Report: NBA Considering An Alternative To The Draft Lottery
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – "Tanking" is a word that has been mentioned more this season in the NBA than ever before. With a potentially star-studded NBA Draft in 2014, and an increasing number of teams willing to lose now, in exchange for potentially winning later, teams are "tanking" for ping pong balls in the 2014 draft lottery. They're not losing on purpose, but they're not trying to win.
Well... some of them are losing on purpose.
According to Zach Lowe at Grantland, there might be an end in sight to tanking, and the draft lottery.
Lowe reports that an NBA team official suggested an alternate plan, and that plan has gained some traction in the NBA offices.
The plan, simply, instead of a draft that has losing teams at the top, employees a "wheel" system, in which draft positions are pre-determined in 30 years increments. Every team gets the first pick once every thirty years, and those picks are determined at random. That way, no team will have an advantage in the draft because they happened to lose more games than another team.
As Lowe explains, the system itself works much better visually, which you can see in his post right here.
Lowe also explains potential problems and arguments against the system, as well as a note that implementation would take a decade, as all draft picks that were previously traded must expire before the plan is executed.
Zach Lowe is probably the best NBA reporter right now, and if he is reporting this, it's a real thing.
