In search of... the PERFECTLY legitimate NBA season format

[sturt]

Interested in some feedback...

Just something that's been on my mind, really, ever since Seattle moved to OklaCity, yet remained a "Pacific" division team... and the notion of "the perfect season format" grew to kind of become an obsession over the last month...

http://www.realgm.com/boa...opic.php?f=6&t=865395

If you're registered with RealGM, reply there, but if not, here is good, too. Looking for you to troubleshoot/critique.

:beer:

[Guest]

Anyone else having trouble with the link? I am.

[sturt]

Anyone else having trouble with the link? I am.

Dunno, fanatic... try this.

Performance-Based NBA format

[Guest]

I might have missed this in your posts but, after each division of the league, are records reset? Follow up, what is the rational for why they are/aren't reset?

[sturt]

I might have missed this in your posts but, after each division of the league, are records reset? Follow up, what is the rational for why they are/aren't reset?

Yeah, I didn't make that very clear, did I.

Indeed, the first 68 games dictate which Tier.

Once the teams' tier is decided, there are 14 games to determine which whether a team achieves the upper or lower subtier... answering your question, those 14 games stand independent of the previous 68, so effectively, yes, the records re-set.

One might wonder about that... e.g., "why not carry-over the records achieved in the first 68 games?"

I guess you could do that, but there is already incentive for teams to excel in those first 68 games because their finish dictates home-court advantage for the most difficult games in the 14-game (sub-tier determination) stretch. To carry-over the previous games diminishes the proposition of creating a system where, at each stage, there is a viable possibility for the team to improve their position.

[Guest]

After 68 games, you are essentially starting a playoff...well a playoff that doesn't appear to make sense in rewarding a team that plays well.

Your first tier, i.e. the better teams, will contribute 12 of its 15 teams to the playoffs. However, there is guaranteed to be a team that basically sucks (one from the 8 teams in the worst tier). How exactly do you justify a team that finishes 13th in the top tier to not make the playoffs while one of the 8 worst teams does? I do not see the public nor owners to agree on that point.

Also your plan will create more tanking in the league. If come the 68th game, what position would be more beneficial, 15th or 16th? Clearly 16th because in the next tier you face worse competition. One might argue that there are 5 available slots if you are 15th while only 3 slots if you are 16th and therefore your odds are less, but at 15th you are competing with 7 others while in the 16th you are competing with 6 others. So a team will sacrifice the 2 less spots (along with 1 less team to face) in order to face worse competition and you have tanking. You also have tanking in teams for the draft. This may be more profound without a draft lottery.

Sorry for not giving constructive criticism, I don't really have too much to add. I am not in favor of a tier system like you are, however I would be in favor of a relegation system similar to that of European Soccer. I don't think either system will ever have a shot of occurring here, but it does still provide for interesting discussion and so it shouldn't just be swept under the rug.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Interesting stuff Sturt. Not in favor of it, but interesting. The NBA season and playoff format is dang near perfect right now, in my opinion. Just because OKC is out of position, doesn't mean that the entire system needs to be adjusted and the tradition of East vs West conference teams need to be scrapped.

And the pitiful teams should not be rewarded with a playoff game to possibly win a NBA title . . not even one on the road. That'll be like letting all 300+ NCAA D-1 teams into the NCAA tournament. Nah . . not in favor of that at all.

But there could be a happy median.

How about developing/expanding on something that I started to do 2 years ago, but didn't finish. Develop a tournament for the teams that DON'T make the playoffs.

An NBA Draft Lottery tournament.

- Let the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs, fight it out to see who will obtain the #1 pick. This way, you'll see a team that might be just a player away, be able to get that #1 pick, instead of some sorry team that isn't going anywhere. I would've much rather seen Kevin Durant go to a team like the Knicks, than the Sonics.

