The combination of a great draft class, injuries, and underachieving teams has combined to form a shizastrom highlighting just what’s wrong with the NBA-- whose major storylines of the year so far are “So many amazing college players!” and “Eastern Conference: War Crime Edition”. Not exactly the ideal storylines are they?
There’s been endless debate here on the merits of tanking or not-tanking, and despite how much we try to avoid the topic, there’s a reason why it keeps rearing its ugly head. There has also been a rise of people making the argument (here and in wider NBA circles) that divisoins and possibly even conferences need to go. A recent thread by started by Shrub, quoting Steve Aschburner from NBA.com that argued the opposite because “it would build and enhance rivalries that are so lacking now”
Although I get Mr. Achburner’s point, and even agree that current divisions don’t really do much to foster rivalries; I respectfully disagree that just having teams play each other more will naturally create them. Rivalries in the NBA don't have anything to do with geography, OR how many times a team plays the same team.
In my opinion rivalries occur under the following two (official) conditions [and a 3rd unofficial condition]
1) Teams must be of relative strength.
2) The games must be meaningful.
[3) Head cases/dirty players/irrational confidence guys/players who proclamations to the media always boost the rivalry factor aka your Jason Terry/Matt Barnes/MWP/J.R. Smith’s of the league]
Since, the case can easily be made that the 3rd unofficial factor actually detracts from the game more than it adds to it I’ll ignore it for this piece.
How many teams play meaningful games in the regular season? No matter how many times the Jazz play OKC, is there any chance these two teams start a rivalry this season? Other than cross town rivals, or in the case of the Naismith Cup (cross-country rivals) between the Raps and (Vancouver) Grizz how often is a rivalry created between NON playoff teams? I would argue never (I would argue the the cross-town rivalries would exist even if they played in different conferences). The reason is that if you are one the teams who are outside the playoffs looking in, you are playing for the intangibles: better execution, developing your game. This only gets worse as the season nears the end and the gap between the haves and the have nots is at its greatest.
The key to more rivalries is more meaningful games. How do you create more meaningful games and fix the NBA at the same time?
I’m glad you asked!
Step 1) Get rid of regional based divisions and conferences. Teams take chartered jets and playing teams that are near you lose the benefit when you are constantly travelling from other places anyway. You still have two conferences and 3 divisions but you change the divisions every year based on expected performance, last year’s playoff history and off season moves, to maximize parity among divisions and highlight rivalries. Group 3 divisions together to make a conference. Although there are always going to be midseason trades & injures, overachievers & underachievers this would ensure that there would always be a good chance for least one good division rivalry, NBA head office could have fun with it and even put the previous year’s NBA finalists or conference finalists in the same division or just any two random teams that seem to bring out the best [beast] of each other. It would pretty much ensure that there’d be at least one legit team in each division so avoiding another Shatlantic Division and LEastern Conference. With better parity among the divisions, division champ will mean more, and you could bestow homecourt advantage for it with make a lemon face.
Step 2) Get rid of the draft lottery. This is a pretty simple case of “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”. Whether you or me, like it or not, an unwanted consequence of the draft lottery, acknowledged by GMs and analysts, is that it incentivizes losing, especially if you lose A LOT. Now, you can debate whether tanking will ultimately bring a championship, or whether it is the best/only option for building a contender, but the reality is that the worse your record is the better your odds of getting the best talent in the upcoming draft. Rewarding teams for losing or being bad, is counter-intuitive and furthermore, reduces the number of meaningful games, hence the opportunities for rivalries to emerge and/or grow stronger.
Anytime you have losing linked to getting the best talent it will influence teams into purposefully putting less talent on the court in order to purposefully field a less competitive team, you can justify it without using the “T” word as "developing young guys" or “rebuilding”, but it is conscious decision by management to NOT have the best possible team RIGHT NOW on the floor. The current system makes this so obvious and necessary, that we all pretty much accept it as a given, and it’s more a question of how much can we tolerate, and what the payoff is likely to be.
The fact that all teams have to do it is given that goes (for the most part) unchallenged.
