NBA may abolish the draft to prevent tanking

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I think teams benching their best players and shutting them down for fake injuries has gotten exponentially worse as well

It’s one thing to trade everyone and have a horrible roster . It’s another to have an off season and then decide to bench everyone .

Oh sure. NBA has a plethora of problems to try and figure out that have led to a decline in the quality of the product. I'd argue tanking isn't even one of the top three worst issues for them.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I don’t think there’s a great solution. The gold plan would just encourage even more tanking to happen earlier in the season so that teams could accumulate those draft points.


You could spread out the lottery even more I suppose. But that hurts teams that need it the most. Like the oilers screwed actual struggling teams in the nhl by forcing a rule change due to their ineptitude.

It’s hard to make it work based on the honour system because teams are incentivized to tank.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

The problem with this is the parity in the NHL.

Instead of being on an individual team’s elimination date (because some teams go to the final day), there should be a flag in the calendar that coincides with the trade deadline.

Draft order determined from the points % after the TDL. If you make the playoffs? There ya go, if you miss - then your efforts aren’t lost.

…could end up with some weird rare cases where teams may make strategic choices at the very end to ensure a playoff miss rather than a playoff appearance I suppose, but that seems unlikely in most cases.

That's a natural sorting feature, not a bug.

Presumably Team #9 is much better than Team number #16. But Team #9 gets ~0-2 points in ~1 game, in the after elimination standings. While Team number 16 gets maybe 8-10 points in 15+ games. Team number 9 deserves the 15th overall pick, not a top 5 pick. The hitch is team 12 in the middle who has 7 or 8 games, has the opportunity to go on a stellar run and grab 1OA, and team #16 can't just throw all of their current assets away because they need to win a couple and hold that off.

Also this is why I like the retroactive view of the playoff cut off, looking back and seeing which game exactly the Flames could no longer have reached 92 points, if that's where 8th place lands, because it makes the exact date of the anti-tank unknowable so teams have to start competing for it earlier, and so that there are more games overal in the 1OA race.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

So you want the best team that misses the playoffs to get the best players …

Soooo how does a legit bad team actually improve ? If you are last at the TDL you probably aren’t making a magical run no matter how hard you try

Haha. Deadline day would be chaos. Cup contenders competing with basement dwellers to load up for a run to the cup or a run to #1.

[Reggie Dunlop]

I think the current NHL Entry Draft setup is fine the way it is. The E=NG Rule helped.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Haha. Deadline day would be chaos. Cup contenders competing with basement dwellers to load up for a run to the cup or a run to #1.

Tank until TDL then go for it ! Players would all have surgeries that ensured they are back for the TDL

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

I think the current NHL Entry Draft setup is fine the way it is. The E=NG Rule helped.

Yeah the NHL doesn’t actually seem to be an issue per se and actual tanking is minimum - bad teams smartest way forward is trade older expiring contracts

The one issue is most players take a few years to develop so there can be a massive lag affect - this is actually why it’s so important to be really bad so you are bottom for a few years before the development lag catches up and you “in theory” ascend

Having 19 or 20 year old as the draft cut off would probably accelerate this lag a lot and have teams get out of the basement a lot faster and “hoard” less stars

[Reggie Dunlop]

You can add tweaks here and there, but the competitive nature of sport means someone will eventually figure out how to game the system.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I don’t think there’s a great solution. The gold plan would just encourage even more tanking to happen earlier in the season so that teams could accumulate those draft points.
.

I guess. But somehow they would have to want to lose a lot to get to the elimination point, but then suddenly turn on a dime and start to accumulate points? How realistic is that?
I think you need to watch for teams healthy scratching guys on purpose to do that, but you can make rules for that.
The other interesting dynamic is would the players actually be motivated to try and get a higher pick? Probably not.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Haha. Deadline day would be chaos. Cup contenders competing with basement dwellers to load up for a run to the cup or a run to #1.

There’d be no sellers. Jeff Skinner would be the most wanted man.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Yeah the NHL doesn’t actually seem to be an issue per se and actual tanking is minimum - bad teams smartest way forward is trade older expiring contracts

The one issue is most players take a few years to develop so there can be a massive lag affect - this is actually why it’s so important to be really bad so you are bottom for a few years before the development lag catches up and you “in theory” ascend

Having 19 or 20 year old as the draft cut off would probably accelerate this lag a lot and have teams get out of the basement a lot faster and “hoard” less stars

I think a higher age would help but I've never been able to figure out how you do that without basically having one year where the draft just sucks.
A lockout/strike would be the chance to do it.
Or you could increment your way towards it over time, by advancing the age cut off 3 months for 4 years.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Mark Cuban says they should "embrace tanking".