NBA Draft Lottery Tournament set-up:

- 8-team single elimination tournament to be played in a non-NBA city ( preferably a place like Vegas . . . but could be rotated to St. Louis, Louisville, Tampa, Settle )

- Teams with the 2 worst records in the league, automatically make it to the tournament. That leaves 12 teams to battle for the 6 remaining spots, to be determined by play-in games. ( As of 12/26, the 2 worst teams are Oklahoma City and Washington )

- Tournament is developed to prevent tanking by teams, jockeying for more ping-pong balls. This system would actually encourage even non-playoff teams to keep winning, in order to possibly secure a home game in the play-in round of the Draft Lottery tournament.

- Seed the 12 remaining teams 1 through 6 in each conference, according to record.

- Have the corresponding seeds in each conference play each other in the play-in games, to see who earns the spot in the tourney. East 1 vs West 1 . . East 2 vs West 2 . . etc. Team with best record gets the home court for that one game.

East ( as of 12/26 ):

1) Chicago

2) Philly

3) New York

4) Toronto

5) Indiana

6) Charlotte

West ( as of 12/26 ):

1) Utah

2) Memphis

3) LA Clippers

4) Golden St

5) Sacramento

6) Minnesota

So your Play-In game matchups will be:

(1) Chicago @ Utah . . . projected winner by me ( Utah )

(2) Memphis @ Philadelphia . . . ( Philly )

(3) LA Clippers @ New York . . . ( NY )

(4) Golden St @ Toronto . . . ( Toronto )

(5) Sacramento @ Indiana . . . ( Indiana )

(6) Minnesota @ Charlotte . . . ( Minnesota )

- After the Play-In game winners are determined, you add them to the 2 worst teams, and play the 3-game, 3-day tournament at a neutral site:

- Seeding will be a little different. To give the bottom 2 teams a chance to advance out of the first round, you group them against the winners of the (5) and (6) seed conference matchup. In this scenario, the worst team, Oklahoma City, will play the (6) winner . . Washington will play the (5) winner.

- Then, you would have (1) play (4), who would be grouped with the OKC vs (6) game . . and (2) play (3), grouped with the Washington vs (5) game, to round out the 8-team tournament field

*********

1st ROUND

- Oklahoma City vs (6) Minnesota . . projected winner ( OKC )

- (1) Utah vs (4) Toronto . . . ( Utah )

- (2) Philly vs (3) NY Knicks . . . ( NY Knicks )

- Washington vs (5) Indiana . . . ( Indiana )

******

SEMIFINAL ROUND

- OKC vs Utah . . . ( Utah )

- NY Knicks vs Indiana . . . ( Indiana )

******

- So now, you would have Utah and Indiana to play for who gets to be the #1 pick in the finals. This is the ONLY THING that is decided by this tournament. After this, the rest of the draft lottery will be placed according to their record. So a team like OKC is GUARANTEED to be no less than the #2 pick in this system.

So if Utah wins the tourney, this is your top 5 in the Draft lottery:

1) Utah

2) OKC

3) Washington

4) Minnesota

5) Charlotte

- This would give a team that might be on the brink of making the playoffs, a chance to get a player who could be an immeadiate impact player, instead of a mid 1st-round player who may or may not start.

- You could play all of this out in the days before the NBA playoff start. NBA season usually ends on a Wednesday. Play-in games could be played on Thursday and Friday nights. 8-team tournament could take place Sun, Mon, and Tue . . then crank the NBA Playoffs up that Wednesday night.

[Nicholasp27]

I don't like the idea of a tourney for top pick...that just helps worst teams stay bad while encouraging a team like the hawks to lose out of playoffs and win that tourney for the next lebron James

[sturt]

Thanks for the feedback, fanatic, in spite of my typo.

After 68 games, you are essentially starting a playoff...

Ummm... I guess the term "playoff" depends on the parameters that one chooses to assign, but since no one is eliminated from contention during either the Tier Qualification nor the SubTier Qualification, it's my take that those constitute the Regular Season.

...well a playoff that doesn't appear to make sense in rewarding a team that plays well.

Your first tier, i.e. the better teams, will contribute 12 of its 15 teams to the playoffs. However, there is guaranteed to be a team that basically sucks (one from the 8 teams in the worst tier). How exactly do you justify a team that finishes 13th in the top tier to not make the playoffs while one of the 8 worst teams does? I do not see the public nor owners to agree on that point.

