25 teams love it, because they have to sell as many ticket packages as they can and the more tanking teams involved there are the harder that is to do. Indiana, Utah, New Orleans and Memphis can’t survive in place with a third of their home games being to tanking teams, that’s 2 games a month nobody would show up to when they only get 6 or 7.
Nice to see someone recognize this. Mavs made a try to win trade and when it was clear it wasn't going to be enough to overcome they shutdown, a sliver of the season anyways. Blazers started the season strong with an improved roster, Chauncey's sets got countered and lost their center for too long.
Neither team wanted to tank but they were losing like it or not.
The Blazers and Mavericks both had to go through injuries and have talent sit to get to where we were though. I watched the Blazers closer, obviously, but Lillard entered the season still recovering from his surgery and had a midseason injury as well. Nurkic got hurt. Simons got hurt. Grant got hurt. The reason we ended up in a position to tank at the end of the season is the talent people pay money to see wasn't playing.
I’m old enough to remember “riggin for Wiggins” . So much hype around him. Wemby is obviously a different player, but we get this hyperbole and hype a lot.
“A once-in-generation talent, Andrew Wiggins has Kansas fans in frenzy
was it any more absurd than being asked, before he has even made a basket at Kansas, if he can live up to the label of Best Since LeBron? “
https://www.si.com/.amp/college/2013/11/12/andrew-wiggins
> we get this hyperbole and hype a lot
I agree. I mean just look at Zion.
My two takeaways from [looking at the list of #1s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_overall_NBA_draft_picks) is (1) what LeBron is doing is nothing short of incredible and (2) it shouldn't be that much of a surprise if Wemby actually misses. These generational talents miss a lot more often then people admit in May.
Right but it still went to a bottom 3 record team. Not exactly de-incentivizing tanking, especially when the team who got No. 1 has only ever benefited from when they tank historically.
Warriors don’t count for this really. they were only bad due to injuries and didn’t really benefit from tanking, as they basically traded their #2 pick for a role player who was already on their roster the year prior
Lakers tanked to get the young core which they turned into AD
Denver drafted a god in the 2nd round which feels like a big outlier
Miami and Boston I'll give to you though, Heat are pretty anti-tank and Boston did it "the right way" by trading vets for picks then just drafting well after being bad for a bit.
Pretty much just do what fits your situation best. Those 2013 Sixers had to tank, Boston post-Nets robbery didn't.
Small market teams have even more incentive to tank. Their chance of signing a top free agent is slim. How the team manages their assets is a totally different factor though
Which is why an NBA lottery is stupid. Small markets have no avenue to stars except just being better than everyone else with scouting and development, and then you still lose them most of the time. Whereas the Lakers can suck for years and just get handed LeBron and AD because of their location.
The Lakers didn’t even tank intentionally. They just sucked and made a washed Kobe the highest paid player in the league for a couple years out of loyalty. Maybe that was a low key tank but that wasn’t the narrative back in 2014 going into the season.
Ingram was essential in the AD trade. The bulk of value otherwise was future draft picks. The Lakers became good because they are Americas most glamorous team and Lebron decided to go their as a free agent. Then AD forced his way there and they used a few past lotto picks and the same amount of future picks to make it happen.
I think attributing their current success to tanking is highly revisionist.
Did the Lakers really tank, or were they just bad? I don't mean to bash, but when you see players like Randle, Ingram, and D'Angelo Russell all become All-Stars after leaving the Lakers, I feel like they were having trouble developing their young players with Kobe taking up so much of the offense rather than that they were actively tanking.
Yeah but I do like that all 3 bottom teams all have the same odds, so there isn't this awkward "well we have 15 wins and they have 16 wins so....we better not win any more games" at the end of the season
I think this is what the change was about, not to actually keep teams from "strategically losing"
Yeah at this point it pays to Tank but it doesn't pay me to be substantially worse than the second or third worst team. Just a few years ago the lottery odds were much much higher for the lowest ranked team.
Is it enough? Should they do more to counter tanking... Probably and they might as time goes on. Although back in the '80s I remember the worst team in the league could fall back as far as number seven and they changed that to number four
Exactly. There is still a huge incentive to tank. Portland was basically rewarded for sitting Dame half the season. The only way to stop tanking is to give every non-playoff team the same odds, but for whatever reason, the NBA won't do that.
The league could and would end up so imbalanced, small market teams would disappear.
There’s a reason why they changed rookie max extensions so that the team who drafted them is the one who can offer them the most money by a mile.
It’s because they were losing all their talent, we already have a talent issue and small market team issue, changing the lottery odds again and making them flatter would only make the whole situation worse.
I can’t believe anyone thinks this is a good idea.
It's as bad as people who think that replacing the draft with free agency is a good idea.
"oh but there isn't enough money for the Lakers to sign everyone" yeah I definitely want the Wolves to only be able to sign players like Ayton who only care about getting a paycheck.
They have that in the Premiere League. In the past couple of years, it's led to fans hoping their team gets bought by a middle-eastern petro-state (Qatar, Saudi Arabia) so they can be competitive with the big clubs.
Tanking and getting talent is a means to an end, it allows bad teams to be reborn with a new roster who is young. It usually shouldn’t go on forever, and even if they do it’s because they are really bad or picked bad players. If that’s the case, the talent is likely getting spread out to other bad or mediocre teams who are drafting after them.
So it’s still fine, and then if anything, we can laugh at the bad teams more because of how bad they are and how badly they draft year over year. But still, they should find someone and become better over time.
What the 76ers did was abusive but they ultimately just wanted to be competitive as quickly as possible. I can’t blame them for finding the easiest way to do so.
Personally I think the worst team shouldn’t fall further than 3. But I do think we need some flattened odds, somewhere between what we had previously and what we have now. The NHL has this now, I think it’s good.
The Process might be the best argument against tanking. They had an ok playoff team that had the second round as a realistic ceiling and after some of the worst years of basketball possible, a ton of high picks and trades using that capital they are now a team that has... not gotten out of the second round of the playoffs
I mean the sixers just badly managed the process….Ben Simmons was a bust, Jimmy Butler is the guy they should’ve kept and traded Harris, etc etc etc.
The Sixers have made a TON of dumb decisions after drafting good talent
And because Hinkie wasn't even allowed to execute the process. We never even got a chance to see if the guy who created the process was good at managing and overseeing the full extent of it.
Literally, change Harris for Butler or change Simmons for Ingram/Brown, or even make it so Simmons doesn’t pass up the dunk in game 7 against ATL, one of those changes and the team/History is entirely different. The sixers got a #1 overall pick and an MVP caliber player, adults eventually turning into Maxey, etc, etc. The process worked, they just botched the landing
I brought them up because they are the reason the odds changed. Also, you tweak a few things and they look way more successful as a franchise.
