Posted it in the draft day thread but I think it belongs here. Friedman mentioned that he thinks Florida might intentionally tank so their pick protection will take effect and they’ll get to keep their pick this year. Said they could likely do it using “load management” to sit players.
Brings up the question of how to fix this. Does it need fixing? I like some of the ideas the NBA is looking at to address intentionally tanking… especially ones that prevent already good teams (eg. Florida) from winning draft lotteries.
Not sure how it can be done but maybe if it was a bit of a “black box” calculation where all kinds of variables are put in to determine lottery odds. Ultimately, I think that calculation to adjust lottery odds should be based on:
-recent (last 2-3 years of regular season and/or playoff success)
-injury totals in regular season specific to scoring stats of the injured players. For example, if a really good team had injuries to a bunch of top players and it made them have a bad season, I don’t think that should help their lottery odds.
-proportion of regular season spent at the bottom 5 of the league standings. Meaning, rather than calculate the lottery odds based on who finishes last on the last game of the regular season, make it so it accounts for teams spending long portions of the season at/near the bottom. That way, a hot streak at the end of the year for a bad team does not sewer their odds of winning a high pick.
I’m sure there are other variables that could be considered and each input would have to be weighted differently. It would make for something fairly complicated so I doubt the league would ever do it but it’s tough to think Toronto, Winnipeg and Florida could all pick ahead of the flames due to the current lottery system. Unlikely I know but the odds are not that poor that one of them could end up with a top 3-4 pick.
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