Distill it all down, and it really begins with whether a person accepts the premises or not. Perhaps you don't. And that's okay, of coruse.

Here's how I originally wrote that up, for the most part:

CURRENT Geography-Based Format

- Mainly for playoff-qualification purposes, teams are assorted into two conferences of 15 teams each.

- For scheduling purposes only, teams are assorted into six divisions of five teams each.

Consequenses of Geographical-Based Format

- Competitive balance is not a factor in either scheduling or qualifying for playoffs

- Some teams are so much better than the other teams in their conference that their road to the championship is made much easier, and also, some teams fail to make the playoffs because they happen to be in the "wrong" conference, vis-a-vis, a prohibitively stronger conference than the opposite one

- Aside from some possible "sense of rivalry" between certain teams, such a strong emphasis upon geography makes for an artificial and illegitimate basis for a format purposed to produce a season champion

- By mid-season, about 20-40% of teams are sufficiently eliminated from playoff consideration such that fan interest substantially decreases

- Any time a franchise relocates, the entire league typically has been affected so as to re-balance geographical divisions

PROPOSED Performance-Based Format

The general idea is that teams are assembled into groups based on how their competitive success evolves through distinct segments of the regular and post-season that progressively place teams in better or worse position to achieve a spot in the NBA Finals, and play for the championship.

Benefits of Performance-Based Format

- With exception of a few geographically-prescribed "rivalry" games, entire season schedule is rationally, legitimately linked to on-court performance--no team is given an artificial advantage by virtue of their geographic location among weaker teams, nor is any team given artificial disadvantage as a result of happening to be geographically grouped with stronger teams.

- Fan enthusiasm runs higher because there is almost always something to be playing for--regular season progression by segments means that even lower-quadrant teams continue to have reason for post-season hopes deeper into every season.

- Regular season format changes prescribe intrigue-building benefits to post season format as well.

- Following the initial Tier Qualification, teams progressively play more games versus similar level of competition... which means a greater number of competitive games.

Also your plan will create more tanking in the league. If come the 68th game, what position would be more beneficial, 15th or 16th? Clearly 16th because in the next tier you face worse competition. One might argue that there are 5 available slots if you are 15th while only 3 slots if you are 16th and therefore your odds are less, but at 15th you are competing with 7 others while in the 16th you are competing with 6 others. So a team will sacrifice the 2 less spots (along with 1 less team to face) in order to face worse competition and you have tanking.

First, I think this analysis is missing an important parameter, actually two… and again, it is mostly due to my laziness in not writing up a narrative that walks people through it all.

The first is that the Tier Qualification (first 68 games) determines whether your team is in the top half of the league or the bottom half. The SubTier Qualification determines whether that team fits in the top half or bottom half of the Tier they already achieved. Thus, the 15th team would not be tanking because they would have already earned Tier One status, with no chance of dropping to Tier Two.

So, let’s take your scenario to the only other place in the format where that could even be possible—the potential for a team in the bottom of Tier Two-Upper to tank so that they could play against easier competition in Tier Two-Lower.

Understand that the final 14 games of the regular season determine the SubTier for each team, and to make the Upper instead of the Lower is the difference between a 43% chance (3/7) to advance versus a 13% chance (1/8) to advance.

That simply wouldn’t make sense to me… maybe to others, but I don’t think so.

You also have tanking in teams for the draft. This may be more profound without a draft lottery.

Absolutely not. Again, perhaps a miscommunication. Again, perhaps two things that are being missed.

First, lotteries exist to discourage tanking… by definition, then, in a system where teams are vying for a playoff slot, by design, until at worst the last 6-8 games they’ll play in the season, there is decidedly less need to tank to begin with.

Second, that the premise of the draft order is based mostly on a given team’s won-loss record since the season of their last playoff appearance; or for playoff teams, based on their won-loss record in the playoffs since the last time they failed to make the playoffs.

Don’t miss the point here—which is, what a given team does in one season is hardly likely to make a dent in where they’ll end up in the order because success (or lack thereof) over multiple seasons will be part of the equation more often than not.

