NBA about to implement anti-tanking measure?

[moly99]

Interesting idea from Slate. Instead of drafting players, you draft other teams. Then you pick based on how that team does in the upcoming season. Since your draft pick is no longer tied to how you finish in the standings, there is less incentive to tank. I like the idea but wonder about the possibility of collusion.
 
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/05/nba_draft_lottery_2015_how_to_fix_the_broken_nba_draft_system_and_prevent.html

 
There are so many obvious problems with this that it's hard to believe people have thought this through at all. Two teams can pick each other and both tank, for example.
 
At least this whole argument over tanking is a great window into human psychology, though. Humans love the idea of one-time, simple fixes. Get rid of capitalists and we can have utopia. Get rid of government/taxes and we can have utopia. Get rid of the NBA lottery and we can have utopia.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

I'm delighted both Slate and 538 are marketing an idea which is so similar to my own proposal in this forum a couple of weeks ago - I'm happy to accept that their slight tweak is an improvement (even if it would be slightly more difficult to follow which team owns which pick if picks aren't directly traded between teams).
 

 
There are so many obvious problems with this that it's hard to believe people have thought this through at all. Two teams can pick each other and both tank, for example.

 
Why would two teams collude to tank with each other? Once you've picked another team, the only way you can directly improve your draft position is to finish with a better record than the other team does. I assume there would be anti-collusion provisions and/or rules whereby you can't pick the same team two years in a row (to prevent two teams from mutually copying the Hinkie Plan over multiple seasons). You'd also have to finish with the two worst records in the league to pull this plan off; otherwise, another team would probably step in and foil the plan. And even if you're right and two teams subvert the plan like this, you'd still be left with a far better system than what we currently have.
 
What are all of these other obvious problems you're talking about?

 

[Hagios]

 
There are so many obvious problems with this that it's hard to believe people have thought this through at all. Two teams can pick each other and both tank, for example.

 
Sure, but with collusion you have an incentive to backslide. With the current system you have an incentive to tank. So even in the most naive version, you're looking at a net improvement over the status quo.
 
But who says we have to have the most naive version? We could have a rule that you can't draft the team that drafts you. Yes, you could have a three way collusion, but colluding is like keeping a secret. The difficulty increases exponentially with the number of people involved. Three party collusion is much tougher than two party collusion.
 
That's particularly true when the goods are not homogeneous and quality is hard to quantify. See also: NBA players.
 
76's: Our advanced metrics say your free agent pickup is really good!
Knicks: Our advanced metrics say he's even more overrated than Kevin Love!
76's: You would say that! We're going to sign a good free agent now!
Knicks: Ok! So will we!
 
We could also have a Sherman Anti-Trust rule and make collusion illegal. If three teams in a draft circle are all behaving like the 76'ers, then they'll be docked a few positions on their draft. (Note: we could probably do that now, but as distasteful as tanking may be, it's hard to justify punishing a team for putting it's long term future ahead of it's short term future).

 

[moly99]

Why would two teams collude to tank with each other?

 
If two teams can work together to get picks #1 and #2 they won't care which one of them picks first or second. Even if one team ended up with pick five the gains from tanking would still far exceed the potential benefit of making the playoffs as the seventh or eighth seed and getting garroted by a real contender in round 1.
 

What are all of these other obvious problems you're talking about?

 
Besides collusion, teams can still tank to gain the upper hand in the swap selection order, there are chronological issues (teams tricking other teams by making roster moves before or after the swap selections are made) and the problem of some teams not owning their draft picks that year anyway.
 
Beyond all of that, though, it completely ignores the problem of why tanking exists in the NBA in the first place. Tanking is a symptom, not a disease. Nobody tanks in the NFL (besides the Colts) or in baseball.

 

[Hagios]

 
If two teams can work together to get picks #1 and #2 they won't care which one of them picks first or second. Even if one team ended up with pick five the gains from tanking would still far exceed the potential benefit of making the playoffs as the seventh or eighth seed and getting garroted by a real contender in round 1.

 
The number 1 pick is significantly more valuable than the #2 pick in basketball, so teams absolutely care about whether they get #1 or #2. In fact, that raises yet another argument why collusion is unstable under the futures system. Two teams may start out colluding to gain ground on the league, but then they'll be forced to start trying to win to guarantee themselves the #1 pick. Since they have each others' pick, each game they win directly helps them lock up the #1 pick.

 

[moly99]

 
The number 1 pick is significantly more valuable than the #2 pick in basketball, so teams absolutely care about whether they get #1 or #2.

 
The difference between the marginal values of picks 1 and 2 is far, far less than the difference between picks 2 and 12. So if teams are making a purely logical decision between collaborating with another team to tank or going for it, it is still better to tank and end up with the 2nd pick than it is to make a pointless push for the playoffs. This is why teams tank in the NBA in the first place, and forcing teams to swap picks does not resolve the issue, it simply means that teams would have to find a dance partner in the process of tanking.
 

 
Two teams may start out colluding to gain ground on the league, but then they'll be forced to start trying to win to guarantee themselves the #1 pick.

 
You don't need the #1 pick to rebuild. All stars are usually drafted within the top 6 picks. Outside of the top 6, however, it is difficult to find players to rebuild around.
 

 

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

The difference in value between picks #1 and #2 depends entirely upon the pool of talent in a given year. Sometimes there are three or four "can't miss" prospects. Sometimes there's only one. Sometimes there aren't any.
 
