Moving this post from another thread:
I've been thinking of this as well. I'm agreed that there needs to be a balance between teams that genuinely need help versus teams being purposefully non-competitive. I suspect the very strong top 3 in this draft year has exacerbated the drive for the basement.
My preference would be very similar to yours in that I would keep it a progressive lotto, but make a couple of small differences:
- teams get a certain percentage allotted to them based on their position in the overall standings, but the difference between worst and 17th worst in points is narrower than it is now
- award teams additional % points based on wins (regulation wins only), with the team with the lowest wins receiving no additional percentage allotment
- the lottery defines the first three positions, with the remaining filled out based on position in the standings
Ideally you could mess with the percentage allotments so that the teams out of the playoffs still have an incentive to play well to gain chances at the lottery to a point where it would make a meaningful impact on their chance to pick top 3. The reliance of the additional percentage points on regulation wins would also be a subtle nudge to urge teams to go for the win... the 17th best team in the league (by points) wouldn't automatically be rewarded additional lottery chances as a reliance on extra-time wins would be a negative.
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