(That’s not something I take credit for, by the way… I believe another HawkSquawk poster originally suggested it, and I soon bought in after giving it some thought.)

Sorry for not giving constructive criticism, I don't really have too much to add. I am not in favor of a tier system like you are, however I would be in favor of a relegation system similar to that of European Soccer. I don't think either system will ever have a shot of occurring here, but it does still provide for interesting discussion and so it shouldn't just be swept under the rug.

No need to be sorry… much appreciated. Gave me a chance to iron out any misunderstandings I inadvertently conveyed.

[sturt]

Interesting stuff Sturt. Not in favor of it, but interesting.

Thanks, northcyde.

The NBA season and playoff format is dang near perfect right now, in my opinion.

Obviously, I do not agree.

It's "perfect" only if the standards used to assess the format is tradition and what is conventional. That's a fairly low standard, and here's why I say that:

We're smarter. We're more advanced. We don't have to be confined to that anymore... Our sports leagues evolved over the years as they did largely because of travel constraints which disallowed teams from traveling more than a few hours, usually over something other than interstate highways since those didn't even come along until the 50s. Flying from one coast to the other really only became practical in the last half-century.

Clearly, we are not under those constraints any longer, so there is no excuse any more for predicating league championship paths (ie, the way that the regular and post-season are set up to resolve the question of who is the champion for a particular season) on geography.

To the contrary, we are beyond that, and can now legitimately predicate league championship paths on what they ought to be predicated upon.

Performance.

While there is some rationale for maintaining some sense of geographic rivalry, (though minimally so in the NBA compared to MLB or NFL,) the overall program is formatted best when its design (1) is constructed nearly exclusively to reward performance without regard to geographic location, (2) recognizes and utilizes more degrees of reward (e.g., home court advantage against the most difficult opponents in SubTier Qualification), (3) allows teams to maintain post-season hopes as deep into the season as possible (thereby maintaining fan interest), and (4) does so with as little disturbance to the current season calendar as possible.

Just because OKC is out of position, doesn't mean that the entire system needs to be adjusted and the tradition of East vs West conference teams need to be scrapped.

I think I made it clear that this is only the springboard that made me think deeper about it all... I agree with your position as you've stated it. But as I've tried to convey, there are some negative consequences to the current system that many just accept... innocently enough, it never occurs to them to take a step back and think "Why should Team X have an easier road to the NBA Finals, just because they are physically located in a division of Sisters of the Poor teams?"

I think we can and should think of this at a more sophisticated level.

It is the computer age, but we still frame our league schedules and post-seasons essentially as we did when we all used manual (non-electronic) typewriters.

And the pitiful teams should not be rewarded with a playoff game to possibly win a NBA title . . not even one on the road. That'll be like letting all 300+ NCAA D-1 teams into the NCAA tournament. Nah . . not in favor of that at all.

I can understand your sentiment, but the analogy begs us to think of the difference between OklaCity and Boston as being as enormous as the difference between, say, North Carolina (#1) and New Jersey Tech (#347).

Further, the analogy actually works for this format when you consider that even in the NCAA, Winthrop gets a shot. They didn't have success against the teams that Duke had to have success against in order to get there, and their seeding/placement in the post-season reflects that fact. But, hardly anyone argues that it's an injustice that Winthrop gets to compete while, say, SEC-member South Carolina and ACC-member Clemson might sit at home.

The reality is that one of the seven top NBA teams ought to win the championship, and that's highly unlikely to be disturbed. The admittance of a 16th team to the playoff field that is tops among the league's lowest quarter is, maybe just for me, a small price to pay to keep the fans of those bottom quarter teams interested until about the last week of the season. In fact, the top 13 teams in the league would be expected to make the playoffs.

But there could be a happy median.

How about developing/expanding on something that I started to do 2 years ago, but didn't finish. Develop a tournament for the teams that DON'T make the playoffs.