That doesn’t mean, however there aren’t other systems that could still help the bottom teams get more talent out of the draft without incentivizing LOSING. Many people have proposed different systems that, while not eliminating the incentive to be BAD, can certainly diminish it. Yes different systems will have different problems, but it’s possible that they could fulfill our criteria of creating more meaningful games. Here’s one alternative:
I originally got his idea from either Zach Lowe or Bill Simmons, and have modified it slightly: Have the lottery be determined by best winning percentage after you have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, if you wanted to ensure that teams who just missed the playoffs don't get a chance at the number 1 pick you could split it between two groups. The first are those eliminated from the playoffs by a certain date (March 30th?) or before a certain number of games (say by 70 or before), or a number (first between the first 10 eliminated) and with the second group comprised by those who were eliminated after whatever cut off you choose.
For example, let’s say they’re 10 teams eliminated by March 30th/their 70th game, and the remaining 5 are eliminated after our arbitrary cut off date/games. The team with the best record after they were eliminated for the group of five gets the number 1 pick, the team with the 2nd best win percentage after elimination gets the 2nd pick and so on down the line. The team from the group of five with the best winning percentage after elimination gets the 10th pick etc.
I idea is that there is very little room for tanking. I don't, and don't think any other pro-tankers actually believe that teams try to tank at the player level, and very rarely if ever try to tank at the coach level: This year's examples would be Boston and Phoenix two teams short on talent but overachieving, attributed to coaching and hard work. It primarily and almost exclusively happens at the Owner/GM level, and it's done through personnel moves. GM's actively try to have less talent in a given season to have more in future seasons.
In the current system, it's relatively straightforward to maximize your chances at a low pick, trade good players for bad players, ideally younger players who are bad NOW but will be better later, because that’s the kind of Kool Aid fans can drink. Astute posters will point out this is easier said than done, BUT the basic theory is pretty simple. In the proposed system the optimum spot to acquire top talent in the draft is to be eliminated from the playoffs before the cut off (date/games), BUT be better than all the other teams who do the same. As a GM how do you manage to get the talent level right to achieve this? Especially since this occurs after the trade deadline when rosters are virtually fixed? I would say that it is so difficult to do it incentivizes teams to have the most talented rosters possible in the hopes that if they don't make the playoffs they are eliminated in time to give them a real shot at the number one pick.
In the current system if you want maximize your chances of "winning" then EVERY regular season game is a good game to tank, and that’s a pretty masochistic thing for a fan to cheer for (even those of us who do it). In the proposed system the only time it makes sense to lose on purpose is when you don't think you will make the playoffs, or if you do-get murdered in the first round, AND you are approaching the cut off and aren't eliminated yet. Hopefully by controlling the cut-off date you make it difficult for teams to do a mini tank at the end of the season because it would probably be WAY more obvious as it would likely have to happen at the coaching and/or player level (because it happens AFTER the trade deadline), and because the team is still a legit playoff contender.
This new system won’t help the Bucks/Hawks of the league. The “treadmill teams” may still opt to take a step back, but that step won’t be nearly as large, or as all-encompassing. Bad GM’s will be easier to spot and less likely to be tolerated, and there won’t be a chinese wall within organisations where the coaches and players are trying their best to win games, while the GM is trying to make it impossible for them to do so. MOST importantly it will make every regular season game EXPONENTIALLY more important for the bottom half of the league and will make games meaningful (IN A GOOD WAY!) in late March and early April for both playoff and non-playoff teams. Nothing is going to be perfect, and there are always going to be the things you can’t account for, but the NBA must find some way to link the draft to winning as opposed to losing. I’m hoping for as many teams as possible to overtly tank in ways that cannot be ignored so that the NBA will address it.
Doing these to two things will maximize the importance of regular season games, especially the end of the season, where even the bottom feeders are doing their best to win games to land a better player to help them win the following year, more meaningful games among the bottom end of the league increases the odds of rivalries forming or getting better in general. AND fans will never be in a situation where their heart says “win” but their brain says “lose”.
