Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
even in the best case scenarios, teams had to be in the dump for practically a decade. This type of system would force a garbage team to manage their roster's better, and use avenues like the trade market and free agency to improve themselves. Florida is an example of that, where that 2012 year, they were extremely active in bringing in secondary pieces to fillout their roster. The islanders, blue jackets, oilers, are teams that have drafted high for how many years over the past 5 years, and the teams that used other avenues like FAs and trades are the ones that actually turned things around (just look at the BJs for that).
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But no one is ever going to Edmonton or Columbus (or many other cities) as a free agent. Teams that suck, in cities that players don't want to live in, are pretty much entirely screwed from getting free agents without massive overpays, which in a cap league, prevents you from adding depth of talent, which is what you need to win (see Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, LA, Anaheim etc...).
The Oilers and Blue Jackets and Jets of the world, they need the draft as a means of getting high end talent. Once you have established a winning culture, then you have a chance at getting free agents. And if the only way you can get high end talent is the draft, and if you change the draft so that it prevents them from doing that, you're pretty much dooming these franchises to permanent irrelevancy. Very, very difficult to grow a sport (which is what leagues truly want) when a large portion of teams are consistently in a hopeless state.
Besides, the Oilers, the Clippers, the Browns, every league has teams that tried for years to tank to win. And only the Clippers escaped and only that was due to NBA intervention (the Chris Paul trade). Tanking doesn't ensure anything, and usually builds a culture of losing.