Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Fixing the NBA Lottery
It's pretty clear (to me, at least) that the current NBA lottery system isn't working. The issue is most relevant to the NBA, the sport with the least number of players of the floor, the sport where one player can take over a game, and the sport that over the last 20 years, the only team to win a Championship without a legitimate superstar is the 04 Pistons.
We're talking Bird, Magic, Jordan, Isiah, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq. 23 years of basketball, and only one year did a champion not have one of these guys.
I've heard 3 solutions, and I aim to mash them together and present the answer...
Solution #1
Just go back to the '85 lottery system, with one envelope per team.
Solution #2: Mike Greenberg
Get rid of the lottery and award the top 14 picks to the non-playoff teams, but in the order of best record to worst. This would give the #1 pick to the team with the best record that doesn't make the playoffs.
Solution #3: Bill Simmons
Contract 3 teams, have double-elimination tourney for 7th and 8th seeds, go back to 85 lottery system.
My solution:
Top 3 spots determined by lottery for non-playoff teams: one envelope per team.
Spots 4-14 awarded in best record to worst.
Spots 15-30 awarded to playoff teams in the order of worst record to best.
This would eliminate tanking because there are no better odds for the top 3 lottery spots. In fact, teams would play hard all the way to the end fighting for the better picks.
Under the Greeny Plan, I think it's too tempting for the 8th seed team to look at the options of guaranteed #1 pick and getting swept by the Mavericks, and choosing the pick.
And Simmons made some good points about how parity hasn't worked well in the NBA, how it's much better to have some good teams and bad teams then everyone in the middle. So I have no problem giving Memphis at worst the 14th pick.
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Once again, I like your plan for fixing a sports problem.
ReplyDeleteOne tiny thing: spots 15-30 should go to the teams in order of elimination (and by regular season record to break the ties in each round). That way the 8-seeded championship team is still picking last.
Too bad there aren't enough people listening to you.
since i did not know too much about how the lottery was conducted ... i read up on it. it is extremely complicated ...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery
fix it fym.