Reverse Draft Order SHATTERS Competitive Spirit? – A BETTER answer? What do Utah Jazz fans want?
David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, explores the complex dynamics of NBA teams intentionally losing games for better draft positions. He examines the Utah Jazz vs Washington Wizards matchup, where both eliminated teams benefit from losing, and questions whether this trend is worsening in the league. Locke analyzes the impact of free agency’s decline and stricter salary caps on team strategies, leading to a stark divide between draft pick-rich rebuilding teams and contenders who’ve traded future assets.
The podcast delves into potential solutions, including the controversial “wheel” system and the Women’s Hockey League’s gold point approach. Locke proposes a radical idea of relegating non-playoff teams to a separate league for draft positioning after the All-Star break. He also addresses the importance of player development for young talents like Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier, highlighting the delicate balance between tanking and nurturing future stars. This thought-provoking episode challenges listeners to consider the long-term implications of current NBA draft structures.
0:00 Intro: Teams advantaged to lose tonight
5:07: Spurs and Warriors’ tanking history and NBA context
15:55 Three ideas to fix tanking in NBA
21:49 Proposal: Relegating teams mid-season
31:28 Outro: Jazz vs Wizards game tonight
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33 Comments
About the wheel option. How many 1st draft picks has Jazz gottent last 30 years? How many 1st draft picks would Jazz have with the wheel at the same time?
I kinda like it actually.
It creates competition at the bottom just like the competition for the top!
Cody Williams may be the biggest bust in Jazz history unless Dante Exum is competing for the title?
The curent NBA draft methodology RUINS the fandom of each fanbase!!! I hate cheering for my team to lose!!! flip the draft order and add the play-in teams. playing teams 10-7 x2 all get the same percentage chance to get the number one pick. the worst teams pick in the 20s. Get these generational talents onto teams on the cusp of winning!!! stop sending top talent to Sacramento and Orlando for them to fizzle out or move.
Just win the game. I’m taking my kids tonight. Play to win. Always.
Dude you are really bending over backwards for this. Tell us more about how philli didn't have a culture hit. How about the Suns, nets… Come on. I'm a hardcore lifelong jazz fan and I'm about done with this. If Mitchell wins a championship this year this is the dumbest phase of the jazz and one of the worst managed teams of all time due to ego.
I just unsubscribed like I said I would David. It’s really too bad because I enjoyed the Pod.
Interesting idea. Please check out the Divisional Tiered Draft system idea. It is a rotation system (like the wheel) but the rotation is short and a team gets good picks frequently. It is a very simple concept. There would be no incentive to lose for any team, and would provide a path for improvement for middle of the pack teams. In this system, the draft is divided into tiers and teams rotate through the tiers. This video explains it all:
https://youtu.be/QJrMucI_Id4?si=rTk2thU-Uk8E42KJ
Pagliacci should be a sponsor, getting free pub with that old shirt, lol.
This was very interesting analysis and information, thank you.
Great Show! As a 35 year season ticket holder, this last year has been very rough. The 30 year draft order would be great.
What if you eliminate trading draft picks?
It's ruined the culture for me and my family. We have lost the desire to support the team like I have the last 45 years. And we don't pay to see games because we never know if the players we want to see will be "resting". Tanking is just wrong.
The jazz is the only team to never lose 60 games in a season. It’s a shame they’re purposely losing this many games! We’re not even guaranteed to get the number 1 pick!
The team with the worst record has yet to win the lottery since Adam Silver changed the odds in 2018. So maybe it's worth winning.
I don't like the wheel idea because it would seem stupid for a generational talent to go to a championship contender. They might not even try to develop a top 3 pick if they're already contending…Darko Milicic (whose per 36 numbers his rookie season were really good).
The other 2 ideas sound way too complex and would probably have unintended consequences.
The answer seems rather easy to me: Teams that end up in a playoff series draft as they do now. Teams that don't make a playoff series all have one ping pong ball in the machine and you do lottery style for all the lottery picks, not just the top 4 picks.
The only time your team might want to tank would be to get out of the playoffs. I don't think that happens very often! You could cheer for your team to win every night and if your team isn't good enough to make the playoffs, you get a top 14 pick with equal chance of landing 1 or 14 or anywhere in between. Sign me up!
I think the best solution is to have the drafts laid out for 30 years – you get a 1st pick one year, a 2nd pick one year, 3rd pick one year. and so on to 30. When those picks are made is a matter of debate. If it is possible to make a hybrid of this concept to try and keep the top teams from being in the top 10 that would be worth investigation.
I think the bottom teams should have to play for position in the second round rewarding wins or having single elimination tournament to get the 31-40 picks established or 31-50.
Honestly, I would prefer it if the draft order was set decades in advance. Every team should get the #1 pick, and they should just rotate through who gets the next pick. The draft order should be randomized and only shown to a few insiders to verify that it's fair, to prevent players from trying to time their draft declaration to get on a team they want, but it should rotate through every team. Every team should get the #1 pick once every 30 years – or a number of years equal to the number of teams in the league.
Players should also be penalized financially if they leave the team that drafted them. If a player is worth a max contract, no team should ever want to trade them. Any player that is traded or leaves a team in free agency should never be eligible for a max contract.
Each time a player leaves a team, his seniority should be reset, and he should have to start at the bottom of a seniority pay scale. Players should only be able to make the highest salaries if they stay with the same team for years and years.