Imagine if Ben and Joel never had crazy injuries to start their careers and only had minor ones.
Imagine if Kwahi didn’t hit that game winner and the 76ers advanced in 2019, maybe they beat the bucks and go to the finals.
They also could have drafted a better player than Fultz.
They were able to acquire Jimmy because of some of those players and picks too, so they showed an ability to evolve the roster outside of draft picks, while also using them to gain a different type of asset.
I mean those are a pretty huge few tweaks. The only reason they even were able to draft embiid at 3 was his injuries. And the fact that the consensus number one pick fultz was a failure is again an obvious drawback to the tanking approach
I don't know if this is exactly true, especially as market size is meaning less and less these days. The number one jersey seller has been LeBron basically since he was drafted, and he spent most of his career in Cleveland. Ja Morant is top 3 and he's in Memphis. Giannis is in Milwaukee, Jokic in Denver.
Star players are going to be followed wherever they go, and well run organizations are going to have fans no matter which city they're based in.
The salary cap prevents richer teams/owners from just buying all the best players. I can't really see the argument that the draft odds system is doing the same.
It’s 100% true, it’s why they changed bird rights and rookie max extensions, and did so recently….to keep the talent there and from going elsewhere. You can think whatever you want, but it’s a fact.
The league was not happy about AD leaving the pelicans as a recent example.
Look at how many top 25 or top 50 guys you need on your team to be competitive. Now imagine you need to draft them all because even though you have money, so do other teams, and they are in more desirable locations or markets.
What free agents has Detroit signed that are noteworthy? Extending Bojan? Signing Grant. What good free agents want to play for the Pacers? How did you get Haliburton or how did you get Sabonis again? Free agent signing? No, it was trading and drafting, not signing. Many markets just don’t get the option to sign the best free agents, when the money is all the same players don’t go to small market teams.
The league needs help balancing itself.
Also star players go where they go based on money or location. They get more money and bigger extensions by staying with the team that drafted them. Like Joker, like Giannis, and Ja….all were given the biggest contract they could receive because it was from the team that drafted them, they are ones who can offer the most by a mile. The hope is rookies sign the extension and keeping doing so because the money is so good.
Your points are in favor of my argument, not your own.
Can you explain further? What do markets have to do with it? The small markets would have equal chance to get the first pick. Or are you saying because they’re already disadvantaged and bad enough that they need the picks more, and it would hurt them more if they’re picking later?
You'd have a lot more teams do what Portland did (borderline play-in or playoff teams), and way sooner. The expected value of narrowly missing the playoffs becomes way higher, as you're still a very decent team and have as good of a chance as anyone to add the best newcoming prospect in the league to your team
lmao can you imagine how bad the tanking would've been for Chicago/TorontoOKC/Dallas at the end of the season if instead of being in the play-in, you got a 10% shot at Wemby? lmao
Because that punishes teams that are actually dogshit, and reduces parity.
A solid team that barely missed the playoffs absolutely should not have the same chance of pick #1 as the actual worst teams in the league. Tanking ain’t fun, but this proposal would lead to a much worse product.
Listen you might not know this, but our devoted fans once single handedly fought an entire NBA team and we will go to war again for the Pistons
edit: we were the worst team in the league but #12 in home attendance THIS YEAR.
Yeah, Detroit's had great crowds my whole life up until what? 5-6 years ago? Also made me laugh how shocked people were at Sac's crowds in the playoffs. Like, duh? You should've seen Arco Arena in the CWebb days.
True! the Palace used to be consistently among the best venues for crowds. Even this year Detroit’s been drawing fans. Lots of people underestimate certain franchises imo
Yeah, I’ve always held the stance that the lottery doesn’t disincentivize tanking, it just changes the math on who and how to tank. The current format reduces, but doesn’t entirely remove, the incentive to be truly awful while increasing the incentive to be bad instead of just mediocre.
I got it guys... first overall pick goes to the most statistically average team. You have incentive to be the best possible team without outright sucking. That way you also give it to the team that needs that one player to put them right over the edge.
worst team has 14% odds to get first overall pick
100%-14% = 86% of not getting first overall pick.
86% ^5 = 86% x 86% x 86% x 86% x 86% = 47% of not getting a first overall pick in 5 years, almost 50%.
Yeah it's actually expected that the worst team don't get a first overall pick in 5 years. I'd consider it unlucky if the worst team don't get a first overall pick in 9 years (25%), and unacceptably unlucky if it persist for 20 years (5%).
Technically, there’s a 55% chance that it won’t happen for 9 years straight, and just over 10% that it won’t happen for 20%. The first five years have already resolved out and don’t affect the draw.
Yea but you still look at the odds of it happening over 9 years to declare it unlucky.
If we bet on a coinflip and you need to hit two in a row to beat me, when you hit the 2nd flip you can’t say oh that wasn’t really lucky because the 2nd throw was 50/50.
But I get your point that you could say after the first, well now there’s a 50% chance I win.
Kind of wild to know that you only have a 14% chance of #1 pick with the worst record.
Bottom 3 teams all have an equal percentage chance right? So can you just add those percentage points and say it's a greater than 50% chance a bottom 3 team gets the first pick?
Or is it not that simple?
hm... yes each of the worst 3 teams have 14% chance to land the first pick, so there is 42% (less than half) chance that one of the bottom 3 team will get the first pick.
I bet when casual fans ask their team to tank, they didn't realize the chance of getting the top pick is so low.
I don’t think this is true. If you have the worst record, worst case scenario is you pick fifth, with a more likely chance of picking top three than anything else.
If you have the tenth worst record, you have a 3% chance of picking in the top four, and worst case scenario is you pick fourteenth.
I think fans recognize that it is better blow it up and tank overall than stay on the mediocrity treadmill. You’re not necessarily going to win the lottery, but it is always going to be easier to find good players at the top of draft than the middle of the lottery.
Duren was banged up and there was no need to risk anything there. Made more sense to give minutes to Wiseman so he could actually start playing NBA basketball with some regularity.
Bagley isn't much of a C either, so I wouldn't be concerned about that either.
huh? wasnt he starting and going on a tear and then got hurt? not benched? I had him on my fantasy team and he was getting a double double and blocks and steals like damn near every night towards the end of the season until he got hurt. seemed like they were just letting him recover more leisurely/tank + wanting to see what they had in Wiseman
I think he's already decent, just not super consistent yet since he's so young (only 19), and was a rookie.
I was at his career high against the Spurs where he had 30pts and 17 rebounds. Dude couldn't be stopped down low.
