Not sure
I think I feel better after reading this lol .
Do you like the lottery system ?
Hell no, but it's better then outright reward teams intentionally tanking.
The league has shown a reluctance to investigate or punish such teams.
In my mind it doesn't go far enough, I want something far more radical!
Top pick goes to teams that miss playoffs by fewest # of points. For all non-playoff teams.
You'll need a good tie breaker. Fuck it, maybe even do a best of 3 game series for it.
Getting a top pick in a draft isn't a magical bullet that will turn around a franchise, there is typically gross mismanagement involved that leads a team to be at the bottom.
That would still guarantee the worst team a top 16 pick.
Pros:
- Tanking is solved! Teams are actually encouraged to ice the best possible teams
- Increases the value of 1st round picks and players at deadline
Think of it as teams that know they will miss playoffs as gambling on their trade partner missing the playoffs.
- The drama of 'we got screwed' by the lottery would finally be over
There are few clear issues with this:
1. Possibility to stack teams (teams missing playoffs are still competitive)
I point you to Philadelphia who in 2017 moved up to #1 from #13 (if ignore top 3 protection).
2. Teams will argue this is unfair to the truly bad teams
Here's the advantage of this system, most teams before being outright bad tend to spent some significant time in the middle of the pack.
Eventually some teams will end up finishing last, that is inevitable. The goal here is to keep league at maximum competitiveness.
3. Teams chasing playoffs might be reluctant to trade 1st round picks or use a protection scheme (ex. Toronto 1st rounder to Carolina was lottery protected ie. Toronto retains if pick ends in top 3)
4. Teams could intentionally try to miss playoffs (this is a possibility, but it's also costing short term $$$ from playoff gates, and players would unlikely to be complicit)
An offshoot of 4, is teams could just dump all their players for as many 1st round picks and wilfully accept the 16th round pick.
Would such a system get adopted? Hell no, unless someone slipped acid into coffee at the Board of Governors.