It's simple an easy enough for the NBA to do this less time it took me to write this piece, or for you to read it!
Your welcome, NBA.
#tankfreeworld
There’s been endless debate here on the merits of tanking or not-tanking, and despite how much we try to avoid the topic, there’s a reason why it keeps rearing its ugly head. There has also been a rise of people making the argument (here and in wider NBA circles) that divisoins and possibly even conferences need to go. A recent thread by started by Shrub, quoting Steve Aschburner from NBA.com that argued the opposite because “it would build and enhance rivalries that are so lacking now”
Although I get Mr. Achburner’s point, and even agree that current divisions don’t really do much to foster rivalries; I respectfully disagree that just having teams play each other more will naturally create them. Rivalries in the NBA don't have anything to do with geography, OR how many times a team plays the same team.
In my opinion rivalries occur under the following two (official) conditions [and a 3rd unofficial condition]
1) Teams must be of relative strength.
2) The games must be meaningful.
[3) Head cases/dirty players/irrational confidence guys/players who proclamations to the media always boost the rivalry factor aka your Jason Terry/Matt Barnes/MWP/J.R. Smith’s of the league]
Since, the case can easily be made that the 3rd unofficial factor actually detracts from the game more than it adds to it I’ll ignore it for this piece.
How many teams play meaningful games in the regular season? No matter how many times the Jazz play OKC, is there any chance these two teams start a rivalry this season? Other than cross town rivals, or in the case of the Naismith Cup (cross-country rivals) between the Raps and (Vancouver) Grizz how often is a rivalry created between NON playoff teams? I would argue never (I would argue the the cross-town rivalries would exist even if they played in different conferences). The reason is that if you are one the teams who are outside the playoffs looking in, you are playing for the intangibles: better execution, developing your game. This only gets worse as the season nears the end and the gap between the haves and the have nots is at its greatest.
The key to more rivalries is more meaningful games. How do you create more meaningful games and fix the NBA at the same time?
I’m glad you asked!
Step 1) Get rid of regional based divisions and conferences. Teams take chartered jets and playing teams that are near you lose the benefit when you are constantly travelling from other places anyway. You still have two conferences and 3 divisions but you change the divisions every year based on expected performance, last year’s playoff history and off season moves, to maximize parity among divisions and highlight rivalries. Group 3 divisions together to make a conference. Although there are always going to be midseason trades & injures, overachievers & underachievers this would ensure that there would always be a good chance for least one good division rivalry, NBA head office could have fun with it and even put the previous year’s NBA finalists or conference finalists in the same division or just any two random teams that seem to bring out the best [beast] of each other. It would pretty much ensure that there’d be at least one legit team in each division so avoiding another Shatlantic Division and LEastern Conference. With better parity among the divisions, division champ will mean more, and you could bestow homecourt advantage for it with make a lemon face.
Step 2) Get rid of the draft lottery. This is a pretty simple case of “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”. Whether you or me, like it or not, an unwanted consequence of the draft lottery, acknowledged by GMs and analysts, is that it incentivizes losing, especially if you lose A LOT. Now, you can debate whether tanking will ultimately bring a championship, or whether it is the best/only option for building a contender, but the reality is that the worse your record is the better your odds of getting the best talent in the upcoming draft. Rewarding teams for losing or being bad, is counter-intuitive and furthermore, reduces the number of meaningful games, hence the opportunities for rivalries to emerge and/or grow stronger.
Anytime you have losing linked to getting the best talent it will influence teams into purposefully putting less talent on the court in order to purposefully field a less competitive team, you can justify it without using the “T” word as "developing young guys" or “rebuilding”, but it is conscious decision by management to NOT have the best possible team RIGHT NOW on the floor. The current system makes this so obvious and necessary, that we all pretty much accept it as a given, and it’s more a question of how much can we tolerate, and what the payoff is likely to be.
The fact that all teams have to do it is given that goes (for the most part) unchallenged.