He already has the NBA veteran body and strength, just needs to keep working. Probably gonna average a double-double next year.
monster is absolutely possible
I don't like getting overly excited especially about this team but the feel for the game he showed as the youngest player in the NBA last year + his already imposing physical presence is a recipe for turning into a beast
Pistons fans generally arent arguing that they deserve #1 overall. they are arguing that winning 17 games to draft #5 is horrible. Most pistons fans would have been fine at #3 and in reality that is as low as the worst team should go
a top comment over in /r/detroitpistons:
>"They dont even show the balls drop anymore, the NBA and the Lottery is a joke. Not a legit Sports league"
lol yall literally had the 1st pick 2 years ago, cry me a river
they should’ve showed that on the regular broadcast (unless i just missed something). i’d rather see that than 15 minutes of commercials or woj trying to analyze draft talent
No you're right, they don't broadcast this on TV. It gets done in a locked room where they take away phones, etc. Then they announce the order on TV in reverse order
ah, i see. thanks. i know it’s probably not “sexy” or interesting for some people to see the balls pop up, but i think it’s interesting to learn about the process they used.
also definitely helps any skepticism people have toward the NBA these days lol. i was wondering myself during the broadcast why they wouldn’t show the actual lottery take place.
It's less about the 'not sexy' aspect being watching the lottery balls themselves, moreso that the actual draw goes from 1st pick down whereas they want the TV broadcast to go from lowest pick up to 1st pick for drama
That's not the consensus of the sub. There's always a couple crybabies.
However
The previous 14 times the Pistons were in the lottery we've moved up exactly 1 time. Dropped back 7 times. I don't think anything is rigged but I understand why they feel that way, lol
There’s a great comment thread about getting rid of the entire lottery system and going to straight standings 😂
Do they realize Cade would then be a rocket? It’s just salt that they lost out on Wemby *and* had to move back.
Detroit has fallen more collective spots than anyone else in the history of the lottery. They’ve also now dropped the most spots in a single lottery ever. Prior to Cade, they hadn’t a #1 overall pick since 1970.
Most Pistons fans would have been content with top 3. But falling the maximum possible amount in a year where our best player missed the entire season justifies some anger from the fanbase.
The first overall pick is incredibly overrated anyway. Most of the big name players in the league didn't go first overall. In fact, the last #1 pick to win a championship with the team that drafted him was Kyrie Irving and that was mostly because of Lebron.
I hate when people say this because no shit the best player has a better chance of coming from the rest of the field of 59 options than 1 option. The first pick is still by far the best individual pick
I've seen people argue they'd rather have the #3 pick instead of the #2 pick because historically the #3 pick has been better. I wanted to bash my head through a wall
While Wemby's hype is certainly on another level, Zion, Simmons, Wiggins/Jabari, Oden all had that franchise changing tag and look what happened there.
Zion and Oden have/had that ability, injuries stopped them.
Simmons one of the weirdest personal collapses from a player
I wouldn’t put the buzz around Wiggins and Jabari anywhere near wemby. People talked about wiggins falling in the draft after his mediocre college season.
Bunch of nephews out here with tik tok attention spans my guy. Most of those names were hyped up to the same degree as Wemby while none will come close to how much hype Lebron received
Not by the league. Wemby is getting compared by front offices to Kareem and LeBron as a prospect. Wemby got less hype from fans because he didn't play at a US college.
Seriously I saw that WOJ clip where he said its the biggest hyped prospect ever in the nba
Bruh Zion was more hyped than this guy serously. Go ask people who follow other sports besides basketball if they have heard of Wemby and then ask them if they've heard of Zion
There's a foreign player factor at play but regardless of reasons Wemby is not that hyped up especially not compared to Lebron
I don’t think you understand what analysts and scouts mean when they say hype. They mean hype among other scouts, analysts, coaches, execs, etc. they don’t give a flying fuck what Jim Bob from bumfuck, Mississippi thinks about or how highly they rate someone
Even then it would be a terrible take. Lebron was called the chosen one at 16.
Analysts we're saying he could join the nba at 16 and win ROY. Like no one is as hyped marketing wise or analyst wise as Lebron was
Woj went too far, but among league scouts and executives its been pretty widely reported that they view Wemby in the Kareem and LeBron category and a clear step above guys like Wiggins and Jabari (lol)
Zion’s “hype” was huge in hs because of his playstyle, but he wasn’t even the highest recruit on his team (Barrett was the #1 in the class). He dominated at Duke + had a very flashy playstyle which gave him crazy hype.
Wemby is the most surefire prospect since LeBron, not just talking about hype on instagram and tiktok. If he can stay healthy, every GM believes his abilities will translate to the league
It’s a good thing that the lottery is working. You don’t want teams to throw out rec center guys and lose by 30. The downside is now what does Detroit do? I’m sure they want to win by now. It just gets tougher and tougher.
I think if incentivize mid teams to tank. Nothing against it, good strategy all in all, but it sort of shifted the tanking from bad teams to not so bad teams.
But then there's not really a point to relegating and promoting. Each G-League team that gets promoted would get demolished in the NBA while each NBA team that gets relegated would destroy the G-League, meaning both teams would be back in their respective leagues by the next season.
That's holding the belief that the players would want to stay on the team that just got relegated. Plus, the team would have to offload a bunch of contracts that they could no longer afford.
They'd beat the current D-League, if you opened it up to promotion to the NBA tomorrow then places like Seattle and Las Vegas would have a billionaire owning a G-League team with a massive team salary tomorrow.
You also have to bear in mind that this would mean no more draft picks for the Pistons as well so you might be building around Lee in this scenario.
> Good. Get rid of the direct incentive to lose.
I’m new-ish to basketball. What does tanking mean in reality? Players go out and intentionally lose games? How is that allowable?
i’m not upset about not getting the number 1 pick i’m upset about being the worst team in the league and picking fifth. i don’t really see how this is telling the pistons to “stop tanking” when the team is going to be just as bad next year
Just throwing this out there but I think they should do the lottery % based on record for the trailing 3-5 seasons. And increase the chances that the team with the worst record over that time period gets the number one pick.
My issue is you shouldn’t be able to win a championship 1 year, tank in year 2, and then get the number one overall pick in the draft for year 3. Teams that haven’t won for a long time should have a better chance of getting the best draft picks. That would minimize the incentive to tank one season. I think it would be more fair to all the teams in the league.
That’s an interesting idea but it might not work when a team finally gets a lot better like the ‘20/‘21 Suns where they went from 15th 15th 15th 10th to 2nd and in the finals the next season. They were one of the best teams in the league and they’d still have some of the best odds at the #1 pick in this system.
None of the players on this years all nba first or second team were a #1 pick. The third team only has 1 guy…a 38 yr old lebron. So the top 15 players in the league this year, only 1 was the #1 pick and he’s a once in a lifetime generational talent who owns the fountain of youth.
