Tanks for Nothing: Why the Draft Lottery Shouldn't Change

Forget the wheel. Even if you don't like the NBA Draft Lottery, here's why it needs to stay the same.

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Complex Original

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I can pinpoint, almost to the second, the moment I began hating the NBA Draft Lottery. The date was May 18, 1997. It was early evening, and even though we were already on our way back to my house, I made my babysitter stop at a local Ground Round restaurant so we could sidle up to the bar and watch the subdued—yet monumentally important—proceedings in Secaucus. You see, my beloved Boston Celtics had profoundly sucked the previous season, yet my hopes were sky-high—with two lottery picks, the Celtics had a 36 percent chance at landing the No. 1 overall pick. The can’t-miss prospect and consensus No. 1 that year? Tim Duncan.

1.

I will never forget the look on M.L. Carr’s face as the Celtics picks (no. 6 and then, tragically, No. 3) were pulled out of the envelopes, and in that moment my hopes and dreams for the franchise’s future completely evaporated. No matter how much post hoc denial from Coach/President Rick Pitino assured fans that “We're going to get as creative as possible” in trying to trade up to No. 1, despair firmly set in a month later when the Celtics instead chose Ron Mercer at No. 6 (two years in Boston) and Chauncey Billups at No. 3 (traded after 50 games).  To Boston and me in particular: he draft lottery was bullshit.

After 25 years with the same  “weighted” system, experts and non-experts alike are now clamoring for change. Tanking, they say, has ruined the credibility of the lottery system. There’s enough of a groundswell that we’ll likely see a revised system sooner rather than later.

But you know what? The best thing the NBA can do is make no changes at all. For all its flaws, the current lottery presents a fair system that, while giving the worst team a good chance at the top spot, also acts as a deterrent against tanking. Yes, it’s imperfect. But what system isn't?

2.

We can all agree that tanking is a scourge upon the NBA. There are not many people who can honestly say they’ve enjoyed what the 76ers have done over the last couple of years; intentionally losing games, or at the very least intentionally putting together a sub-par roster in an effort to lose, runs against the competitive fabric that holds the league together. But what do the Sixers have to show for it so far? A solid player in Nerlens Noel, the hope that injured center Joel Embiid and Turkish-stashed small forward Dario Saric will be good, and zero No. 1 picks. Basically, tanking on such a profound level has not yielded them much beyond what they would have been able to get if they simply shipped out some spare parts and kept their fingers crossed. Last night—after ending the previous season with the league's third-worst record—the Sixers received the No. 3 pick, meaning they once again end up on the outside looking in  the No. 1 selection. A team that has gone 37-127 over the last two years shouldn’t be rewarded for this affront to the sport of basketball, and thus far they have not been. Doesn’t that mean the current system is working?



Completely overhauling the entire system would be a wild overreaction to public perception. and that's much more the NFL’s specialty.


Proposals like the wheel are legitimate, creative attempts to spice things up, and there’s no question that changes in certain forms might at least partially disincentivize teams from tanking. But what does it say about league-wide belief in the current system that the owners had a chance to make changes this past October and decided against it? Commissioner Adam Silver cited that owners feared “unintended consequences” would make the proposed new system more trouble than it was worth, as it would have dramatically shifted the odds in favor of the lottery teams with better records.

Since the current system was put in place in 1985, the team with the worst record in the NBA has gotten the No. 1 pick just five times, and before last night not one of the league’s worst has come up No. 1 since 2004. Twice in that interceding period, the team with the ninth-worst record has landed the top pick: the Bulls in 2008 (Derrick Rose) and the Cavaliers last year (Andrew Wiggins, traded for Kevin Love). The hysteria over tanking—at least as it pertains to its impact on the lottery—is dramatically overblown.

There are plenty of people far better at math than I who will say that the number of ping pong balls should be tinkered with, and they may well be right. Quibbling about a few percentage points here or there is not the point. The overall reason that this weighted lottery works rests on the fact that, if competitive balance is your goal, then the worst teams deserve the best chance to get better. Sure, a team with the ninth-best odds can end up with the No. 1 pick, but it’s also about as likely that the team with the No. 9 pick can end up with the best player in the draft. The lottery requires teams to be intelligent with the picks without pinning all hope to the 25 percent chance that they’ll land the top spot. Neither of this year’s top MVP candidates (Stephen Curry and James Harden) were taken No. 1. Neither was last year’s MVP, Kevin Durant. There are great players to be had deep into the lottery. Teams like Philadelphia have a chance to grab just as good a player at No. 3 as they could have at No. 1, which is only fair considering how much they suck.

3.

Silver has repeatedly stated that NBA teams are not trying to lose, and instead believes that the complicated nature of rebuilding paired with the ugliness of that process has given the lottery a perception problem. In March 2014, Thunder GM Sam Presti pointed out that, “The records of the teams in the bottom four of the league are in line with those over the last 20 seasons. If anything, they are actually slightly above those averages. I’m missing the epidemic on this, really.” In essence, tanking as a means of rebuilding is simply not the reason certain most teams (other than Philly) keep ending up in the lottery; front office ineptitude and on-court underachievement is. Completely overhauling the entire system would be a wild overreaction to public perception. And that's much more the NFL’s specialty.

The reality is that we’ll never have a perfect draft system, and someone is always going to be unhappy. However, it’s tough to argue with a system that affords the worst teams the best chance at a top spot, but also leaves room for the least-likely candidates to hit the jackpot. So I say to my 10-year-old self: Sorry, kid. This may not be the system you want, but it’s the one that works best. 

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