I don't for a second buy the conspiracy theories moly99 is throwing out at the moment - it's hard enough for a team like the Sixers to tank so hard and so blatantly to the point that it's obvious they're trying to lose over a period of multiple years, and I can't believe that the league would let two teams would allow themselves to transparently collude in subverting the system together like this. (And don't forget that the Sixers again tried their hardest to suck this year but still finished with a better record than the Knicks and Timberwolves.) But even in that sort of worst-case scenario, don't forget that we're looking for new anti-tanking measures not just to stop teams from racing to the bottom, but also to improve the competitive integrity of the league, particularly as the playoffs approach. We should want teams like the Celtics this season to want to make the playoffs, not feel they might be better off by falling into the lottery. We should also want to make sure the playoff race isn't compromised by bad teams not trying their hardest against teams that do have something to play for. So even if the proposed system only encouraged certain teams to try to win in their last 5-10 games of the season when they might not otherwise have wanted to, those are still the 5-10 games where that matters the most to the league as a whole.

 

[moly99]

It seems we are arguing two different things, so let me phrase this differently.
 
1) The NBA used to have a straight worst team gets the first pick system, because no one thought that teams would tank.
2) Teams did tank, because the incentives to tank far exceeded the benefits from trying to win because unlike MLB and the NFL you can't slowly build a contender. So the NBA instituted a lottery.
3) Teams still tank, because even with the lottery the incentives to tank far exceed the near-zero benefits of shitty teams trying to make the playoffs.
4) If the NBA institutes a program that makes it more difficult to tank, some teams will still do it because even the minor benefits of trying to collude with other teams or simply tanking just to improve the order a team chooses in the swap-selection process are far greater than the near zero benefit of the forlorn hope a 7 or 8 seed has against the true contenders in the NBA.
 
Even if the NBA crushes tanking down to the point that it has only a 5% chance of success, that is still better than the 0.05% chance an 8th seed has of winning the title. And even 0.05% might be overstating it: as I said before no 7 or 8 seed has ever won the title. It's the near zero chance a bad team has of success by trying that is driving tanking in the NBA, not the attractiveness of the chance of getting the number one draft pick. None of the proposals to fix tanking will work because none of them address that fact

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Bill James chiming in today with a pretty ingenious idea to fix the NBA draft process to stop tanking:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/06/how_to_stop_tanking_in_the_nba.html

In summary:

Here’s my solution. Create a system in which:

1. Each NBA team has an agreed-upon amount of money that it can use to sign players coming into the league, and
2. Each player may be drafted not by one team, but by three teams.

In other words, permit a bidding war—thus permitting competition—but a limited bidding war. The bidding war is limited because:

1. Only three teams can participate for one player, and
2. Those teams have a limited amount of money that they can spend.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

That seems like a huge logistical nightmare that would take this league and this union about 38 years to hash out.

 

[DJnVa]

I realize this is hypothetical, but...teams risk not getting anyone if they draft a guy that someone else drafted and lose the bidding war?

And really good teams that manage to acquire a high pick know that they don't really need to add many rookies to their team--wouldn't they blow their budget on the next big thing? Whereas the lesser teams know they need more help and they have more picks and can't spend all their $$.

 

[bowiac]

That seems like a huge logistical nightmare that would take this league and this union about 38 years to hash out.

Seriously. That's a ridiculously complicated solution. There are much more elegant solutions out there, to say nothing of the fact that it's totally unclear why you even need a draft in a league with a salary cap.

 

[zenter]

So... Two questions on the premise that it's practical/implementable (it's not).

1) What is the mechanism for bad teams to get better? The draft is tough enough.
2) If players have a choice of which teams to go to, why wouldn't they go to the coolest city/best chance of winning? (ie, let's say PHI, LAL, BOS bid on Simmons and Ingram. Wouldn't LAL and BOS have the best chance at these two players?)

Seriously. That's a ridiculously complicated solution. There are much more elegant solutions out there, to say nothing of the fact that it's totally unclear why you even need a draft in a league with a salary cap.

Well... This presumes the cap makes all teams functionally equal in terms of attractiveness to players. Just like James's piece does. It doesn't. There are bad managements, weird agent preferences, taxes, and LA, NYC, and Miami are awesome destinations. I don't think these are huge factors, but they may mean 12M here is balanced by 14M there. And then the salary cap could work against a team in a huge way.

The draft is a real equalizer in this sense. It gives the worst teams the best chance at transformative player.

The "problem" (it's not really a problem) is that teams tank. The lottery has "solved" this "problem". It's a silly problem, though. I'm fine with a straight reverse-record draft. But the lottery is cool. The only recommended change I would make is a tiny one: teams may not - with their own picks - win the lottery more than once in any 3 year timeframe. So if the Nets 2017 pick is #1, it cannot be #1 in 2018 or 2019.

 

[ifmanis5]

Out with the snake, in with the auction. It feels a bit... slave traderish?

 

[johnmd20]

Out with the snake, in with the auction. It feels a bit... slave traderish?

Yeah, it's totally the same.

 

[reggiecleveland]

That's a bit silly in sports with free agency. "Belonging" to the one team that drafts you is me like slavery no? Bill James solution is no more complicated than the NFL cap.

I am glad James brought out that the GS win record has a lot to do with competitive imbalance. A league where you are rewarded for playing a terrible player, and letting his shoot all the time, losing game after game is a joke. James solution, or something along those lines makes it a bit more like college where you want to create an attractive place for a player to sign. Perhaps the money pool idea without a draft, and part of the cap.