NBA Fixing the NBA
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It will be a complete mystery to everyone when the play-in teams start hard tanking after the all-star break.
LeBowen
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I think a lot of Spurs fans don't realize we made it out like bandits, the league is basically trying to prevent the current Spurs situation from happening again.
We got the best player in the league and two two-way guards with star potential in consecutive drafts, it's just unfair, no other word for it.
And if the league stops it from happening again, other teams won't be able to catch up with us by doing the same thing.
All I know is that they'll come up with the worst possible solution and that we should be happy we're done with the lottery for the next couple of decades.
That was my first thought as well. Portland, GS, hell even the Clippers this year, all would have started tanking about 10-20 games ago to get those 8% odds.
bozhemoi
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Flattening the odds will unsurprisingly punish the worst teams and give teams that are pretty good but still struggling a massive boost. It'll cause teams to avoid the play-in or just throw games instead of playing unwinnable playoff battles.
I mean, look. If we want to admit there is a current problem with tanking, then is this a recent problem? I would say it's a recent problem, because there wasn't an issue before.
Then, what changed to make it a problem? What, in the rules, changed in how lotteries were run? Why, they flattened the odds and then there's a prevalence of pick protections, which didn't exist before.
So, instead of non-flattening the odds or looking at protected picks, they're going to flatten the odds even more and throw even more teams into the pot who can start tanking.
Meanwhile, there are teams currently sitting players in order to get the right playoff spots. Why isn't Silver doing anything about them?
To me, you need to un-flatten the odds. You need to incentivize teams for playing their players (not punish them for being terrible). You need to somehow compensate teams for constantly losing the lottery. Some of those may be impossible to do, but, look, the way these bad teams get better is by getting the pick of the best players. Full stop. Benefiting the non-worst teams ain't the way to go.
I mean, look. If we want to admit there is a current problem with tanking, then is this a recent problem? I would say it's a recent problem, because there wasn't an issue before.
Then, what changed to make it a problem? What, in the rules, changed in how lotteries were run? Why, they flattened the odds and then there's a prevalence of pick protections, which didn't exist before.
So, instead of non-flattening the odds or looking at protected picks, they're going to flatten the odds even more and throw even more teams into the pot who can start tanking.
Meanwhile, there are teams currently sitting players in order to get the right playoff spots. Why isn't Silver doing anything about them?
To me, you need to un-flatten the odds. You need to incentivize teams for playing their players (not punish them for being terrible). You need to somehow compensate teams for constantly losing the lottery. Some of those may be impossible to do, but, look, the way these bad teams get better is by getting the pick of the best players. Full stop. Benefiting the non-worst teams ain't the way to go.
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Ironically, their solution to preventing the current Spurs situation is going to work exactly in our favor, as I can almost assure you that at least one of our swaps is going to fall into this new flattened lotto odds range and be even more valuable than it was previously. Chef's kiss.
Yep. People want to pretend that isn't the case, but it's going to be one of those "wow, who could have seen this coming aside from everybody" situations after a few years when the dust settles.
Well said, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the irony of what tonight's OKC-DEN game will look like. We were told that part of the reason to address tanking was to think of the poor fans who paid to see their heroes, Keyonte George and Pascal Siakam, but are robbed of the opportunity. I feel pretty confident that whatever people paid for even the best Jazz v Pacers tickets pales in comparison to some of the prices people paid for a late season OKC v DEN matchup that will now feature Chris Youngblood and Brooks Barnhizer going up in an epic battle against David Roddy and KJ Simpson.
At the end of the day, what OKC and DEN do tonight is in the best interest of their franchises and they should be allowed to do that, just like whatever the Jazz and Pacers are doing is in their best interest of theirs (just like the Spurs were able to do what was in the best interest of theirs when they rolled out a Diop/Branham/Graham/Tre Jones/Mamu lineup late in the season ahead of winning the lottery.
I can't think of a single instance where the league has been made better by Adam Silver thinking he knows what is better for teams than the teams themselves.
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If we wanted to really nerd out and have fun with adjusting lottery odds... we could have luck-adjusted lotto odds. So for example, the next time the Spurs are in the lotto they get their odds diminished and those ping-pong balls get transferred to the Pistons (for example, if they were in the same lotto) to make up for historical good/bad luck.
Seems unnecessary, but it's an idea... and I just like ideas that involve doing extra math
What difference does it make to have the Bulls winning the lottery over the Pacers? Or the Pelicans over the Jazz? None whatsoever. Why do yall care so much about something that is such a non-issue?
The only downside to having flattened odds is if teams prefer to tank a playoffs spot for a chance at the lottery, but that has an easy solution: just make the playoffs worthy enough (in terms of money and in-game benefits) that teams wouldn't dare to punt that away for a 1 in 14 chance of drafting a guy that may or may not end up being a bust.
bozhemoi
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Huh?
You said:
"Benefiting the non-worst teams ain't the way to go."
I gave you examples of "non-worst teams" benefitting in the draft over teams with worse records than them.
It's funny because you don't understanding the point I was trying to make kind of proves it, tbh.
spurraider21
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thats a good argument against your position
He doesn't even know what point he was trying to make. He fumbled that bad.
But I understand it as "what's the worst that can happen?" A good team gets a top pick? You mean like the Pacers now, or the Spurs in 97? So what would be the difference?
A mediocre team getting a top pick instead of trully bad one is a complete non-issue, I don't know why folks are making such a fuss about that.