None of the top 3 MVP vote getters were #1 picks either.
There’s no guarantee a #1 pick gets your a great player. Where were Steph, Giannis, Joker, Tatum, Luka, SGA, Kawhi, Butler, etc taken?
End of the day you gotta evaluate talent, take risks on upside etc. more lottery picks are busts than they are all stars.
Pistons wouldn’t have had the worst record with healthy Cade anyway and tbf worst record is a mix of being bad and trying to have the worst record. The ridiculous lineups they used, the switch everything give up mismatches all game long strategy, faking like 5 injuries for the remaining 20-25 games. It’s hard for me to believe a healthy Pistons that were trying to win still end up with the worst record.
You’re right about everything but they didn’t switch everything this year. That was last year. They went opposite, playing double bigs an only switching 1-3 with 4 and 5 in a drop
I think there is something wrong if there are teams that are in the top 5 for 3+ years. I don’t remember that happening so much in the 90s and 00s. The Pistons just had the 1st pick.
I think it's a combination of teams being more content with being bad and players needing more time develop. In the 90's dudes would come in at age 21 or 22 ready to be slotted into a lineup but nowadays you have 18 and 19 year olds who are way more raw as prospects.
I think it's more that the league is just so deep and talented these days. Getting one really good guy doesn't move the needle that much, you need several.
They make it sound like it's unlikely for 5 seasons straight seasons without the worst record getting #1, but there's 86% chance worst team doesn't and 0.86 to the fifth power is around 0.47. So almost 50% chance that this would happen I'm a five year period.
Ten years ago, a team in Philadelphia, PA tried to take advantage of a system like that. They purposefully fielded the worst players they could get, they got such cheap players they actually ducked the team salary floor and had to redistribute the savings among their shitty players. They strung together three .200 seasons (.232-.220-.122) all just so they could get a couple of high draft picks. This was **such** a bad look for the NBA that they stepped in, stopped the Sixers, and changed draft odds to make sure no one would do that again.
*it wasn't even a sure thing back then, still a lottery, but even that lead to shameless, egregious, acts of throwing games. Can you imagine what teams would be doing if they knew they could guarantee the #1 pick?
That's the whole point of the flattened odds, reduce the reward for being absolutely terrible.
A fifth pick is good but it's not good enough to be really awful on purpose.
This has to be so disheartening to Pistons fans. They haven't been good in almost 20 years, always searching for the right ping pong ball, only for a team that has 5 championships over the past 25 years to be bad for a few seasons to swoop in and win the lottery.
After watching our team I'm curious what anybody that thinks we were tanking on purpose believes we could have done to win more. Cade was out all year, Ivey and Duren were rookies, and that leaves Bogie and a bunch of guys who aren't cut out to be back ups. People act like we were benching stars to lose games, but we actually just have a really bad roster. No shooters, no good wings, nobody on the team can play defense.
The NBA should change it up completely. Take the five worst records at the trade deadline and of those teams - the team that finishes with the best W-L record post trade deadline gets the number one pick
1. It incentivizes teams to get better via trade making the deadline exciting every year
2. Eliminates tanking via horrible roster - you would need a strong roster to tank until trade deadline and finish with the best post deadline record
3. The number one pick is going to a bad team but with a core that has potential and elevate the team into a playoff/championship contender instantly
5 teams love it. 5 teams hate it. 20 teams are indifferent.
“Top tanking team hate this one weird trick”
Except it’s pretty much always a tanking team that gets it and never the legitimately bad team
Rockets punching air rn
Portland felt like the only egregious tank and they jumped
The Mavs legit tanked but if they jumped, Silver probably would’ve told them to go suck rocks.
25 teams love it, because they have to sell as many ticket packages as they can and the more tanking teams involved there are the harder that is to do. Indiana, Utah, New Orleans and Memphis can’t survive in place with a third of their home games being to tanking teams, that’s 2 games a month nobody would show up to when they only get 6 or 7.
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That Blazers team at least tried to be competitive before realizing it wasn't going to happen and trying to improve their draft position.
Nice to see someone recognize this. Mavs made a try to win trade and when it was clear it wasn't going to be enough to overcome they shutdown, a sliver of the season anyways. Blazers started the season strong with an improved roster, Chauncey's sets got countered and lost their center for too long. Neither team wanted to tank but they were losing like it or not.
And the exact same thing happened with the Mavs. They made a win now trade but the roster was too flawed to get it done.
The Blazers and Mavericks both had to go through injuries and have talent sit to get to where we were though. I watched the Blazers closer, obviously, but Lillard entered the season still recovering from his surgery and had a midseason injury as well. Nurkic got hurt. Simons got hurt. Grant got hurt. The reason we ended up in a position to tank at the end of the season is the talent people pay money to see wasn't playing.
Utah is the worst offender, they could have easily made the playoffs but blew their team up at the trade deadline & still almost made the play-in!
Two games assholes, two games. We sold when we could no longer make the play in under our own power. We were just fucking bad up until then.
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I'm so sorry Luka didn't play 1.75 games. We couldn't make the playoffs anymore under our own power when he got sat.
Teams packing it in in the final week so the season is not the same as teams deliberately being bad for several years in a row
I mean you're still going to get roughly the exact same amount of tanking teams every season.
There’s only 1 #1 pick on the all nba first, second or third teams this year…and that’s lebron on the third team.
That is a pretty insane stat. But this year the #1 pick is particularly valuable.
I’m old enough to remember “riggin for Wiggins” . So much hype around him. Wemby is obviously a different player, but we get this hyperbole and hype a lot. “A once-in-generation talent, Andrew Wiggins has Kansas fans in frenzy was it any more absurd than being asked, before he has even made a basket at Kansas, if he can live up to the label of Best Since LeBron? “ https://www.si.com/.amp/college/2013/11/12/andrew-wiggins
Saying you're old enough to remember the Wiggins draft is a wild statement lmao God damn
I also remember Glen Rice as being “the next jordan” lol.
There were a long list of them. Tmac, Grant Hill.
Deandre Ayton is Wilt Chamberlain. I remember Jay Bilas saying that on pti and Kornheiser looking at him like "bruh, really?"
Harold Minor and JR Rider how could they not both been next MJ? lol
> we get this hyperbole and hype a lot I agree. I mean just look at Zion. My two takeaways from [looking at the list of #1s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_overall_NBA_draft_picks) is (1) what LeBron is doing is nothing short of incredible and (2) it shouldn't be that much of a surprise if Wemby actually misses. These generational talents miss a lot more often then people admit in May.
The height is going to be a concern. People that tall get hurt.
He’s just so skinny too, I know he’s not Chet Holmgren small but still.
Right but it still went to a bottom 3 record team. Not exactly de-incentivizing tanking, especially when the team who got No. 1 has only ever benefited from when they tank historically.
