NBA Considering Draft Reform To Prevent Tanking

Street Knowledge

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In the wake of a gambling scandal that has rocked the league, the NBA is looking at draft reform as a way to prevent teams from tanking. Among the things the league is considering are changing pick protections in trades, to either being top-four or top-14 protected, instead of mid-lottery protections. Teams have regularly sought to lose games to ensure they keep a pick that falls somewhere between a top-four and lottery-protected pick.

The NBA has also considered barring teams from drafting in the top four two years in a row. This is considered a way to keep teams from long-term tanking, while encouraging them to play to win games the year after having a top-four selection.

Also considered was locking lottery positions as of March 1. The idea here is to prevent teams from sitting key players over the last month-and-a-half of the season.

The NBA has rolled out changes to injury reporting in the last week. In addition, the league is working with gaming partners to evaluate what prop bets are appropriate to offer.

Over the last several years, the NBA has fined teams for outright tanking by sitting star players. The league and the NBPA have also agreed to game limits for postseason awards, as well as restrictions around when teams can rest star players in games.

Any draft reform would have to be approved by a vote of the NBA's board of governors. The NBA last reformed the Draft Lottery in 2019, when they flattened the lottery odds for the worst three-teams, as well as making the fourth pick part of the lottery process.

 

hashmander

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locking lottery positions is interesting.

what more can they do though? the worse teams most times isn't even selecting #1. the rockets had the worse record a couple of our top 4 pick years and didn't get it. dallas just got the #1 pick and didn't come close to having the worse record. although locking lottery positions by a particular date would have eliminated the possibility of them getting bad enough to be in the lottery.
 

manyfaces

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Their overthinking this imo. There's no perfect way to prevent tanking, and they already threw a huge wrench in the tanking machine with the odds smoothing of the 3 worst teams. Detroit had top 2 worst record like 2 or 3 times in a row and ended up with the 5th pick each year. Bad teams are going to be bad, and poorly run franchises are going to fukk it up 9/10 times whether they get a top pick or not. Just let that shyt be..... Although that position freezing in March is a bit intriguing. But I think teams would just start their tanking process earlier, so not much difference honestly.
 

Sghost597

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Late season tanking is more about protecting players from injury risk, because the off-season is only 6 months. Very little movement happens in those final two months in the top 5 slots.

An injury can lead into next season and when your season is over. Why risk your next season on meaningless games? NBA can't force bad teams to play high risk minutes in March and April.

So, this will ultimately change nothing.
 

FukkaPaidEmail

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In season tournament gets a lottery pick (lets say 10th beat odds)

reverse order for the top 4 picks (teams that missed playoffs) …lottery for the rest
 

Harry B

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Isn't the lottery already there to prevent tanking?

And of course players only playing one year in college should prevent that too, it's very rare that anyone gets the draft order from like 3-10 correctly.
#1 yes, maybe #2, but after that it becomes really hard.

Sitting players in the end is not necessarily for the draft, it's cause the game is very intense in the end and a lot of these guys are injury prone and/or old. If they have nothing to play for (except their own records and showmanship) it makes sense to sit them when the chances of making the playoffs are gone
 

UpAndComing

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Make Teams in each conference from 9th in the standings to 12th have a higher chance of winning the lottery, instead of the worst teams in the NBA

Problem solved
 
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