Here's a crazy idea

[Dissonance]

Ahhh ok. lol. Oops.


I do know Rockets have it worse. Some fans of theirs like it too.

[Coatesvillain]

Originally Posted by BlakeJesus

What about it? They made the playoffs, that's basically the entire point of the regular season isn't it? Some team catches a few breaks like the 76ers did and boom, that just generated a ton of cash/press for your organization. Can't make it on a run if you don't make it in the playoffs first.

Yeah, but a team like the Sixers isn't any better off this season than they were before making the playoff run. It's something that happens rather often.

[R-Star]

You get a higher chance at getting a top pick the worse you are. They do this to try to keep parity in the league.

You big market fans are so ****ing annoying with this bullshit every ****ing year. "Ohhhh... why should my team be punished for not sucking? Why should some crap team no one watches get the 1st overall pick!"

Well, seeing as how decent FA's would never go to these teams when they're at the bottom of the barrel, I think its pretty clear why the lotto works the way it does. Otherwise you'd be having about 1 franchise going bankrupt or being sold every year.

****ing morons. Its common sense.

[E.H. Munro]

Why don't they just use the NHL system as that one actually works.

[R-Star]

Originally Posted by E.H. Munro

Why don't they just use the NHL system as that one actually works.

Aren't they somewhat similar?

[R-Star]

The only main difference I can think of is I think its only the bottom 4 teams with a shot at the 1st overall. And you can only move up a pre determined amount of spots.

[ATLien]

Just seems like we're bending over backwards to try to help "the little guys" out. This is like the age limit all over again, protecting crap teams bad decisions. You want out of the lottery? Draft ****ing better players.

[Jamel Irief]

BTW this idea in itself is kind of dumb. The league changed the loto after 1994 because back then the worst team would get only 11 balls and the best 1 (with everything falling in line in between). The Magic won with the one ball after barely missing the playoffs after improving 20+ wins with a rising 21 year old center named Shaq.

Some other lotto teams that year like the Sixers, Mavs, Wolves, Bucks and Clippers continued to miss the playoffs for the next 5+ years.

[Attila]

I have thought about this too. I was thinking they could have something like a tiered system. Maybe the bottom third of non playoffs teams have the best chance, followed by the middle third, and finally the top third the teams that just missed have the least chance. That way there's still less of an incentive to lose, but the horrible teams still have the best chance to win the lottery.

[LA68]

The very first lottery was like that. New York won Pat Ewing. To this day they still talk about the "frozen card" so that Stern would know which one was NY's.

[Hyperion]

I definitely feel that there should be better odds for a 9th seed to get the no.1 overall pick. I think that teams should have a Hollinger type analysis for how many chances they get for winning the draft.

[kidd2rj]

Originally Posted by bircan

I think Stern answered this very question on NBA.com in the video clips. Have a look at that, but I think Charles brought this notion up and Stern was saying how it would be too much of an imbalance if the teams who just missed the playoffs were to land top picks, which is fair IMO.

Well to be fair, sometimes the teams that have the worst record are there because they purposely and willfully traded away their best players. I think it adds some intrigue though. If you just missed the playoffs then you're a fairly good team. If you landed the #1 pick, do you draft a young player who may need a couple years to develop or do you trade it away for that 1 or 2 players who can put you over the hump? Either way, I had tanking and we see it every year. I'd be down for something like the 4 or 6 worst records all have the same chance for the #1 pick. We see it every year where that team with the 2nd or 3rd worst record all of a sudden shuts down their best player with some mysterious knee injury for the final few weeks of the season.

[ChrisWoj]

The system, as it is, isn't that bad. A lot of people seem to complain about it, and I'm sure somewhere out there is a system that is better - but this one isn't too bad. Every team in the lottery has a *chance* at the number one seed. However, aside from that miracle draw and a #1 seed, the team is locked into a range of picks commensurate with the ranking they had within the league. The one change I wouldn't mind seeing would be the ranking of the lottery teams. Instead of going by straight record - have a formula quietly put together, one that the teams do not know about. Using a combination of stats possibly including things like point differential. As long as the teams do not know what the formula consists of, they can't truly tank. All they'll know is that, obviously, wins and losses will play a part and point differential would be likely as well.

Though keeping something like that a secret would likely be damn near impossible. :P

[Pimped Out]

having a hidden formula would be a conspiracy theory orgy...
not to mention that with how many stats are tracked now-a-days, it would be a pretty simple task to regress the formula after 2 or 3 drafts.