I'd read this once before when you submitted it, but I remain stuck on the idea that teams that get top order in the draft ought to be ranked in order of the most perennially (not just one season) unsuccessful teams to the most perennially successful teams... and that that alone solves the need to prevent tanking.

But further, and again, teams' benchmark is to make the playoffs... and the reason we had to invent a lottery to begin with was because teams found themselves without realistic incentive to play well as early as January, and even if it were not so, just the fact that it was suspected made it a problem.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion.

[Nicholasp27]

14 games is not enough IMO...small sample size can give inaccurate results, esp with injuries...imagine cleveland goes 60-8 then lebron misses 10 games so they go 4-10...a 64-18 team fails to make playoffs

The more games played, the more accurate the results

[sturt]

14 games is not enough IMO...small sample size can give inaccurate results, esp with injuries...imagine cleveland goes 60-8 then lebron misses 10 games so they go 4-10...a 64-18 team fails to make playoffs

My instant response, Nicholas, is that if14 games isn't enough, then 7 games isn't enough either, yet that's what almost derailed Boston from a 2008 season championship.

Adding some context, fourteen games is about a month's worth of games in the league as-is.

Adding some additional context, if I'm reading you correctly, you are presuming that those 14 games determine whether the Cavs make the post-season.

They do not.

They determine whether the Cavs end up in the Upper or the Lower SubTier of Tier One... there's another 12 or 14 games beyond that that will determine whether the Cavs advance to contend for a championship.

And further, look, injuries are just part of the game. They are unanticipated, spontaneous, and as such, cannot be part of the equation in planning an NBA season if a rational system is what is desired. One just has to plan it according to premises that make sense, and if injuries happen, then that's just how it is, and better luck next year.

Having made those points, let's look at the scenario you propose anyhow...

Cleveland (or anyone else) would certainly finish in Tier One after a 60-8 record, very possibly as the #1 or #2 team. For the sake of argument, let's say that they finish as #2, and let's just presume that the rest of the chart shown on the pdf sheet is accurate.

After that, they would play this schedule to finish the season (SubTier Qualification):

Home

vs. Lakers (#3)

vs. Magic (#4)

vs. Spurs (#5)

vs. Rockets (#6)

vs. Hawks (#7)

vs. Hornets (#8)

vs. Nuggets (#9)

Away

@ Celtics (#1)

@ Blazers (#10)

@ Mavericks (#11)

@ Pistons (#12)

@ Suns (#13)

@ Jazz (#14)

@ Heat (#15)

Having played this schedule, the Cavs would be placed in either the Upper or Lower SubTier, as stated above. Then, they would play each team in their SubTier home and away.

If they made the Upper SubTier, then the purpose of the first round of the playoffs is to determine seeding among the seven teams for the Quarterfinals of the Great Eight.

If they made the Lower SubTier, then the purpose of the first round is to determine which five of the eight teams will advance.

So, looking big picture, over the course of the last 14 games of the regular season and the first 14 games of the post-season, in order for Cleveland to advance, they would have to have finished as one of the 12 best (...forgive me, I think I typo-ed above it was the top 13...) of Tier One, out of 15 teams.

That's the top 80% (12 of 15).

Consider that 13 of the 15 teams in the Tier are going to have schedules that are progressively tougher than the Cavs in the SubTier Qualification, and then they would have home and away to the 8 worst teams in Tier One.

So... they couldn't finish as one of the best 12, even when 13 other teams have more difficult schedules than what they'd earned, and further, couldn't finish among at least 5th among the 8 teams in their Tier One-Lower subtier.

Hard to feel sorry for them if they're THAT reliant on King James.

It's good to test models according to extremes and outliers so that consequences are fully understood, so I'm glad you've brought this one up.

In the end, what you have here is that the Cavs would have to experience a collossal implosion, arguably even, of historic proportions.

And all I could say to that is, better luck next time, or better yet, better improve the rest of the roster so that you have a more legitimate shot at the championship in case LeBron would ever suffer another untimely injury.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Question:

What if LeBron goes down with a sprained ankle in Game 1 of the 14 game schedule . . and he's down for 4 weeks, missing 13 of the 14 games ? And within that time, the Cavs DO collapse, because they ARE that reliant on LeBron . . and go 1 - 13?