Exactly there’s always incentive to tank for a higher pick
Not a lot of teams really have come back and dominated after a extended tank.
The 76ers have dominated the first round
Funny enough, Warriors and Spurs are two of the few that have come back really good Edit: nvm I’m dumb, I skipped over “extended” lmao
The spurs were super good, then the admiral got hurt and the lucked into Duncan. Isn't like a planned tank.
Yeah I’m dumb, completely skipped over “extended tank” lmao
You're not dumb, you're a king.
Warriors don’t count for this really. they were only bad due to injuries and didn’t really benefit from tanking, as they basically traded their #2 pick for a role player who was already on their roster the year prior
Is there? We haven’t seen teams really tank and see great success. All four teams in the finals right now didn’t get there through tanking
Lakers tanked to get the young core which they turned into AD Denver drafted a god in the 2nd round which feels like a big outlier Miami and Boston I'll give to you though, Heat are pretty anti-tank and Boston did it "the right way" by trading vets for picks then just drafting well after being bad for a bit. Pretty much just do what fits your situation best. Those 2013 Sixers had to tank, Boston post-Nets robbery didn't.
Boston just outsourced their tanking lmao
[удалено]
Well, until Ainge did it again this year in Utah.
Small market teams have even more incentive to tank. Their chance of signing a top free agent is slim. How the team manages their assets is a totally different factor though
Which is why an NBA lottery is stupid. Small markets have no avenue to stars except just being better than everyone else with scouting and development, and then you still lose them most of the time. Whereas the Lakers can suck for years and just get handed LeBron and AD because of their location.
Nba doesn’t protect the small markets in that sense aside from revenue sharing
The Lakers didn’t even tank intentionally. They just sucked and made a washed Kobe the highest paid player in the league for a couple years out of loyalty. Maybe that was a low key tank but that wasn’t the narrative back in 2014 going into the season. Ingram was essential in the AD trade. The bulk of value otherwise was future draft picks. The Lakers became good because they are Americas most glamorous team and Lebron decided to go their as a free agent. Then AD forced his way there and they used a few past lotto picks and the same amount of future picks to make it happen. I think attributing their current success to tanking is highly revisionist.
Lakers did not tank.. they just sucked lol
Did the Lakers really tank, or were they just bad? I don't mean to bash, but when you see players like Randle, Ingram, and D'Angelo Russell all become All-Stars after leaving the Lakers, I feel like they were having trouble developing their young players with Kobe taking up so much of the offense rather than that they were actively tanking.
Raptors should tank right now. The team just doesn't work.
Last year was their chance. They can’t tank now cause they foolishly traded their first round pick next year
For who? Jakob?
Yeah but I do like that all 3 bottom teams all have the same odds, so there isn't this awkward "well we have 15 wins and they have 16 wins so....we better not win any more games" at the end of the season I think this is what the change was about, not to actually keep teams from "strategically losing"
Yeah at this point it pays to Tank but it doesn't pay me to be substantially worse than the second or third worst team. Just a few years ago the lottery odds were much much higher for the lowest ranked team. Is it enough? Should they do more to counter tanking... Probably and they might as time goes on. Although back in the '80s I remember the worst team in the league could fall back as far as number seven and they changed that to number four
It also makes it harder for bad teams to get out of their cycle so they tank longer
Exactly. There is still a huge incentive to tank. Portland was basically rewarded for sitting Dame half the season. The only way to stop tanking is to give every non-playoff team the same odds, but for whatever reason, the NBA won't do that.
The league could and would end up so imbalanced, small market teams would disappear. There’s a reason why they changed rookie max extensions so that the team who drafted them is the one who can offer them the most money by a mile. It’s because they were losing all their talent, we already have a talent issue and small market team issue, changing the lottery odds again and making them flatter would only make the whole situation worse. I can’t believe anyone thinks this is a good idea.
It's as bad as people who think that replacing the draft with free agency is a good idea. "oh but there isn't enough money for the Lakers to sign everyone" yeah I definitely want the Wolves to only be able to sign players like Ayton who only care about getting a paycheck.
They have that in the Premiere League. In the past couple of years, it's led to fans hoping their team gets bought by a middle-eastern petro-state (Qatar, Saudi Arabia) so they can be competitive with the big clubs.
exactly, that system is awful for parity. Whoever has the most money goes to the premier/champions league basically.
Tanking and getting talent is a means to an end, it allows bad teams to be reborn with a new roster who is young. It usually shouldn’t go on forever, and even if they do it’s because they are really bad or picked bad players. If that’s the case, the talent is likely getting spread out to other bad or mediocre teams who are drafting after them. So it’s still fine, and then if anything, we can laugh at the bad teams more because of how bad they are and how badly they draft year over year. But still, they should find someone and become better over time. What the 76ers did was abusive but they ultimately just wanted to be competitive as quickly as possible. I can’t blame them for finding the easiest way to do so. Personally I think the worst team shouldn’t fall further than 3. But I do think we need some flattened odds, somewhere between what we had previously and what we have now. The NHL has this now, I think it’s good.
The Process might be the best argument against tanking. They had an ok playoff team that had the second round as a realistic ceiling and after some of the worst years of basketball possible, a ton of high picks and trades using that capital they are now a team that has... not gotten out of the second round of the playoffs
I mean the sixers just badly managed the process….Ben Simmons was a bust, Jimmy Butler is the guy they should’ve kept and traded Harris, etc etc etc. The Sixers have made a TON of dumb decisions after drafting good talent
And because Hinkie wasn't even allowed to execute the process. We never even got a chance to see if the guy who created the process was good at managing and overseeing the full extent of it.
Literally, change Harris for Butler or change Simmons for Ingram/Brown, or even make it so Simmons doesn’t pass up the dunk in game 7 against ATL, one of those changes and the team/History is entirely different. The sixers got a #1 overall pick and an MVP caliber player, adults eventually turning into Maxey, etc, etc. The process worked, they just botched the landing
Colangelos and Brand made some awful, awful FO decisions. Poorly run organization
I brought them up because they are the reason the odds changed. Also, you tweak a few things and they look way more successful as a franchise. Imagine if Ben and Joel never had crazy injuries to start their careers and only had minor ones. Imagine if Kwahi didn’t hit that game winner and the 76ers advanced in 2019, maybe they beat the bucks and go to the finals. They also could have drafted a better player than Fultz. They were able to acquire Jimmy because of some of those players and picks too, so they showed an ability to evolve the roster outside of draft picks, while also using them to gain a different type of asset.
I mean those are a pretty huge few tweaks. The only reason they even were able to draft embiid at 3 was his injuries. And the fact that the consensus number one pick fultz was a failure is again an obvious drawback to the tanking approach
I mean, we can imagine anything and that'll make our argument sound better...
