NBA Lottery Reform is Coming

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-lottery-reform-is-coming/

I fixed the lottery years ago. In fact, after seeing teams like Milwaukee and Philadelphia fail to win 20 games, and be rewarded with high picks, I'm even more in favor of my system.

The NBA is not the NFL. This applies two ways.

1. One or two impact players can change a team from a lottery team to a playoff contender. Outside of a few quarterbacks, that's not the case in football. It makes sense to reward poor teams in the NFL in the name of balance precisely because we don't think NFL teams have the incentive to tank.

2. Because of the incentive outline in point one, NBA fans are accepting and even encouraging of a tanking strategy. NFL fans and teams want to win.

Look at Philadelphia. Right now their best strategy is to not win games, keep getting high draft picks and then kick it in gear. Because the incentive to tank is so real, you need to do something to eliminate that.

The only change I might make to my system is do lottery balls for the first five picks, and then go reverse order for the non-playoff teams 6-14.

If Philly knew that losing didn't help their chances at all, and in fact, made them worse, I guarantee you would see a better product on the court. Which is what this is all about.