Sucky teams being guaranteed first crack at top players doesn't always=competitive balance. Beyond that there is absolutely nothing balanced about the NBA competitively and there never has been. I think the current draft structure only contributes to that. You have teams that are in the lottery every year. At a certain point your org just sucks and mabye someone who knows what they are doing should get a crack at the top talent. Certain orgs know how to pick and develop talent and certain orgs don't. The only way for an org to truly come up is to make good choices consistently (OKC, Indy, Portland). Throwing young talent or the first shot at young talent at an org, in and of itself, has never turned anything around (see Minnesota, Sacremento, Cavs, the old Clippers and Mavs).
There are only so many true superstar basketball players out there. There just isn't enough talent to support 30 NBA teams. If they aren't going to address that then they might as well let some of the better run orgs get more chances at top players and vice versa.
It's pretty easy to be an average NBA team. If you can't put an average product out on the floor then you either truly suck as an org or you are tanking. Either way you don't deserve top talent to just be sat in your lap. You give average teams more of a shot and you will see more teams trying to at least put up a fight throughout the season. You would see more teams actually trying to make moves to better their team other than waiting for the young superstar to fall in their lap. You would see far more teams like PHX and BOS and ATL which are the perfect landing spots for a young superstar.
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) in the drum. At least then, the only tankers would pretty much be the borderline 8th seeds that would rather squeak into the lottery, instead of dang near half the league trying to sink to the very bottom.
at people acting like this is a bad thing or a regular thing. Why shouldn't top players get some level of say as to where they go. Top law school grads get to pick where they go. Top medical school grads get to do the same. I get the competitive balance issues that make a draft necessary however I don't think it's wrong for players to get some level of control. Beyond that it's not like players will have a chance to exploit this very often. Unless you are a for sure top pick (Bron, Duncan, Shaq, Davis) you don't know for sure which team is taking you. And you only get 4 years max in college, you can't wait forever. The chances of a guys 4 year window and lottery years of the squad or two he wants to go to coinciding are not very high.