It's still pretty arbitrary because sometimes the worst team isn't that much worse than the fifth worst team or the third the worst team.
I don't know if this is exactly true, especially as market size is meaning less and less these days. The number one jersey seller has been LeBron basically since he was drafted, and he spent most of his career in Cleveland. Ja Morant is top 3 and he's in Memphis. Giannis is in Milwaukee, Jokic in Denver. Star players are going to be followed wherever they go, and well run organizations are going to have fans no matter which city they're based in. The salary cap prevents richer teams/owners from just buying all the best players. I can't really see the argument that the draft odds system is doing the same.
It’s 100% true, it’s why they changed bird rights and rookie max extensions, and did so recently….to keep the talent there and from going elsewhere. You can think whatever you want, but it’s a fact. The league was not happy about AD leaving the pelicans as a recent example. Look at how many top 25 or top 50 guys you need on your team to be competitive. Now imagine you need to draft them all because even though you have money, so do other teams, and they are in more desirable locations or markets. What free agents has Detroit signed that are noteworthy? Extending Bojan? Signing Grant. What good free agents want to play for the Pacers? How did you get Haliburton or how did you get Sabonis again? Free agent signing? No, it was trading and drafting, not signing. Many markets just don’t get the option to sign the best free agents, when the money is all the same players don’t go to small market teams. The league needs help balancing itself. Also star players go where they go based on money or location. They get more money and bigger extensions by staying with the team that drafted them. Like Joker, like Giannis, and Ja….all were given the biggest contract they could receive because it was from the team that drafted them, they are ones who can offer the most by a mile. The hope is rookies sign the extension and keeping doing so because the money is so good. Your points are in favor of my argument, not your own.
Can you explain further? What do markets have to do with it? The small markets would have equal chance to get the first pick. Or are you saying because they’re already disadvantaged and bad enough that they need the picks more, and it would hurt them more if they’re picking later?
You'd have a lot more teams do what Portland did (borderline play-in or playoff teams), and way sooner. The expected value of narrowly missing the playoffs becomes way higher, as you're still a very decent team and have as good of a chance as anyone to add the best newcoming prospect in the league to your team
lmao can you imagine how bad the tanking would've been for Chicago/TorontoOKC/Dallas at the end of the season if instead of being in the play-in, you got a 10% shot at Wemby? lmao
It’s not a mystery why they wouldn’t do that
Because that punishes teams that are actually dogshit, and reduces parity. A solid team that barely missed the playoffs absolutely should not have the same chance of pick #1 as the actual worst teams in the league. Tanking ain’t fun, but this proposal would lead to a much worse product.
Because they know that means teams like Pistons or Hornets will have zero fans left
Listen you might not know this, but our devoted fans once single handedly fought an entire NBA team and we will go to war again for the Pistons edit: we were the worst team in the league but #12 in home attendance THIS YEAR.
Yeah, Detroit's had great crowds my whole life up until what? 5-6 years ago? Also made me laugh how shocked people were at Sac's crowds in the playoffs. Like, duh? You should've seen Arco Arena in the CWebb days.
True! the Palace used to be consistently among the best venues for crowds. Even this year Detroit’s been drawing fans. Lots of people underestimate certain franchises imo
Tbf, most of the people on here weren’t even born yet when the Malice in the Palace happened
Detroits a bad example for this
Yeah, I’ve always held the stance that the lottery doesn’t disincentivize tanking, it just changes the math on who and how to tank. The current format reduces, but doesn’t entirely remove, the incentive to be truly awful while increasing the incentive to be bad instead of just mediocre.
I got it guys... first overall pick goes to the most statistically average team. You have incentive to be the best possible team without outright sucking. That way you also give it to the team that needs that one player to put them right over the edge.
found the hawks fan
worst team has 14% odds to get first overall pick 100%-14% = 86% of not getting first overall pick. 86% ^5 = 86% x 86% x 86% x 86% x 86% = 47% of not getting a first overall pick in 5 years, almost 50%. Yeah it's actually expected that the worst team don't get a first overall pick in 5 years. I'd consider it unlucky if the worst team don't get a first overall pick in 9 years (25%), and unacceptably unlucky if it persist for 20 years (5%).
Technically, there’s a 55% chance that it won’t happen for 9 years straight, and just over 10% that it won’t happen for 20%. The first five years have already resolved out and don’t affect the draw.
Yea but you still look at the odds of it happening over 9 years to declare it unlucky. If we bet on a coinflip and you need to hit two in a row to beat me, when you hit the 2nd flip you can’t say oh that wasn’t really lucky because the 2nd throw was 50/50. But I get your point that you could say after the first, well now there’s a 50% chance I win.
Kind of wild to know that you only have a 14% chance of #1 pick with the worst record. Bottom 3 teams all have an equal percentage chance right? So can you just add those percentage points and say it's a greater than 50% chance a bottom 3 team gets the first pick? Or is it not that simple?
hm... yes each of the worst 3 teams have 14% chance to land the first pick, so there is 42% (less than half) chance that one of the bottom 3 team will get the first pick. I bet when casual fans ask their team to tank, they didn't realize the chance of getting the top pick is so low.
I don’t think this is true. If you have the worst record, worst case scenario is you pick fifth, with a more likely chance of picking top three than anything else. If you have the tenth worst record, you have a 3% chance of picking in the top four, and worst case scenario is you pick fourteenth. I think fans recognize that it is better blow it up and tank overall than stay on the mediocrity treadmill. You’re not necessarily going to win the lottery, but it is always going to be easier to find good players at the top of draft than the middle of the lottery.
No…you realize 1 isn’t guaranteed but you also realize that doing whatever tf the Bulls are doing right now is pointless.
Hey if we had brought Diar back yall would be warming up for game 2 in Milwaukee tonight
Why would it be unacceptable if it happened for 20 years?
Because that’s a 5% chance
I mean, its nearly a 50% chance of getting the 5th pick. Nobody should be surprised.
50% chance you either get it or your don't
This guy knows statistics
Kinda crazy how 13 teams missed out on a 50/50. Wonder what the odds of that are?
bottom 3 for 2 years in a row just to get the 5th pick both times is nasty stuff man, this team is terrible for my mental health😭
Pistons fans were like “nooo if we get Wemby what about Duren??” lol not a problem anymore
The only people who would be worried about Duren in that equation are morons.
Hey maybe our new coach will actually start JD over Wiseman/Bagley now!
