But if you go 20-0, you make the playoffs and don’t get the pick so there would still be tanking to be good but not too good. There would probably be games with two decent teams playing each other trying to lose.
Yeah, that would happen. A team struggling to make the playoffs would suddenly reel off 20 wins in a row.
Now don't get me wrong I don't like the lottery structure and think that it would be very easy to fix. You just reverse it so the team with the best record out of the playoffs has the highest odds in the lotto and the team with the worst record in the league has the lowest odds. It would get rid of tanking and that would be good for the league because I'm sure ratings tank when teams do. I think the thing that holds up change in the league is that none of these teams are losing money, they're all making it year in and year out while they watch the valuations of their teams climb at the same time. I would still have the teams outside of the top 4 pick in order of the worst record to the best but just flip the lottery odds. While things are the way they are, I'm happy that our team shows the good sense to tank, I honestly think brilliant strategists like Dr. Jack would want the best player possible out of the draft once they knew they didn't have a team that could compete for a title and therefore would be on board with resting their best players while getting time for guys that need more development or evaluation.
When Cronin deliberately didn't address their size issues at the deadline in any semi-meaningful way (even a buyout guy + cutting Archipalego would have helped—with zero tax implications) the writing was on the wall. The Blazers defensive issues go way beyond size but there were a handful of games in that specific time window where other teams were destroying us in the paint because we were throwing the likes of Jabari Walker and Trendon Watford at them (who are more 3s than they are 5s). Yes, Nurkic was hurt, but then we all knew this would be a thing in preseason. Evaluation-mode turned into tank mode pretty quickly. I'm a bit less knives out than the rest of the fanbase is right now—but for me the roster better be in a lot better shape after the summer, though—even if the direction is youth movement. Cronin will have had 4 trade windows to balance the roster at that point!
#1 team get the best odds???? That makes no sense. Tanking can easily be avoided by using the wheel system where team rotates draft spot independent of record.
Most players don't care about draft picks. Maybe a star like Dame would. Does Nurk want to win the #1 pick so Wemba can be our center of the future?
I guess I'm in the minority because I don't believe tanking is a problem. And if it is a problem it's a symptom of a real problem and that's a luxury tax system that does not discourage big-market teams. Want to solve tanking? Maybe start with a hard cap
I honestly thought the Blazers might not score a basket in the 4th quarter tonight. When Cronin wants a bad team on the floor, he doesn't mess around.
"Has become" a joke? Dude this league has been ripe with being a joke for a long time. It's always been a rigged situation with the best players playing by different rules, with the talk of fixing draft lotteries and of course it's the only one where a referee (I'm sure it was just one *insert eye roll*) was proven to be betting on the games. Even with all that, we all obviously love the Blazers or we wouldn't be here, and even though I know it's a fools errand hoping for a Blazers title some day, I'll never give up hope even if I care less about the league as a whole with each passing day.
Not saying to do it but draft order being decided by record 1 thru 30 is the only lottery system that prevents tanking. #1 team gets best odds. #30 team gets worst odds. Then no organization will try to lose. They will desperately try to get best record possible. Any other record-based system will result in tanking.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't stand the NBA, but then not only follow it, but follow it more rabidly than most any other fans by conversing on message boards with other fans. Only to complain about it. What sort of masochist shit is that? Sports are entertainment. I wouldn't watch a shitty television series over and over, and go online to talk about the series with other people, complaining about how bad of a series it is, how terrible the genre is, how much the actors suck, etc. If your entertainment has stopped entertaining you, find something else. Life is too short.
Or as someone else mentioned ... go to the wheel format that was talked about a few years ago where every team in a 30 year cycle would have all 30 picks ... that's a pretty easy way to stop tanking.