2009 NBA Draft thread

What about this: there are 14 lottery teams. What if the worst 7 teams were all given the same odds? Lets say you create 1001 lottery scenarios. It would work like this:

Sacramento, LA Clippers, Washington, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Minnesota and Golden State would each have 100 chances/scenarios to win the lotto (700 out of 1001)

New York, Toronto, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Charlotte, Indiana and Phoenix would each have 43 chances to win the lotto (301 out of 1001).

I suppose this might create some interesting lineup decisions for teams in the 6-10 range, but that would be limited. But once a Sacramento or Oklahoma City knew they had the same chances at 1 as they do at 4, there is no reason for them to take the lottery into account when deciding how to play the second half of the season.

 

They really would be better off going back to the old way. I know Houston ruined that for everyone, but I would much rather see the worst team from the East and the worst team from the west in a coin flip for the top two picks than the whole lottery deal.

I don't doubt for a second that several of the lotteries have been fixed, but if you go back to the old way it would at least be fair.

In the NBA there will always be incentive to tank, because as someone already mentioned, it is the one sport where your team can go from worst in the NBA to one of the best with the right player.

 

I love the lottery, not sure why anyone would want to mess with it....and the NBA draft is BY FAR the most interesting draft of the major sports....so to abolish the draft would just be foolish

 

Why don't they go back to the territorial draft like they had back in the day? Send the players to the NBA team closest to where they attended college.

Think of how that may make things look.

 

They got to have Elgin Baylor providing expert commentary on this thing right? Hell, he should host the thing.

 

Name it after him: The Elgin Baylor Memorial Draft Lottery.

 

Where else can you hear "And with the 4th pick in the draft, Horrendously Awful team selects Domarz Gezunheight from the Republic of Snortsylvania."

 

I don't get the sense that teams are tanking to get in the lottery. The bad teams are already horrible. A team like Indiana was genuinely trying to win to stay out of the lottery, but a lack of defense and some key injuries kept them in it.

If the lottery is the reason for the same teams being in high draft positions every year, how do you explain the Detroit Lions and Oakland Raiders?

 

The main point of Gladwell is that the draft kills innovation in the NBA (he wishes bad teams would press more). There's no reason to take a risk to keep from being bad, because the Draft rewards you for being bad.

 

as a Knicks fan, I hope they "freeze" the envelope again this year, a'la Patrick Ewing....Yeesh.

 

Bird just looks terrible.

Wait, wasn't Webber just working for TNT?

 

Did they even shuffle the deck?