I think there was a great solution mentioned some time ago.
Once your officially eliminated from playoff contention, (so crappy teams are eliminated earlier obviously) then, you are ranked by the points you accumulate to the end of the season. This rewards teams that don't tank on purpose. There is something to continue to be competitive and play towards. For example Buffalo would have 25 games to accumulate points, on the other end a team like Pheonix was eliminated with only a couple games left in the season and would be ranked 14th because they could only accumulate 2-4 points. I don't see a flaw in this proposal unless teams take it to the extreme and start tanking so early that they have 50 games to accumulate these points. This way we will never have to hope our teams lose on purpose to get a better draft pick.
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