With the tougher schedule, that could easily happen, because every team they'd be playing, would be a big time caliber team.

What would the Cavs standing in your system be then? Could an injury, or multiple injuries, really impact your system tremendously. And if it could, it'll pretty much make everything they did in the first part of the season, null and void, right?

But under the current system, a Cavs team collasping like that, would still be 60 - 22, and have a very high seed in the East portion of the playoffs.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but clarify what would happen to the Cavs, if a scenario like that would happen under your system.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I think the danger in your system, is that you could potentially get a marquee matchup in the first round of the playoffs, if one of the top teams has an injury, and the team goes into a tailspin. That wouldn't be good for the league, as the playoffs went on.

With Smoove out, we were just above a .500 team. Imagine what would happen if we were 49 - 19 after 68 games, but lost JJ in the first game of your 14 game schedule.

And we had to play the top 14 teams in the league, to see which tier we fell in. I could easily see the Hawks losing all of their road games, and winning 2, maybe 3 home games.

So if I'm reading you right, instead of still being possibly a top 4 team in the East, with a 52 - 30 record, we'd end up with a low seed in Tier 2 . . . in a matchup with a much stronger team in the first round? I might be reading that wrong, so clarify it please.

[Guest]

Question:

What if LeBron goes down with a sprained ankle in Game 1 of the 14 game schedule . . and he's down for 4 weeks, missing 13 of the 14 games ? And within that time, the Cavs DO collapse, because they ARE that reliant on LeBron . . and go 1 - 13?

I think you need to analyze what would happen in the current system and compare it to Sturt's. If LeBron went down in the 1st round of the playoffs with the same injury you are proposing, then they are gone. In Sturt's scenario, the same thing would happen. So what exactly is the difference? I don't see a difference, I see his system as a playoff after 68 games, but I also do see why one wouldn't call it a playoff. Probably just semantics.

[Guest]

Don’t miss the point here—which is, what a given team does in one season is hardly likely to make a dent in where they’ll end up in the order because success (or lack thereof) over multiple seasons will be part of the equation more often than not.

From what I saw, the draft order is based on the number of wins in the season unless you make the playoffs. So the team with the least amount of wins gets pick #1, second least #2...and then up to the teams that do make the playoffs. So if you make the playoffs (lets say the winner of Tier Two Lower) then the best draft pick you can get is 17. The winner of Tier Two would be the worst position in this whole league, you don't get any extra revenue from the playoffs because you get no home games along with realistically having no shot at beating the best team in the NBA. Oh and also they probably get pick#17.

Am I missing how you are structuring the draft? That is how I interpreted it but I might have misread a part or two.

[sturt]

From what I saw, the draft order is based on the number of wins in the season unless you make the playoffs. So the team with the least amount of wins gets pick #1, second least #2...and then up to the teams that do make the playoffs. So if you make the playoffs (lets say the winner of Tier Two Lower) then the best draft pick you can get is 17. The winner of Tier Two would be the worst position in this whole league, you don't get any extra revenue from the playoffs because you get no home games along with realistically having no shot at beating the best team in the NBA. Oh and also they probably get pick#17.

Am I missing how you are structuring the draft? That is how I interpreted it but I might have misread a part or two.

Sorry for the confusion. I think I needed to explain this A LOT better than I did.

As you can see, picks #1 through #15 are reserved exclusively for Tier Two teams, and the rest are Tier One. Those are further divided by Lower Tier Two teams who didn't make the playoffs getting #1 thru #7, then Upper Tier Two teams who didn't make the playoffs getting #8 thru #11, then the one Lower Tier Two team which did make the playoffs, #12, and the three Upper Tier Two teams who made the playoffs, #13 thru #17. The order continues in a similar way for the Tier One teams.

That is the limit of the degree to which the most recent season has exclusive and direct bearing on draft order.

