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

[sturt]

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.

Not exactly the "change" I think that his supporters were expecting...

... but change nonetheless.

Seriously, and this is another thread for another day, but I would LOVE to see Obama establish a U.S. Sports Commission that actually diffuses things like this away from the Capitol Building. And I'm a conservative, so don't think that I'm just wanting to expand government. To the contrary, I would see that as a move toward more efficient government, as long as the commission was made-up of a very few people (no more than a dozen) who only did the job on-the-side and only met maybe once or twice a year. Of course, there would be staff support and office space to pay for, too, but by Washington standards, I'm talking a very spartan line-item.

I say "efficient," because of the money otherwise wasted by senators and congressmen and their staffs on sports things that do not belong on their agenda.

I know I'm not alone. I get tired of seeing the Henry Waxman types line-up to get their 15-seconds every year or two, by virtue of an MLB drug report or by virtue of an NBA referee scandal or by virtue of some congressman's alma mater being left unconsidered by the BCS...

Not saying that it's illegitimate for sports leagues to be held accountable, but I am saying that there ought to be created an entity that provides that function instead of Congress, which truly has more important issues to take up than to take advantage of sports issues to gain camera time and look as-if they're "working hard for the American people."

[Guest]

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.

If you go with fewest wins since last playoff birth, then you are rewarding teams that were in the playoffs last year which could be like rewarding the Spurs for having Robinson injured one year. So with fewest wins, the perennial losers stay as losers (in the draft).

If you go with most losses, then you reward a team that continually loses. This could be good in that they get the Oden and soon become a playoff contender. But then you are rewarding a team for sucking, I am not a fan of handing out freebies just in order to make the league "fair". More than likely there is a reason why the team has sucked for so long and that would directly point to management. And if new management comes in, they should suffer the consequences of the prior management. Resetting management doesn't absolve the Team from prior performance in my opinion.

I believe fewest wins since last playoff birth would be the better of the two options, but I don't really like the options. I would say as an alternative is to keep the Draft Lottery, just redistribute the lottery balls based on wins since last playoff birth. I don't have a formula in mind, but the team with the fewest wins should get the most balls and most wins gets the least balls. The rational is that if you suck one year, you get a redemption shot. But if you continue to suck, your chance at redemption decreases each year.

[sturt]

fanatic, I see what you're saying about fewest wins vs. most losses, and am reminded that that was the reason I originally had thought to propose most losses instead.

....the team with the fewest wins should get the most balls and most wins gets the least balls. The rational is that if you suck one year, you get a redemption shot. But if you continue to suck, your chance at redemption decreases each year.

So, beyond that, you're saying that you don't want to reward teams for long-term futility, because it reflects on their management's lack of competence. I can understand that. I think immediately of the Bengals' owner/GM Mike Brown, and how there needs to be some way of discouraging someone like him from relying so exclusively on the draft (and his own ability to assess talent).

Still, it is a foundational principle of all sports leagues' drafts that it is to the benefit of the competitiveness of the league that (a) the worst franchises get the best opportunity to improve, and concurrently and perhaps just as importantly, that (b) the best franchises get a decidedly lesser opportunity to improve... so as much as rewarding teams with poor performance, for the sake of some degree of reasonable parity, it is about keeping the rich from becoming richer. Right?

What's more, if you do not give the worst teams the most access to new talent, they could become even worse. So, while I would like to find a way to eliminate the prospect of the Mike Brown management phenomenon, I think it hurts the league as a whole to accomplish that using the draft as the hammer... not against it, but there's got to be a different hammer that could be used, and it is more likely to be effective if that is somehow a blow to the owner directly as opposed to diminishing their on-court product.... likely some stipulation of reduced revenues from the league, or perhaps there could be a mandate that chronically non-competitive franchises risk having the league essentially "repossess" the franchise to sell to another owner. (I'll leave that one for some additional thought and another thread some time... leaning into some non-format issues.)

Okay, so I think I've come full circle here.

I'm back to most cumulative losses since last playoff appearance being the determinant for non-playoff teams, and between that and, again, a format that provides even the lower quarter of the league reason for hope until the last week or two of the season, a lottery is simply unnecessary (since the end result is so rarely going to be affected by the most recent season's loss record).

For those who make the playoffs, most cumulative losses since last non-playoff season is a logical, consistent equivalency.

[Guest]

Still, it is a foundational principle of all sports leagues' drafts that it is to the benefit of the competitiveness of the league that (a) the worst franchises get the best opportunity to improve, and concurrently and perhaps just as importantly, that (b) the best franchises get a decidedly lesser opportunity to improve... so as much as rewarding teams with poor performance, for the sake of some degree of reasonable parity, it is about keeping the rich from becoming richer. Right?

Where you see "rich get richer" I see it as a welfare phenomenon. They aren't improving even after they have been given ample opportunities to improve (the first year they were given a high draft pick, the next time still a high pick but not as high, progressively until they get the worst pick that a non-playoff team can receive, which is still a good pick). Do we keep throwing freebies out even though they keep squandering them? I don't like it. The punishment is that if they want to start to win again they will probably have to go a different direction than the draft where you get good quality players cheaply (because of the rookie pay scale).

For those who make the playoffs, most cumulative losses since last non-playoff season is a logical, consistent equivalency.

That is probably not what you mean to do. The most cumulative losses since last non-playoff season would most likely lead to a perennial playoff team (let's say the Jazz and Blazers a few years ago when they had streaks of 20 years in a row in the playoffs) consistently getting the 16th and 17th pick while a team that is in the playoffs for the first time will end up with 32nd. I am all for rewarding teams that succeed but I do not find that to be a good way to do the draft. For this section of the draft, I think it is fine to just do it the same way the league does now. The worst record that season of a playoff team gets the best pick and so on. What you propose here is how I would describe "rich get richer" because a playoff team is rich in talent. A non-playoff team is not rich, that is one reason why I don't see the other situation as "rich get richer".

[sturt]

Okay... abandon most playoff losses thing in favor of fewest playoff wins... and I think that's got it right... finally.

Good to have another person's eyes and analysis to help get this worked out... I know, I know, as-if it's going anywhere beyond this thread anyhow. Oh well.

Where you see "rich get richer"

Possibly another glitch in communication... what I was getting at is that, to the degree that the draft is used to penalize futility, the unintended consequence is that more of the better-off teams have greater access to better players. I'm really only pointing out a glass-half-full-half-empty thing... not only do the worst teams not get the opportunity to improve, but the better teams get it instead, making them better.

Edited December 29, 2008 by sturt