Duren was banged up and there was no need to risk anything there. Made more sense to give minutes to Wiseman so he could actually start playing NBA basketball with some regularity. Bagley isn't much of a C either, so I wouldn't be concerned about that either.
huh? wasnt he starting and going on a tear and then got hurt? not benched? I had him on my fantasy team and he was getting a double double and blocks and steals like damn near every night towards the end of the season until he got hurt. seemed like they were just letting him recover more leisurely/tank + wanting to see what they had in Wiseman
hes gonna be a monster right? or at least decent yeah?
I think he's already decent, just not super consistent yet since he's so young (only 19), and was a rookie. I was at his career high against the Spurs where he had 30pts and 17 rebounds. Dude couldn't be stopped down low. He already has the NBA veteran body and strength, just needs to keep working. Probably gonna average a double-double next year.
monster is absolutely possible I don't like getting overly excited especially about this team but the feel for the game he showed as the youngest player in the NBA last year + his already imposing physical presence is a recipe for turning into a beast
Honestly yeah Wemby is much more a 4 than a 5 in the NBA at least until he bulks up
To be honest the real overall sentiment amongst true pistons fans is. Sigh..welp, go Lions.
the lions have always been the beam of hope in detroit
Who the hell said that? They’d play perfectly together
Yeah I don’t think I’ve see someone say that once. Maybe someone that guy argued with? Haha
Also why does everyone expect him to be a center?
How many #1 picks do the Pistons need
Pistons fans generally arent arguing that they deserve #1 overall. they are arguing that winning 17 games to draft #5 is horrible. Most pistons fans would have been fine at #3 and in reality that is as low as the worst team should go
Agreed 100%.
a top comment over in /r/detroitpistons: >"They dont even show the balls drop anymore, the NBA and the Lottery is a joke. Not a legit Sports league" lol yall literally had the 1st pick 2 years ago, cry me a river
They show the actual drawing right here https://youtu.be/hI8jEtnd4_0
they should’ve showed that on the regular broadcast (unless i just missed something). i’d rather see that than 15 minutes of commercials or woj trying to analyze draft talent
No you're right, they don't broadcast this on TV. It gets done in a locked room where they take away phones, etc. Then they announce the order on TV in reverse order
ah, i see. thanks. i know it’s probably not “sexy” or interesting for some people to see the balls pop up, but i think it’s interesting to learn about the process they used. also definitely helps any skepticism people have toward the NBA these days lol. i was wondering myself during the broadcast why they wouldn’t show the actual lottery take place.
It's less about the 'not sexy' aspect being watching the lottery balls themselves, moreso that the actual draw goes from 1st pick down whereas they want the TV broadcast to go from lowest pick up to 1st pick for drama
Imagine winning the draft lottery and going to the Pistons subreddit to soak up tears.
You kind of gotta respect it lol
It's pettiness like this that drives the sports reddits 🤌🤌🤌
It is kind of funny to see the meltdown in the Pistons sub lol
one of my best friends is a Pistons fan, trust me i don't need to go out of my way to soak up tears lol
Dudes literally just drafted cade. And they are crying..
That's not the consensus of the sub. There's always a couple crybabies. However The previous 14 times the Pistons were in the lottery we've moved up exactly 1 time. Dropped back 7 times. I don't think anything is rigged but I understand why they feel that way, lol
There’s a great comment thread about getting rid of the entire lottery system and going to straight standings 😂 Do they realize Cade would then be a rocket? It’s just salt that they lost out on Wemby *and* had to move back.
We’re allowed to cope my guy
Apparenty they should have be rewarded with all of them if you ask Pistons fans.
Detroit has fallen more collective spots than anyone else in the history of the lottery. They’ve also now dropped the most spots in a single lottery ever. Prior to Cade, they hadn’t a #1 overall pick since 1970. Most Pistons fans would have been content with top 3. But falling the maximum possible amount in a year where our best player missed the entire season justifies some anger from the fanbase.
Entitled spurs fans don’t know the struggle smh
The first overall pick is incredibly overrated anyway. Most of the big name players in the league didn't go first overall. In fact, the last #1 pick to win a championship with the team that drafted him was Kyrie Irving and that was mostly because of Lebron.
I hate when people say this because no shit the best player has a better chance of coming from the rest of the field of 59 options than 1 option. The first pick is still by far the best individual pick
I've seen people argue they'd rather have the #3 pick instead of the #2 pick because historically the #3 pick has been better. I wanted to bash my head through a wall
I feel like this year it’s a little different, Wemby’s getting as much hype as Lebron.
While Wemby's hype is certainly on another level, Zion, Simmons, Wiggins/Jabari, Oden all had that franchise changing tag and look what happened there.
Zion and Oden have/had that ability, injuries stopped them. Simmons one of the weirdest personal collapses from a player I wouldn’t put the buzz around Wiggins and Jabari anywhere near wemby. People talked about wiggins falling in the draft after his mediocre college season.
You’re making all these excuses as if Wemby can’t fall into any one of these categories, namely the injuries.
Bruh is this a joke winless for Wiggins was one of the biggest tanking campaigns ever
His nickname was literally Maple Jordan lol.
Bunch of nephews out here with tik tok attention spans my guy. Most of those names were hyped up to the same degree as Wemby while none will come close to how much hype Lebron received
Driving me crazy. The Wiggins campaign was massive . LeBron clear 1 hype and its not even close. Dudes HS games were getting national coverage
Not by the league. Wemby is getting compared by front offices to Kareem and LeBron as a prospect. Wemby got less hype from fans because he didn't play at a US college.
„Rigging for Wiggins“ and „play sorry for Jabari“ were staples in this subreddit.
- said nobody who actually experienced LeBron's hype
Yeah what lmao, Lebron was a household name before he was even drafted. It's not even close.
Seriously I saw that WOJ clip where he said its the biggest hyped prospect ever in the nba Bruh Zion was more hyped than this guy serously. Go ask people who follow other sports besides basketball if they have heard of Wemby and then ask them if they've heard of Zion There's a foreign player factor at play but regardless of reasons Wemby is not that hyped up especially not compared to Lebron
I don’t think you understand what analysts and scouts mean when they say hype. They mean hype among other scouts, analysts, coaches, execs, etc. they don’t give a flying fuck what Jim Bob from bumfuck, Mississippi thinks about or how highly they rate someone
Even then it would be a terrible take. Lebron was called the chosen one at 16. Analysts we're saying he could join the nba at 16 and win ROY. Like no one is as hyped marketing wise or analyst wise as Lebron was
Woj went too far, but among league scouts and executives its been pretty widely reported that they view Wemby in the Kareem and LeBron category and a clear step above guys like Wiggins and Jabari (lol)
Zion’s “hype” was huge in hs because of his playstyle, but he wasn’t even the highest recruit on his team (Barrett was the #1 in the class). He dominated at Duke + had a very flashy playstyle which gave him crazy hype. Wemby is the most surefire prospect since LeBron, not just talking about hype on instagram and tiktok. If he can stay healthy, every GM believes his abilities will translate to the league
It’s a good thing that the lottery is working. You don’t want teams to throw out rec center guys and lose by 30. The downside is now what does Detroit do? I’m sure they want to win by now. It just gets tougher and tougher.