Beyond that, the overriding guiding principle of draft order--and again, I only wish I could recall which HawkSquawker was the one who originally had this insight--is that it should not just be futility of the most current season that presides over the draft, but the degree of futility or success that a team has had (defined as being in the playoffs or not being in the playoffs) going back as far as they've had that condition.

So, that's why under NBA DRAFT ORDER, you see that for the Tier Two #1 thru #7, specifically what team gets the #1 pick (and so on) is determined by which of those seven teams has logged the fewest overall wins since their last advancement beyond the Qualification Round of the post-season (... with the caveat--which isn't specificed, I know--that, for a few or several seasons after this would be initiated, it would also include fewest overall wins since the team last made the playoffs under our current system). The same principle holds for all of the other teams that did not qualify for the playoffs.

Typo alert... I should have super-scripted an A, not a B, for teams #16 - #18... just noticed that.

Beginning with the #12 slot, you have teams that did make the playoffs. Since #12 is the only Lower Tier Two team to make the playoffs, there are no further teams to rank. Beginning, though, with #13-#15, the principle that dictates which team gets #13 is that the team with the fewest playoff wins since their last failure to qualify for the Qualification Round (or, alternatively, playoffs as currently held). The same principle dictates the remainder of the order among playoff teams, with the exception of the two teams that made the NBA Finals, which get #29 (runner-up) and #30 (champ) respectively.

===============================================

Having said all of that, a good argument could be made for dispensing with any most-recent-season parameters, and basing the entire order purely and simply on those two premises:

Thus, among teams that failed to get beyond the Qualification Round/current-playoffs, #1 is the team with the fewest wins since their last appearance, and #15 is the team with the most... Among teams that advanced in post-season, #16 is the team with the fewest wins beyond the G8 Qualification/current-playoffs, and #30 is the team with the most wins.

Here's what I'd posted earlier on RealGM, which translated that into some actual order if applied to the 2008 draft, at least for teams #1-#12, and assuming the performance-based format had been enacted so as to allow Portland, Golden State, and Sacramento their proper, higher place in the order, as well as Atlanta's proper, lower place in the order. (Originally, I calculated it from most losses instead of fewest wins, but of course, the results are the same.)

1. Phoenix (in Joe Johnson trade from ATL w/483 losses)

2. Charlotte (219)

3. New York (216)

4. Minnesota (197)

5. Oklahoma City (160)

6. Memphis (120)

7. Milwaukee (110)

8. LA Clippers (101)

9. Indiana (93)

10. Miami (67)

11. Chicago (49)

12. New Jersey (48)

Hope this helps explain better.

[Guest]

OK dividing the draft by Tier's makes more sense than how I was interpreting it. However, most losses and fewest wins are not the same, in fact they produce drastically different results. Atlanta would have the the #12 pick because although they lost many games in the 9 years since they made the playoffs, they have been able to slowly accumulate wins. So they may have 483 losses, they also have 255 wins and that is the most out of that group.

While your draft will provide protection against tanking, I am not sure its the best way to have a draft. But before I try to delve into that, do you mean fewest wins or most losses since last playoff appearance?

[DrReality]

You guys hear that Obama is going to tear out the bowling alley in the White House and build a gym. We have a basketbal fan in the White House. Maybe he'll help with the system like he said he'd help with the college playoff system.

[sturt]

OK dividing the draft by Tier's makes more sense than how I was interpreting it. However, most losses and fewest wins are not the same, in fact they produce drastically different results. Atlanta would have the the #12 pick because although they lost many games in the 9 years since they made the playoffs, they have been able to slowly accumulate wins. So they may have 483 losses, they also have 255 wins and that is the most out of that group.

While your draft will provide protection against tanking, I am not sure its the best way to have a draft. But before I try to delve into that, do you mean fewest wins or most losses since last playoff appearance?

fanatic, this is an area where I'm pretty flexible, so I'd say I'm more "married to the general concept" than I am "married to" any more particular details. Having said that, I'm feeling a little more love today for discarding the use of the Tiers, and going with the simplified system conveyed in that last couple of paragraphs... and, thinking that overall winning percentage may be the best avenue.

What do you think, though... I'm open to suggestions.