Yes, yes, the NBA Finals are already underway, but that really only concerns the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. Front offices throughout the league are busying themselves preparing for the NBA Draft set for June 25. And while the order has already been set by this year’s lottery, it remains a point of contention.
The whole idea behind using a lottery to determine the first three picks of the draft is to discourage deliberate losing (“tanking”). This system, in its current state, limits the worst team to a 25% chance of obtaining the first pick, and guarantees they receive no less than the fourth pick. Every team that fails to make the playoffs has a chance, however slim, to win the lottery and move up in the draft. Though this arrangement clearly hasn’t eliminated tanking — just look at the Knicks and 76ers this season — it hasn’t solely rewarded the tankers either. This year, with the Minnesota Timberwolves having their four number combination of ping-pong balls selected (one of their 250 variations), it is only the fifth time the best odds proved fruitful since the lottery was implemented in the NBA in 1985.
Even so, NBA owners are in favor of change. Just this last offseason season, a new proposal received a majority of votes from the league’s board of governors. However, it failed to pass, receiving only 17 of the 23 required votes necessary for action. The intention is to reduce the odds for the teams with the worst records, giving everyone else a better chance to jump up to the top six (not the current three) spots.
Arguments against the proposal suggested it would encourage teams on the cusp of a playoff berth to tank, while it would have no effect on the season-long tankers at all. The former notion makes some sense. If you’re in the Eastern Conference and at risk of making the playoffs with a sub .500 record, you would most likely rather have a chance of ending up with a top six pick instead of the 15th and an early exit from postseason play. That is reasonable in the long-run of developing a franchise, but somewhat counterintuitive. The objective of playing in the NBA (if your motivations are pure) is to aim for a title. Even if the front office decides to play the role of seller at the trade deadline, players don’t care about lottery position. They care about ensuring they have a roster position, and the best way to go about that is to win. Members of the Knicks can tell you that; they won “too many games” late in the season, according to their fans, but most of those players were essentially auditioning for roles next season. If they gave up, who would want them? And anyway, playoff runs, however brief, are necessary experience in order to progress. A roster full of players with a playoff series under their belt has pieces far more likely to contribute than most rookies.
Concerning full-on tankers, any proposal likely won’t deter their plan of action. The lottery, however, has the potential to punish such franchises. As I already mentioned, the worst record has only obtained the best pick — “best” only meaning first, there’s absolutely no guarantee it will work out — five times in 30 years. Without a lottery, tanking becomes much more aggressive as records immediately translate to draft position. With any lottery, the dispersal of opportunities reduces the viability of tanking, and that is all we can really hope for.
And with all of that said, I have my own idea for revising the chances to win the draft lottery: (The team with the worst record will be designated Team 1 and the best will be Team 14)
Teams 1 and 2: 12.5% chance to win the lottery
Teams 3 and 4: 10%
Teams 5-8: 7.5%
Teams 9-12: 5%
Teams 13 and 14: 2.5%
In my proposal, the top four picks are available via the lottery; the worst team would be guaranteed no worse than the fifth pick after all other picks are determined by record. Leveling out the odds may reduce tanking as those odds are far greater for all but the five worst teams than they are now; Teams 11-14 have less than a 1% chance in the current system and only Teams 1-6 have at least a 5% to win the lottery. This breakdown would effectively halve the value of the worst record, going from 25% to 12.5%. The reduced chances for Teams 13 and 14 is only to discourage purposefully falling out of the playoffs. However, most teams in these seeds are likely competing for a playoff position and may just fall short. There can’t really be a penalty for that — the Thunder should not face unnecessary punishment for their efforts this season. Besides, 2.5% is far more than the 0.6% and 0.5% chance Teams 13 and 14, respectively, have now so it shouldn’t be seen too negatively.
Of course, this idea, like any other, surely has its critics. As it stands, Team 14 has 1/50 of the chance Team 1 does; my proposal closes that gap to 1/5. Teams that naturally fall on a hard season would probably like to see some compensation for their dejected fans (i.e. the Milwaukee Bucks and Jabari Parker). And playoff contenders don’t want rivals they kept out of the playoffs to suddenly come back next season with a shiny, new franchise cornerstone.
Unless the NBA goes the route of the NFL with a fully stabilized draft slotting (based on records and playoff progression), there will always be a chance things won’t fall in your team’s favor, but that’s what makes it exhilarating. Maybe with a more balanced system, there might be a reason to tune in when they announce the results with a realistic hope your team’s ping pong balls were pulled from the contraption.
Then again, I already watch every year without much hope. That’s just the nature of a lottery.
Above the Cylinder 