Posted by TMS:

IMO, u could minimize the chance of teams tanking games by giving each team that doesn't make the postseason an equal amount of ping pong balls in the lottery... that way you don't gain any advantage for being the worst team in the league.

Posted by joec32033:

Posted by TMS:

IMO, u could minimize the chance of teams tanking games by giving each team that doesn't make the postseason an equal amount of ping pong balls in the lottery... that way you don't gain any advantage for being the worst team in the league.

I think the lottery has outlived it's usefulness now. On Mike and Mike in the morning about 3 weeks ago(when Doc Rivers tanked that game) they were talking about this. Mike Greenburgh had a great plan. It was that the team with the best record not in the playoffs gets the most balls in the lottery so it encourages winning.

I can't say it is a bad idea.

It had nothing to do with the Knicks. In all seriousness that was the plan he came up with.

Posted by oohah:

It had nothing to do with the Knicks. In all seriousness that was the plan he came up with.

I understand. But it would work out well for the Knicks, who have been right at the edge of the lottery for so long now, except when LB was tanking and ruining the integrity of the game. (Oh no, it's on now!)

oohah

Wiseguy it isn't that LB was ruining the game by tanking, it's the fact that Stern allows an atmosphere to tank that's ruining the game. LB was just playing the field.

Posted by TMS:

i advocated tanking the year Lebron, Melo, Wade & Bosh were in the draft & the Knicks had no realistic shot of making the playoffs... instead we won just enough games to miss out on the playoffs & ended up with Mike Sweetney... boy, was i wrong on that one.

Posted by arkrud:

You don't need to intentionally "tank" if you have a plan.
See Spurs for example.
You can argue they get lucky. Wrong - they know what they are doing.
If team is committed to grow the young talent and build the leadership from within instead of signing washed out vets and half-skilled players it will participate in the lottery automatically. There are no miracles - all business.

I don't care if your solid plan is to build through the draft, if a team does not try to go out and win every game by all means but instead blows huge leads regularly, sit certain players out due to suspicious injuries, create wacky rotations, etc etc etc it's tanking and shouldn't be tolerated.



[Edited by - TrueBlue on 03-28-2007 10:42 AM]

Posted by Solace:

Posted by TMS:

i advocated tanking the year Lebron, Melo, Wade & Bosh were in the draft & the Knicks had no realistic shot of making the playoffs... instead we won just enough games to miss out on the playoffs & ended up with Mike Sweetney... boy, was i wrong on that one.

I think this differs from the original discussion, which was more towards that there shouldn't be so much incentive for teams to do this because it ruins the purity of the game. Sure, if you're in a position to nab a top pick and the rules allow it, as a long-term team strategy it holds more validity than any move any of our GMs have made in the last six years. However, it is contrary to the purity of the game, and also costs owners a lot of money upfront, because when you're a bad team, the fans don't show up in nearly as high numbers. Being a terrible team, they show up even less. Tough call for an owner, since a LeBron is only a 25% chance (granted that year, there were a number of great players), even if you have the worst record.

I think the real thing is getting rid of the lottery idea, or at least revising it. There's a number of things the league needs to change, and this is a big one. One idea I had was maybe have all the teams that missed the playoffs in a single-elimination tournament (loser bracket playoffs), and the winner of the tournament gets extra lottery balls or even gets the #1 overall pick.

Would be cool for the fans and would mean extra money for the league.

[Edited by - Solace on Mar 28 2007 11:29 AM]

Mike Greenburgh had a great plan. It was that the team with the best record not in the playoffs gets the most balls in the lottery so it encourages winning.

Posted by TMS:

that's why i say, give each team that finishes out of the playoffs an equal chance at getting the top pick... that way you can't increase your chances of getting the pick by losing more games than the other teams that miss out on the playoffs.