Is it just me, or is Adam Silver acting like his job is on the line, rather than acting like it was just handed to him months ago, as it was? With the Sterling situation, uni changes, the idea of a mid-season tournament, and now potential lottery reform, Silver has done more in his five months of Commissioner-dom than some of the other guys have done in five years.
According to Grantland, the anti-tanking inspired lottery reform could come as early as next season. A proposal is currently being discussed at competition committee meetings in Las Vegas, and it could do a big part in curtailing the current tanking trend. Sorry Hinkie.
According to Grantland:
“Under the current system, the team with the worst record has a 25 percent chance of snagging the no. 1 pick, perhaps the most valuable asset in the entire NBA. The team with the second-worst record has a 19.9 percent chance of winning the no. 1 pick, and the third-worst team enters the lottery with a 15.6 percent chance of moving up to the top slot. The odds decline from there, with the final five teams in the lottery — the teams with the five best records — each having a 1.1 percent or worse chance of moving up to no. 1.
The league’s proposal gives at least the four worst teams the same chance at winning the no. 1 pick: approximately an identical 11 percent shot for each club. The odds decline slowly from there, with the team in the next spot holding a 10 percent chance. The lottery team with the best record will have a 2 percent chance of leaping to the no. 1 pick, up from the the minuscule 0.5 percent chance it has under the current system.
The proposal also calls for the drawing of the first six picks via the Ping-Pong ball lottery, sources say. The current lottery system actually involves the drawing of only the top three selections. The rest of the lottery goes in order of record, from worst to best, after the top-three drawing is over.”
The Cavaliers would, of course, still be handed the top pick (or maybe the Heat now). There’s a lot more that goes into the actual implementation of this — and Zach Lowe does a good job of breaking that all down — but it just shows even further that Adam Silver isn’t messing around.
12 Responses
I still want to do the blonde.
the lottery is a big fail period…the worst problem with it is that teams like cleveland can leapfrog into the top spot. teams are going to tank regardless b/c it’s the only way to get better under the current salary-cap system, so end the charade and the fixing rumors and make it straight worst-to-first. the NBA lottery is a 30-year disaster that doesn’t need to go on any longer.
I never really understood why they have a lottery in the first place. I mean, the NFL just does the picks from worst record up and it’s seemed to work well for them. I just think its too confusing.
They’re just evening out the odds so that their blatant rigging of the lottery has the plausible deniablity of parity built into it, lest people call bullshit when a team with poor odds wins it several years in a row like Cleveland did.
In other words, Silver is trying to dress up his shittiness with fake integrity whereas David Stern just didn’t care about appearance at all.
Excellent analysis. I forgot that the NBA wants to continue selectively rigging the lottery as they see fit rather than give a helping hand to its hurting teams.
some much..
“But everyone had some much fun!”
._______.
So in other words, Silver is stealing the lottery from the NHL, centralized replay from the NHL, a Vegas awards show from the NHL, and the Olympic break from the NHL.
Christ, just do us all a favor and hire Gary Bettman.
Make sure you hold out Embiid and sit Noel for long stretches. The last thing you want to do is have the Sixers win 35 games.
The only logical reason for the NBA lottery is that the NBA can rig who gets the top picks. I’m not saying that happens, but why else does this exist? And under this new system, it makes the rigging a lot easier.
Examples of potential rigging=1985, Cleveland the last couple of years getting 3 #1 picks to team up with Lebron’s homecoming, Chicago Bulls having a 1.7% chance of getting the top pick which was Derrick Rose, the 41-41 Orlando Magic getting the first pick in a NBA draft the year after drafting Shaq, the entire “coincidence” that in the last 21 years only ONCE has the worst team in the NBA had the first pick, etc.
Again not saying it happens, but the reasons they give us now don’t justify doing something that’s so far-fetched to the rest of the sports world.
*Twice in the last 21 years. Cleveland was tied for the worst team when they drafted Lebron. Another one of those “How do we know Cleveland won the first pick on a coin flip in which the process wasn’t televised, in a league where officials were rigging games”
The NBA is rigged. From refs to the draft to players going wherever the fuck they want.
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