What's up with the new changes in NBA lottery?
- Nick Zoraian
- Oct 12, 2018
- 2 min read
The NBA has had a serious influx of the forming of super-teams in the last decade. As a direct result of this, there has also been a serious influx of tanking. The teams that aren't being turned into super-teams, are forced to find alternative tactics to try to match the best teams. A common tactic amongst some of teams is to tank, or intentionally losing games in an effort to improve draft odds. With the current setup of the draft lottery, the worst team in the league gets substantial best chances to get the 1st overall pick a, and so on and so forth. Last season there was almost as much of a race to be the worst as there was to win the finals, as we saw a total of 6 NBA teams blatantly tank. I think the biggest recent proponent of tanking has been the Philadelphia 76ers, as we have witnesses and "Trusted" "The Process" over the last 5 years without any signs of success. They did it right--the way it should be done, if at all. The problems with tanking, especially with so many teams tanking is that it diminishes competitiveness in the league, which is not good for business, as the fans feed off the competitive nature of the NBA.
Thankfully, commissioner, Adam Silver has finally put his foot down on this epidemic and made steps towards partially neutralizing the incentive to be the worst. As of the 2019-'20 season, the new draft lottery rules will still acknowledge the concept that the worst teams do need high draft picks to restock, but it will even out the odds across all the bottom teams while giving the mid-level teams increased odds. Now there will no longer a guarantee to the bottom teams of getting the 1st pick and there is more of an incentive to remain on the verge of competition and the fringe of playoffs, as these teams will experience better draft odds in the new rule changes. Maybe this will be the beginning of the end of the competitive drought that the NBA has experience in the recent years.





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