Money really does make people out of touch with reality.



So it doesnt matter how your team played when you doled out 300 bucks to go to that game...nope....what mattered is who you sat beside.

JFC what an absurd take.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...fan-experience

If tanking hurts ticket sales then that’s a deterrent from tanking and there’s no need to ‘fix’ the draft. If tanking doesn’t hurt ticket sales, then Cuban is right.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

I don't know what the answer is, but the current system does not work in the NHL. The salary cap was brought in to help small market teams like the Flames compete, but we're less competitive now than we were in the late 90s and early 2000s. Maybe raising the draft age a couple of years might help? So few players play in the NHL in the year or two after they get drafted.

There has never been more parity in the leagues history.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

If tanking hurts ticket sales then that’s a deterrent from tanking and there’s no need to ‘fix’ the draft. If tanking doesn’t hurt ticket sales, then Cuban is right.

No he isn't....at least not from the fans point of view which is where he was speaking from.

People dont spend hundreds of dollars to go buy over priced beer and nachos to share with their buddies....they do that to watch the games and hope (something he also says) their team wins.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I mean now that I've been in corporate world long enough, yeah there's way more people there just to get drunk with clients/customers and expense that #### than you'd think. Especially somewhere like Dallas.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Mark Cuban says they should "embrace tanking".

Money really does make people out of touch with reality.



So it doesnt matter how your team played when you doled out 300 bucks to go to that game...nope....what mattered is who you sat beside.

JFC what an absurd take.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...fan-experience

I totally disagree and actually think that Cuban is right about what people remember/care about at live event experiences.

It is easy to forget that most people are totally unaligned with the people of CP in numerous ways, but primarily most people dont give even close to the amount of ####s as we do about results and winning, or even the hockey team. Even many casual fans will barely know more than 5 players by name on the roster. Long term losing makes a dent in this, but game to game, or even season to season probably means very little.

Now, tanking itself I agree is detrimental. I am only an avid tank supporter because I have literally given up and accepted that it must be so to really make a difference in this league. Until a change is made. I support the gold plan.

Though I do wonder if that will actually lessen some of the super team constructions by adding more variability to consecutive draft top 5s... the supercontenders built off multiple high draft picks have produced the biggest money making dynasties of the last 20 years in the nhl. Penguins, Blackhawks, even the oil (thank christ no real winning but the franchise valuation is probably catching owners attention...)

Anyways, im musing but I think that long term lack of success is much more harmful to a general fan base than boom busts as long as those are somewhat regular swings.

[Matty81]

I hate drafts as a means of distributing players. Rewarding failure and then it really underlines how contrived the loyalty is when you just randomly send guys from the Yukon with absolutely no connection to like New York city or somewhere random.

For me players coming up through a local academy or a regional system connects fans to the franchises or clubs in a much more organic way. Of course some will leave or be traded eventually but you're cheering for more local kids and there is something amazing about a soccer player who grew up at a club making their debut there's nothing in NA sports like it. The model forces these profit machines to spend some of that money on local grassroots sports instead of just going in some billionaire's pocket so his instagram influencer daughter can flex on a yacht.

Certainly though in the NHL it would never work because the league has moved into a lot of markets where no one plays hockey I know. So I think the next best system is the Gold system.

I think north american sports has a reckoning coming because I think you either need to cultivate intense loyalty, or make your product accessible and affordable and they are doing neither. When the old farts who grew up being able to easily go to games die out, I think the fanbase will be a lot thinner. Some have passed it on to their kids but a lot of kids aren't getting exposed to the product because of how expensive the tv packages and tickets are - particularly immigrant kids which is a massive chunk of Canada now. Right now they take for granted that people will go for the "experience" no matter what but that won't last forever, tastes shift, and the enduring power of sport historically and why it has lasted over 100 years is the actual fans who are attached to the teams emotionally and go when it's not fashionable, not the dumb scenesters.

[Monahammer]

Also the worst problem in the NBA is maintenance days.

[Reggie Dunlop]

I always feel bad for the kids drafted by the Oilers. But only for a while.

[CaptainCrunch]

Have a over the top battle royal with the GM's of the Lottery Teams in the ring. The Winner gets the number 1 pick.