How to fix the NBA Draft Lottery
While the ever present issue of tanking isn't in the daily NBA headlines as much as it was to start the season, the issue remains a sleeping giant in the Association, a necessary evil that you can rest assured will rear its ugly head again come March and April.
Last week in London, at one of his final press conferences as NBA commissioner before he vacates the post for commish-in-waiting Adam Silver, David Stern mentioned that perhaps the NBA's current Draft Lottery format could be tinkered with.
With that in mind, let's examine a potential (completely made up) fix for the lottery that would alleviate some of the tanking concerns while also making the event an absolute must watch program every May.
Keep the lottery skewed so that the worst teams have the best chance, forget the term 'lottery teams' for teams that don't make the postseason and open the lottery up to all teams, and get rid of the complicated number combination lottery that rules today for a simple system in which one lottery ball is pulled to determine each pick and the whole thing could be done live on television.
So how would it work?
Throw 465 ping pong balls (Do lotteries actually use ping pong balls?) into a lottery drawing machine. Each ball would have the logo of an NBA team on it. The team that finishes with the worst record gets 30 balls, the team with the second-worst record 29 balls, and so on and so forth until the team with the best record gets just one ball out of 465.
Under this system, here's how the chances of each team winning the lottery would look:
| Team Rank (And number of balls out of 465) | Chance of winning lottery (Rounded to nearest hundredth) |
|---|---|
| 30 | 6.45% |
| 29 | 6.24% |
| 28 | 6.02% |
| 27 | 5.81% |
| 26 | 5.59% |
| 25 | 5.38% |
| 24 | 5.16% |
| 23 | 4.95% |
| 22 | 4.73% |
| 21 | 4.52% |
| 20 | 4.3% |
| 19 | 4.09% |
| 18 | 3.87% |
| 17 | 3.66% |
| 16 | 3.44% |
| 15 | 3.23% |
| 14 | 3.01% |
| 13 | 2.8% |
| 12 | 2.58% |
| 11 | 2.37% |
| 10 | 2.15% |
| 9 | 1.94% |
| 8 | 1.72% |
| 7 | 1.51% |
| 6 | 1.3% |
| 5 | 1.08% |
| 4 | 0.86% |
| 3 | 0.65% |
| 2 | 0.43% |
| 1 | 0.22% |
Obviously, once a team is awarded a pick, any time their logo is pulled after that wouldn't count, and the lottery for the pick in question would continue until a team that hasn't been awarded a pick yet is pulled. The second round could then simply be ordered by the reverse standings, with no lottery necessary. No GM is going to tank simply for a guaranteed spot near the top of the second round.
Another component of this hypothetical lottery idea is that the current guarantee teams have of not falling more than three spots would disappear. Once the No. 1 pick is awarded, the No. 2 pick is awarded next using the same system, then the No. 3 pick, and right on down to No. 30. So technically, every team could get as high as the No. 1 pick and as low as the No. 30 pick.
Under the current system, only teams that miss the playoffs have a chance to win the lottery or even to get a top-three pick. If teams don't land a top-three pick they simply stay where they are, and teams cannot fall back more than three places. So right now, the team that finishes with the worst record this season is guaranteed at worst a top-four pick. That promotes tanking, whereas this new idea still gives worse teams a better chance, but gives the absolute worst teams less of a chance than the current model (Would front offices still be comfortable punting entire seasons away for a 5-7% chance at a great pick?) and leaves them no guarantees.
Here are some other reasons to buy into this proposed model:
- In the currently existing lottery format, only 10 teams even get a 1% chance at the No. 1 pick, meaning four teams that miss the playoffs get a less than 1% chance. In this format, while the worst teams would still have the greatest mathematical chance to land the No. 1 pick and a better pick in general, better non-playoff teams and middle of the pack teams would also have a much greater chance to win the sweepstakes. In addition, 26 teams would have at least a 1% chance to win the lottery and all 30 would have at least some hope come that fateful night in May. How exciting is that?
- Speaking of exciting, given the simple nature of balls with team's logos popping up through a machine, the lottery for the entire first round can be done as a live TV show over the course of an hour or so. Say goodbye to the current show just to reveal which non-playoff team won a lottery that was conducted hours earlier away from public view. Put the conspiracy theories to bed once and for all while creating an annual ratings bonanza for the league and its TV partners.
- In addition to this new format taking the incentive to be absolutely dreadful away from teams, it would also dissuade teams from chasing a lottery spot as opposed to a low playoff seed. Teams would be able to make the playoffs and still end up with better lottery odds than they would have as a late lottery team in the old (current) system. Fans would now be able to root for their teams to squeak in as a No. 8 playoff seed without the guilt and angst of cheering for said team to kiss their lottery chances goodbye. It would be the best of both worlds for fans of young, rebuilding teams, and it would be beautiful.
- The order for the number of balls each team receives would be determined solely by the overall league standings, not by whether they made the playoffs or not.
Part of the problem feeding the Western Conference's sustained dominance is that good West teams that miss the playoffs are getting lottery picks while bad low seeded East playoff teams are getting later picks. This new proposed system would give the worst teams the better odds, period.
Would this suck for 45-win West teams that just miss the playoffs and then watch the 38-win East team that got to sell playoff tickets also get a better pick than they do? Yes, but over time the balance between the conferences would hopefully begin to be restored. And again, the differences between each team's lottery chances would be minimal compared to the currently heavily weighted system.
- The bottom half of the league would collectively still have a 74% chance to win the lottery, so while the excitement created by every team having a chance would be real, chances are that a below average team would still win this thing.
- Draft picks would be easier for General Managers to part with in trades. A bad, tanking team is unlikely to trade an unprotected first round pick for an established star given the current system, which gives the worst team a 25% chance to win the lottery. But if that team knew that at the absolute best, they still had less than a 7% chance to land the No. 1 pick, trading those chances for an established player to depend on as opposed to depending on a lottery becomes more sensible.
As for how the lottery would deal with traded picks, it's pretty simple. If Team A owns Team B's first round pick, for example, Team A would get the pick decided by the emergence of the ball with Team B's logo on it.
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There are countless lottery ideas out there in the mainstream media, the NBA blogosphere, the twitter world, and anywhere else NBA pundits can lay their thoughts, not to mention in the minds of NBA personnel themselves. But find one that is as simple, as fair, and yet as compelling as this one.