2 hours ago
(3 hours ago)Chicagojk Wrote: I think the reduced odds for the worst teams of getting a top pick has helped.
Zach Lowe has been talking for months about reducing the pick swap protections. Dallas #10 a few years ago. Utah and Washington this year. This appears to be the biggest issue. Bad/average teams with pick protections reach a point in the season where they think "Really, what in the world are we trying to win games for, when our pick is top 8 protected and we aren't going anywhere". Eliminate this and you may fix a lot of it. Maybe allow top 3 protected or something less obvious.
I think bad teams will typically struggle down the stretch. The season is long. Players are looking forward to summer. Teams will prioritize development. At least now with the changed lottery odds, that when a fanbase and team clearly tank for a lot of the year and then drops in the lottery, you can look at them and say "was wasting a year with that garbage worth it""
I liked Leigh Eliis´s idee since you can´t have promotion and relegation how about the team with the worst record at the end of the regular season gets demoted to 30th.
I´d make it even harsher.
First change:
Worst team = no 1st round pick, 2nd worst team = 29th pick, 3rd worst team = end of lottery pick. That way you can´t start tanking in December/January, cause you suddenly fall so far behind that you risk losing it all.
Second change: I only make it a three pick lottery again, not four to reduce that tanking incentive.
Third change:
I give the 4th worst team better odds than the 5th worst team and the 6th worst team etc., cause the 6th worst team is already the 25th best team and the 20th best team is already in the play-in.
Summary: You don´t get a lottery pick in the bottom three at all. You only have three chances to move up. Your odds of actually getting a top 3 pick decrease. This way you make losing less appealing and teams compete for the play-in instead.
Furthermore they need to relax trade and free agency rules. The new rules make it nearly impossible to improve via free agency or trades. Those two avenues are virtually closed. Therefore the draft and tanking become even more important. I think teams over the cap, but under the 1st and 2nd apron should be able to sign FA, but to do so, they need to pay the last team a compensation fee via draft pick or young player. Basically they need to loosen the general trade and S&T options.