So far three teams–the Philadelphia 76ers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Milwaukee Bucks—appear to be against a draft lottery reform proposal that is expected to go before NBA owners for a vote Wednesday.
The 76ers and Thunder were already known to be against the proposed change, with Milwaukee only recently joining the fight, according to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated:
Hearing that OKC and Milwaukee are the teams that have joined Philadelphia against lottery reform. Still, reform proposal expected to pass.
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) October 21, 2014
Yahoo Sports Adrian Wojnarowski laid out the argument raised by Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti, one of the pioneers in tanking for lottery position and picks.
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Presti’s position is that reforming the lottery would give large-market teams better access to top players in the draft by giving them better odds of securing a higher pick when those teams are in the lottery.
It’s worth pointing out that the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics were all lottery teams in 2013-14.
The weighted system that has been in place since 1994 would be replaced by a system that would give each of the bottom four teams a 12 percent chance at the first pick, the thinking being that it would provide less incentive for teams to be completely non-competitive *cough* Sixers *cough*.
The current system gives the worst team in the league a 25 percent chance at the No. 1 pick with a guarantee of falling no lower than fourth in the draft.
Here is the complete breakdown of current lottery odds, based on the team’s record the previous season (30th is the worst record, 29th the second-worst and so on):
- 30th: 25 percent chance of winning the top pick
- 29th: 19.9 percent
- 28th: 15.6 percent
- 27th: 11.9 percent
- 26th: 8.8 percent
- 25th: 6.3 percent
- 24th: 4.3 percent
- 23rd: 2.8 percent
- 22nd: 1.7 percent
- 21st: 1.1 percent
- 20th: 0.8 percent
- 19th: 0.7 percent
- 18th: 0.6 percent
- 17th: 0.5 percent
The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the odds this summer, hitting on their 1.7 percent chance of securing the top pick and drafting Kansas standout Andrew Wiggins. The worst team, Milwaukee, drafted second, followed by Philadelphia and Orlando.
The new proposal would change the odds like so:
- 30th: 12 percent
- 29th: 12 percent
- 28th: 12 percent
- 27th: 12 percent
- 26th: 11.5 percent
- 25th: 10 percent
- 24th: 8.5 percent
- 23rd: 7 percent
- 22nd: 5.5 percent
- 21st: 4 percent
- 20th: 2.5 percent
- 19th: 1.5 percent
- 18th: 1 percent
- 17th: 0.5 percent
The other significant change would be that the top six picks would be assigned via the lottery, as opposed to just the top three picks now.
There is a cruel irony to all of this: Neither of the two teams most associated with blatantly tanking—the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats and the 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers—got the top pick in the draft the year after going 7-59 and 19-63, respectively.
The then-Bobcats had the best shot at the No. 1 pick, but wound up going No. 2 behind the then-New Orleans Hornets.
But, hey, look at it this way: They won the name back.
Last season, the 76ers didn’t even tank right. They finished with the second-worst record in the league and wound up picking third after Cleveland won the lottery and Milwaukee (which out-tanked the Sixers without really trying to) selected second.
One GM who agrees with Presti but who works for a team that will favor the proposed change told Wojnarowski:
"“Everyone is too focused on Philly, on one team in one situation. The only chance for a lot of teams to ever get a transformational player is through the draft and eventually we are all going to be in the lottery, in that spot. The teams that’ll drop from two to eight, or three to nine—that’s just going to take the air out of those fan bases and franchises. They’ll get little, if any, chance to improve.“We are going to see more big-market teams who just missed the playoffs jump up and get a great young player at the top of the draft. And people are going to go, ‘What the f*** just happened?’”"
Presti makes a point—large-market teams already have inherent advantages in terms of revenue generation and attractiveness to premier free agents (I mean, when was the last time a top-of-the-market free agent signed to play in Salt Lake City?).
But if lottery reform passes—and it is expected to as only three teams are opposing the plan and eight are needed to vote it down—the blame will fall not on a small-market franchise, but a team in a big market that just acts like it’s in a small town.
A look at Philadelphia
The Philadelphia 76ers have been operating for decades, since the early 1990s, as if they were located in Podunk, U.S.A.
It began with the trade of Charles Barkley to the Phoenix Suns and even though the team drafted players such as Jerry Stackhouse and Allen Iverson, the team always seemed to be one or two key pieces short, even when the Sixers reached the NBA Finals in 2001.
From smallest to largest, here are the NBA cities by their ranking among the top 100 U.S. television markets based on population (NOTE: Toronto is the top market in Canada and would rank fifth in the U.S. if it were, you know, actually in the U.S.):
53. New Orleans
48. Memphis
45. Oklahoma City
37. San Antonio
35. Milwaukee
33. Salt Lake City
25. Indianapolis
24. Charlotte
22. Portland
20. Sacramento
19. Orlando
18. Denver
17. Cleveland
16. Miami
15. Minneapolis
12. Phoenix
11. Detroit
10. Houston
9. Washington
8. Atlanta
7. Boston
6. Oakland (San Francisco Bay Area)
5. Dallas
4. Philadelphia
3. Chicago
2. Los Angeles
1. New York
You had to scroll awhile to find Philadelphia, didn’t you?
But there are the 76ers, running themselves like the local mercantile in Hazleton rather than a franchise in the fourth-largest market in the country.
The competitive-balance argument isn’t necessarily a strong one, either.
For every tanking success story—Seattle/Oklahoma City parlayed three straight top-five picks into Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden—there are failures.
The Los Angeles Clippers were in the lottery so often that former general manager Elgin Baylor was practically a resident of Secaucus, N.J., where the lottery is conducted.
But they didn’t become a consistent contender until a trade—not a draft pick—brought Chris Paul to Hollywoodland.
The Washington Wizards got better through the lottery, getting John Wall and Bradley Beal, but it was a process that was fraught with missteps, too.
And regale us again, if you will, about how the Cavaliers magically transformed themselves into contenders because they were able to draft Kyrie Irving and, two years later, Anthony Bennett No. 1 overall.
The simple bottom line is this: Lottery reform is a thing that will happen.
If small-market clubs are hurt by this, they have no one to blame but a large-market franchise that took the most ham-handed approach ever to trying to construct the least competitive rosters imaginable.
Some may argue that the league is overreacting to a perception problem and that the reality of the situation isn’t nearly as bad as it might seem.
Funny thing, though, about perception—perception is reality and the NBA doesn’t really want to market itself as “The NBA: Where Unabashedly Losing And Being Rewarded For It Happens.”