LAST TIME EVER: Utah Jazz’s Wild Night Signals Drastic NBA Tanking SHIFT,
NBA history may have witnessed its last truly bizarre late-season showdown as the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards clashed with protected draft picks at stake. With league rules on the verge of transformation, David Locke questions whether fans will ever see another game so distorted by draft incentives and player absences. Could changes to draft pick protections and incentivized winning shake up the fabric of team building and competitive integrity across the association?
David Locke breaks down the Utah Jazz’s current draft positioning, the odds of keeping their pick, and what’s at risk over the final stretch. Spotlighting emerging talents like Keyonte George and Lauri Markkanen, the episode also analyzes the hottest and coldest NBA players, projected schedule impacts, and why new CBA rules could signal the end of egregious tanking. How will Adam Silver’s anticipated league reforms shape the future of the NBA?
00:00: The Last of Its Kind – NBA Incentive Changes
09:28: Jazz Draft Pick Situation and Schedule Analysis
24:14: NBA Points Gained & Efficiency Rankings
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25 Comments
Flatten the odds, top 4 teams excluded from top 10 picks. If your top 3 paid players don’t play x number of games you also get excluded from top 5, 10, 15 depending on games played (just like you get excluded from awards). Because you are actually way better than your record shows. Or there is some calculation based on that. With ability for teams to throw one out of calculation.
We need a kings sized miracle – but the 4th position is still in play!! Gotta lose strong, especially the Grizz!
Thing is Wiz had to win this game or they would end up losing twenty plus by the end of the year
It's a coin flip if you tie, right? If we tie the kings, we could still have the 5th best odds?
Okc has incentive to win vs Utah because they are trying to get back into team ball with Williams finally back. He'll have 9 games too integrate back into the team.
You can mitigate teams losing in the first 50 or 60 games of the year by having a minimum wins threshold where you lose lottery balls if you do not hit that number of wins during that portion of the season. For the last 22 or 32 games of the season you can win lottery balls for winning more games. You just have to have a max lottery ball loss and a max lottery ball gain so that genuinely bad teams are not punished unfairly.
How, or why would they think this would make sense? If a team is really bad and they can’t win and they have to win after February 1, but they truly don’t have the talent to the win wouldn’t listen in essence punish them? Because literally the best teams could purposely lose and then theoretically win out… and this team is going to best out this team they truly can’t beat anyone, who needs this pick?
If they do fix the lottery positions earlier in the year they should just have the lottery before the trade deadline. It would shake up the trade deadline while you were at it.
The NBA should change the rules so that LA, Boston, and NY have an equal chance to get the top pick every year.
You kind of look like Emmanuel pahud
Hoping the Jazz and Wizards lose their picks. They don't deserve them. They are two of the worst run organizations in the NBA. OKC deserves to have the pick because they are one of the best run organizations.
The unintended consequences of these changes are going to be crazy!!
Maybe not next year though, if the 2027 draft class is as bad as everyone says. Silver will claim he fixed it. Then everything will be crazy again when an exciting draft class comes around.
I was at the game last night, and I couldn't be more pleased/proud of our front office and their willingness to win the "tank off" battle against the woeful Wizards who were on a 16-game losing streak going into that game.
While I agree that the league needs to address the tanking issue, it still feels like it is being blown out of proportion this year in particular. It should be entertaining to see what the NBA comes up with to "solve" the problem.
"we all believe we're a top 5 playoff team" lol wut? no
nothing they are talking about is going to fix anything. teams only tank when they have a bad team. The proposed changes will ensure that bad teams remain bad forever.
The likelihood of us "catching" anyone in the tank-off race is extremely unlikely at this juncture, as the teams we're trying to catch aren't going to let that happen. They'll most likely roll out a line-up that resembles what we did last night in the games they must lose. We need to be much more concerned about not losing our spot at 5 and letting it slip to 6.
Tanking
1. At the start of each game the 5 top ranked healthy players for each team are identified.
2. To receive a max loss value of 1 towards the draft, a team must play the 5 top ranked healthy players for a minimum of 30 mins each. 5 top ranked healthy players x 30 mins each = 150 mins.
3. Upon a loss, the draft value of the loss is computed by adding the 5 top ranked healthy players minutes and dividing them by 150 minutes. For example 75 mins for the 5 top ranked healthy players / 150 minutes = a draft loss value of .5 loss points.
4. Problem solved. Losing teams are properly incentivized to play their 5 top ranked healthy players for every game.
You won't fix tanking unless you completely flatten the odds in the lottery.
Silver exacerbated this tanking issue by flattening the odds to where they are now. Revert it back to what it was before and it will reduce tanking.
If they are going to set a date it should be the trade deadline
This discussion of draft math is staggeringly boring. Furthermore, the strategy of building the current season around draft math I just plain dumb. Don't ever forget that John and Karl where drafted 12th and 16th respectively. In the meantime, the product is a dishonest clownshow.
I read an interesting article that talked about creating a point system: once a team is officially eliminated from the playoffs they start earning points per win. At the end of the season points determine draft position. It was an interesting idea.
I watch Wagler a lot as an Illini fan. I worry he just doesnt quite have enough lateral burst/explosiveness for the nba.
Watching that Ace Bailey dunking highlight reel last night in person was something else. Also just the wacky nature of that tanking comp. Lol. Good stuff to witness even if it was weird.
Stop touching your nose…
Since it's the end of a tanking year and you need content, can you also do an episode discussing how bad the gather and extra step (I e., traveling) has become? It's something that is sincerely getting worse over last few years and ruining the product.
got nose tissue, anyone?