I don't want a player to be forced to stay somewhere that makes them miserable. But there should be a penalty if you leave. If you can't find a way to exist on your team, you're kind of a toxic asset, and that should be reflected in your paycheck.
These are my thoughts on how to help reduce tanking. Do a losers bracket single-game elimination or best of 3 tournament for the 14 non-playoff teams. The odds for the #1 pick is lowered to 95% total for all the lottery teams and the remaining 5% goes to the winner of the mini tournament? The highest seeded play-in losers would get the byes in the losers bracket. Or Winner of the tourney gets the #1 pick with a lottery for the remaining 13 teams.
Maybe just let the teams have 1 draft point every year and then have them auction slots in tiered baskets.
Teams could save those points or trade for more.
Maybe then for example 3 teams would fit to the highest tier.
You could then for example maybe give 1 extra point for winning the mid season cup.
Then if you want to spice it up maybe give extra points for the losers in the play in. Or something.
This way you could have some way to save/trade for those points and then maybe invest to a good draft year.
Obviously a bad draft year, it would be cheaper to get to the higher tier bins.
I think The Wheel is great for small markets. THink about how much The Wheel would have helped the Stockton/Malone, DWill/Boozer, Gobert/Mitchell eras.
Biggest problem with the wheel idea is that not all drafts are the same. Who wants the #1 pick when the best player is Anthony Bennett?
I absolutely love the wheel idea! Tanking has ruined the sport.
What if the wheel version of the draft got spun every year? So you wouldn't actually know which position you were in until that year (all you would know beforehand is which positions you couldn't be in if you had already drafted in those spots in previous years) so draft assets could still have value.
I think we need a hybrid approach to the NBA draft with multiple incentives. This may take a minute to explain, but hopefully it will be understandable. You need a "wheel" component, so teams/fans know what draft pick they're getting. You need a "Draft Tournament" component, where teams that are not in the championship tournament compete for top draft picks. And you need a Lottery/W-L Record component similar to what we have, so teams at the bottom have a shot to get generational talent. 1) Wheel component: 15 teams are on the wheel one year, the other 15 are on the wheel the next year and it keeps rotating each year. Teams on the wheel get picks 1,4,7,10, 13 and so forth up to pick 43. You could make this a non-tradable pick. 2) Draft Tournament: Have a 14 team tournament with the teams that don't make it through the play in tournament, with #9 & #10 landing as top seeds in the Draft Tournament. The #9s get the bye. The first two rounds could be home and away with point differential like soccer. The final two rounds could be best of 5 games. Those who are bounced from the tournament can go on to play the top Championship tournament teams to round out the season. Wins and losses continue to adjust final standings for Championship tournament bracket. This may be a good time for developing young players. A rating from points scored X opponent ranking could then give the lower teams another shot at decent picks. The tournament draft picks would go as follows – top four from tournament get picks 2, 5, 8, 11 and the top four point getters from this group playing the remainder of the season get picks 14, 17, 20, & 23. 3) Lottery/Record component: Lottery based on team records for bottom 10 teams and other teams fill in by their record. These teams would get picks 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 26, 27 then would continue with one missed pick (to the wheel) and then grab the next two all the way up to pick 44. Then it would be picks 45-53 for the remainder of the 30 teams. You could add three more picks to get 63 and then the bottom 10 by record would grab the final picks for 54-63. I know this is a little long, but if you plot it out like I have, this makes sense. There are incentives for every team to continue to compete and there are elements of strategy, competition, and luck. Go Jazz!!!
If the jazz get cooper they better trade cody collier george clarkson and collins….they are only gonna stunt his growth…lauri cooper should be the front court of the future…
I want a lottery based on 3 things. 1. Last years record. 2. The last time you had the the top pick and the last time you won a championship.
My honest opinion, tanking isn't as big of a problem as people make it out to be. I can be patient as a fan for a couple of seasons if we were to get players like Wemby, Cooper Flagg, etc. By having a system like the NFL or NBA of old creates a natural/organic "Wheel system." The teams that are on bottom eventually get the players they need to contend in the playoffs. The current teams on top eventually fizzle out and go to the bottom of the league. And the wheels go round and round. The problem with the current structure is that, not only is it ineffective is preventing teams from tanking, but it also creates situations where bad teams stay bad. It's a double whammy. I say let the tanking happen, and let the circle of life in the NBA happen organically.
Thank you for bringing this topic up. I agree. The system is broken. I don't think this would work but the way European Soccer works with teams getting relegated and promoted is interesting. It really stinks when you want your team to lose because you know that is in your best interest.
Instant fix make the team with best record that didn't get into the playoffs get the higher picks.
What if you did a lottery/drawing for the cut off date? It is some time between game 41 and 55, the league announces it after the "final" game has been played by every team. That way a team won't know they have to lose the next two to miss the playoff group.
How do you rectify the idea that “the players will play the best they can” and yet one of your reasons for bad defense was lack of effort? Effort has been a criticism of players/teams in the past on winning teams. It happens even more on a losing team because it hurts to push yourself physically. Why not take a play or two off on defense and try to make a highlight play on offense and if you lose, oh well. Showing off your athleticism on rested legs is a good career move too.
I guess you can argue tanking doesn't have negative effects if you are purely a teams fan. If you care about the players, I argue that tanking and the losing culture (you argue doesn't exist because those players don't stick) has ruined many players careers because they never learned on time what is required to play on the top. Also tanking has eaten away big parts of many players primes. So yes, as long as you don't care about the players, it might be okayish to do.