeping the same number of games, but spreading them over a couple of more months would be an issue?

The opening night should be in early September, that's 6 extra weeks to get rid of all the scheduling issues.
Two full months is more than enough rest for them and there's no valid argument against it.

No more b2bs, better scheduling for fans that attend games which would undoubtedly increase the attendance averages.
Even the TV viewership would increase because not many people watch basketball every day.

But then the players would complain because most of them want to spend a third of the year doing mostly nothing, which is unheard of in any other sport that isn't a full contact, high injury risk like NFL or martial arts are.

 

[CrustyCoastBendFan]

jazz absolutely were fined for benching players mid-game. its the pacers who were fined for simply ruling healthy players inactive

Yet all the evidence and actual testimony Pablo Torre presented means nothing. They were basically hyping up Kawhi in that third quarter. Watching that cheat Balmer freak out on the sideline was the chef’s kiss of how broken this whole league is. The media gatekeeper industry plants distractions while pushing non-issues, turning people into a bunch of HOA President Karens, all while real crimes and malfeasance are happening right in front of us. The media long ago abandoned the watchdog mantle for a sycophantic, incestuous role as gatekeeper. Fourth Estate my ass.

 

[spurs2112]

Here's a extreme idea. If you don't win X amount of games your odds of getting a 1-4 pick diminish with the more losses you have. I refuse to believe a professional team can be as bad as their end of season record shows. I mean we all know its because of the tank but it hurts the game and the fans who pay to see their team. I have also been for eliminating the conferences but it will never happen. For the past 2 decades or so most of the top 16 teams would be from the west. With the amount of revenue eastern team owners would lose from not hosting playoff games it won't happen. Also the NBA would lose out on all the ratings coming from the east. Unless you're a hardcore fan who watches every game (I personally only watch the Spurs) who from the east would tune in if their team is not playing.

 

[Seventyniner]

If stripping the roster to tank is okay, like The Process Sixers, while sitting healthy good players isn't, like the current Jazz with Markkanen and JJJ, maybe an answer is to award picks based on roster quality (measured by some objective stats like BPM, WS/48 or whatever) rather than record. The purpose of having the worst teams get the best picks is to promote parity, and awarding high picks to teams with good players who happen to have one bad year runs counter to that. This also removes the incentive for teams to make up or overstate injuries for their good players, or slow-walk a return from a legitimate injury.

For example this would have made the Spurs getting Duncan far less likely, since they were only terrible due to Robinson's injury and Robinson himself was still a top flight player.

Or base the lottery odds on the combined previous 3 years of records rather than the most recent one, forcing teams to really commit to a long-term tank (possibly angering their fan base) to truly max out their odds of a top pick. It's much harder to sit your good players for 3 full seasons rather than part of one.

For lottery odds, use a running three year wins average so that bad teams will still be helped but you’d have to be bad for a while to get the odds. Also prevents teams that have injuries for one year get food picks to get loaded and rewards teams that are improving. It also prevents mass tanking for a single good draft

Just saw this. Great minds!