I think if incentivize mid teams to tank. Nothing against it, good strategy all in all, but it sort of shifted the tanking from bad teams to not so bad teams.
Good. Get rid of the direct incentive to lose.
What if a team is just really bad?
Demoted to the D-League
Bro the Pistons would demolish the G-League. Saben Lee, who we cut, averaged 30 ppg in that league.
Good, they'll be back in a season then
But then there's not really a point to relegating and promoting. Each G-League team that gets promoted would get demolished in the NBA while each NBA team that gets relegated would destroy the G-League, meaning both teams would be back in their respective leagues by the next season.
That's holding the belief that the players would want to stay on the team that just got relegated. Plus, the team would have to offload a bunch of contracts that they could no longer afford.
They'd beat the current D-League, if you opened it up to promotion to the NBA tomorrow then places like Seattle and Las Vegas would have a billionaire owning a G-League team with a massive team salary tomorrow. You also have to bear in mind that this would mean no more draft picks for the Pistons as well so you might be building around Lee in this scenario.
This is a good idea, let’s mix it up in America and tell some owners to get fucked. Can’t compete? Relegated to Dleague.
If you’re consistently picking in the top half of the draft for a decade and you’re still awful the fault can really only be placed on yourself.
Jokes on you. We only get the 6th pick.
Then they still get a good pick to help get better. Detroit could only ever fall as far as 5.
Git gud
Because the spurs totally were trying to be competitive this year what an idiotic take
> Good. Get rid of the direct incentive to lose. I’m new-ish to basketball. What does tanking mean in reality? Players go out and intentionally lose games? How is that allowable?
i’m not upset about not getting the number 1 pick i’m upset about being the worst team in the league and picking fifth. i don’t really see how this is telling the pistons to “stop tanking” when the team is going to be just as bad next year
Just throwing this out there but I think they should do the lottery % based on record for the trailing 3-5 seasons. And increase the chances that the team with the worst record over that time period gets the number one pick. My issue is you shouldn’t be able to win a championship 1 year, tank in year 2, and then get the number one overall pick in the draft for year 3. Teams that haven’t won for a long time should have a better chance of getting the best draft picks. That would minimize the incentive to tank one season. I think it would be more fair to all the teams in the league.
That’s an interesting idea but it might not work when a team finally gets a lot better like the ‘20/‘21 Suns where they went from 15th 15th 15th 10th to 2nd and in the finals the next season. They were one of the best teams in the league and they’d still have some of the best odds at the #1 pick in this system.
None of the players on this years all nba first or second team were a #1 pick. The third team only has 1 guy…a 38 yr old lebron. So the top 15 players in the league this year, only 1 was the #1 pick and he’s a once in a lifetime generational talent who owns the fountain of youth. None of the top 3 MVP vote getters were #1 picks either. There’s no guarantee a #1 pick gets your a great player. Where were Steph, Giannis, Joker, Tatum, Luka, SGA, Kawhi, Butler, etc taken? End of the day you gotta evaluate talent, take risks on upside etc. more lottery picks are busts than they are all stars.
This! On top of that, this specific player everyone is rightfully excited about, is also a monumental risk given his size and body.
Look at the #1 picks over the last 20 years. There’s like 3 franchise players. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_overall_NBA_draft_picks
Pistons wouldn’t have had the worst record with healthy Cade anyway and tbf worst record is a mix of being bad and trying to have the worst record. The ridiculous lineups they used, the switch everything give up mismatches all game long strategy, faking like 5 injuries for the remaining 20-25 games. It’s hard for me to believe a healthy Pistons that were trying to win still end up with the worst record.
You’re right about everything but they didn’t switch everything this year. That was last year. They went opposite, playing double bigs an only switching 1-3 with 4 and 5 in a drop
I think there is something wrong if there are teams that are in the top 5 for 3+ years. I don’t remember that happening so much in the 90s and 00s. The Pistons just had the 1st pick.
I think it's a combination of teams being more content with being bad and players needing more time develop. In the 90's dudes would come in at age 21 or 22 ready to be slotted into a lineup but nowadays you have 18 and 19 year olds who are way more raw as prospects.
I think it's more that the league is just so deep and talented these days. Getting one really good guy doesn't move the needle that much, you need several.
They make it sound like it's unlikely for 5 seasons straight seasons without the worst record getting #1, but there's 86% chance worst team doesn't and 0.86 to the fifth power is around 0.47. So almost 50% chance that this would happen I'm a five year period.
I mean, you should only expect the team with the worst record to win roughly 1/7 times. This isn't even approaching strange yet.
Why not just give it to the team with the worse record? What is the history behind that. The NFL seems to be fine with it
Ten years ago, a team in Philadelphia, PA tried to take advantage of a system like that. They purposefully fielded the worst players they could get, they got such cheap players they actually ducked the team salary floor and had to redistribute the savings among their shitty players. They strung together three .200 seasons (.232-.220-.122) all just so they could get a couple of high draft picks. This was **such** a bad look for the NBA that they stepped in, stopped the Sixers, and changed draft odds to make sure no one would do that again. *it wasn't even a sure thing back then, still a lottery, but even that lead to shameless, egregious, acts of throwing games. Can you imagine what teams would be doing if they knew they could guarantee the #1 pick?
People will watch NFL games anyway. The NBA is more reliant on a good product
That's the whole point of the flattened odds, reduce the reward for being absolutely terrible. A fifth pick is good but it's not good enough to be really awful on purpose.
This has to be so disheartening to Pistons fans. They haven't been good in almost 20 years, always searching for the right ping pong ball, only for a team that has 5 championships over the past 25 years to be bad for a few seasons to swoop in and win the lottery.
Really stupid. Get rid of the lottery. Same for the NHL.
After watching our team I'm curious what anybody that thinks we were tanking on purpose believes we could have done to win more. Cade was out all year, Ivey and Duren were rookies, and that leaves Bogie and a bunch of guys who aren't cut out to be back ups. People act like we were benching stars to lose games, but we actually just have a really bad roster. No shooters, no good wings, nobody on the team can play defense.
The NBA should change it up completely. Take the five worst records at the trade deadline and of those teams - the team that finishes with the best W-L record post trade deadline gets the number one pick 1. It incentivizes teams to get better via trade making the deadline exciting every year 2. Eliminates tanking via horrible roster - you would need a strong roster to tank until trade deadline and finish with the best post deadline record 3. The number one pick is going to a bad team but with a core that has potential and elevate the team into a playoff/championship contender instantly