That doesn’t mean, however there aren’t other systems that could still help the bottom teams get more talent out of the draft without incentivizing LOSING. Many people have proposed different systems that, while not eliminating the incentive to be BAD, can certainly diminish it. Yes different systems will have different problems, but it’s possible that they could fulfill our criteria of creating more meaningful games. Here’s one alternative:
I originally got his idea from either Zach Lowe or Bill Simmons, and have modified it slightly: Have the lottery be determined by best winning percentage after you have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, if you wanted to ensure that teams who just missed the playoffs don't get a chance at the number 1 pick you could split it between two groups. The first are those eliminated from the playoffs by a certain date (March 30th?) or before a certain number of games (say by 70 or before), or a number (first between the first 10 eliminated) and with the second group comprised by those who were eliminated after whatever cut off you choose.
For example, let’s say they’re 10 teams eliminated by March 30th/their 70th game, and the remaining 5 are eliminated after our arbitrary cut off date/games. The team with the best record after they were eliminated for the group of five gets the number 1 pick, the team with the 2nd best win percentage after elimination gets the 2nd pick and so on down the line. The team from the group of five with the best winning percentage after elimination gets the 10th pick etc.
I idea is that there is very little room for tanking. I don't, and don't think any other pro-tankers actually believe that teams try to tank at the player level, and very rarely if ever try to tank at the coach level: This year's examples would be Boston and Phoenix two teams short on talent but overachieving, attributed to coaching and hard work. It primarily and almost exclusively happens at the Owner/GM level, and it's done through personnel moves. GM's actively try to have less talent in a given season to have more in future seasons.
In the current system, it's relatively straightforward to maximize your chances at a low pick, trade good players for bad players, ideally younger players who are bad NOW but will be better later, because that’s the kind of Kool Aid fans can drink. Astute posters will point out this is easier said than done, BUT the basic theory is pretty simple. In the proposed system the optimum spot to acquire top talent in the draft is to be eliminated from the playoffs before the cut off (date/games), BUT be better than all the other teams who do the same. As a GM how do you manage to get the talent level right to achieve this? Especially since this occurs after the trade deadline when rosters are virtually fixed? I would say that it is so difficult to do it incentivizes teams to have the most talented rosters possible in the hopes that if they don't make the playoffs they are eliminated in time to give them a real shot at the number one pick.
In the current system if you want maximize your chances of "winning" then EVERY regular season game is a good game to tank, and that’s a pretty masochistic thing for a fan to cheer for (even those of us who do it). In the proposed system the only time it makes sense to lose on purpose is when you don't think you will make the playoffs, or if you do-get murdered in the first round, AND you are approaching the cut off and aren't eliminated yet. Hopefully by controlling the cut-off date you make it difficult for teams to do a mini tank at the end of the season because it would probably be WAY more obvious as it would likely have to happen at the coaching and/or player level (because it happens AFTER the trade deadline), and because the team is still a legit playoff contender.
This new system won’t help the Bucks/Hawks of the league. The “treadmill teams” may still opt to take a step back, but that step won’t be nearly as large, or as all-encompassing. Bad GM’s will be easier to spot and less likely to be tolerated, and there won’t be a chinese wall within organisations where the coaches and players are trying their best to win games, while the GM is trying to make it impossible for them to do so. MOST importantly it will make every regular season game EXPONENTIALLY more important for the bottom half of the league and will make games meaningful (IN A GOOD WAY!) in late March and early April for both playoff and non-playoff teams. Nothing is going to be perfect, and there are always going to be the things you can’t account for, but the NBA must find some way to link the draft to winning as opposed to losing. I’m hoping for as many teams as possible to overtly tank in ways that cannot be ignored so that the NBA will address it.
Doing these to two things will maximize the importance of regular season games, especially the end of the season, where even the bottom feeders are doing their best to win games to land a better player to help them win the following year, more meaningful games among the bottom end of the league increases the odds of rivalries forming or getting better in general. AND fans will never be in a situation where their heart says “win” but their brain says “lose”.
It's simple an easy enough for the NBA to do this less time it took me to write this piece, or for you to read it!
Your welcome, NBA.
#tankfreeworld
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