WallyWorld wrote:
The sad reality is that we are at a point in the conversation, and reading around when this story trickled around last week, where one of the main justifications for rebooting the system is a form of accountability for poorly-run teams
Here are the well-run teams: Oklahoma City, Miami, Lakers, San Antonio, Dallas....and some recent examples (Boston, Indy, Chicago... and maybe up to 2 more that I forgot...nitpickers: you get the point.). That is about 4-8 teams who consistently have a quality product.
In other words: 20-25 teams in this league are run by people who are bad at their jobs. Altering % weights is not going to change the cesspool of ineptitude, Mafia-like brotherhood of NBA GMing (a brotherhood Kahn is clearly not in, might I add).
I would be curious to do a fan poll of all 30 teams and assess how many fanbases want their GMs ousted. I'll bet it's at least 66%-75% in favor or more. Expectations rise based on relative team success. Look at us, a 25-29 record and it's still a wet blanket atmosphere here 40% of the time.
On topic: You obviously can't give the best teams the top picks. That would of course be ridiculous. For example, you can't punish Cleveland because LeBron decided to leave or the Wolves after the KG deal. You have to allow a reset and losing is the consequence. Equal odds or a 2-3 tiered percentage system for lottery or all teams is likely the only change. But seeing as how the process has evolved over time, we certainly will see things change over the years.
But you totally hit the nail on the head of why my idea is better.
First, the Lakers are not a well-run club. They have a better built in advantage than other teams, being in LA. They have a better and more storied history than other teams. But are they substantially more well-run than, say, the Bulls? No. The Bulls have consistently made better personnel decisions.
Miami is not particularly well-run other than the fact that they had an alpha dog who was buddies with the most talented
disappointment player of a generation and his sidekick
pussy big man.
San Antonio and Dallas... sure. Oklahoma City, definitely. Throw Chicago in there recently as well, plus Boston for better or for worse.
But here's my point. Other factors are not equal. But the fact that Oklahoma City is succeeding in attracting talent in freaking Oklahoma. With the cast off shell of the Sonics legacy. And some really outstanding players. It can be done.
The difference is that teams need to offer a better product to ALL of their Customers.
Anyone who's done corporate training knows the part of the drill where they prompt the answer, "we have to please our Customers," which is followed by the question, "who are your Customers?"
Then they proceed to demonstrate that in addition to paying customers, your coworkers, suppliers, reviewers, media, PR, advertisers, etc. are ALL Customers in a very real sense. You need to serve them and provide them with a good product.
Right now most of the NBA teams are serving crap to their fans, sure... but what about their coaches, players, advertisers, front office personnel, etc? Sh*t sandwich.
The NBA, for all its popularity, is missing the boat on this enormous opportunity they have. If NBA teams were as well-run as most college programs- and I am talking both the basketball and non-basketball sides of NBA teams (although most college teams don't have a strong non-basketball side, so the analogy isn't perfect), it would be amazingly compelling, and players would be excited to play for their teams, unlike right now, where there are only a handful of people who seem legitimately excited to be where they are. Most of them are in Texas or Oklahoma.
Say what you will about the potential to create temporary disparities in talent in the near term, which I would argue already happens with the FA market and draft system, albeit with a slightly more random and unfair pattern- but a system of "shape up or ship out" tends to be the only thing that motivates excellence. The players have that incentive- why not the Front Offices?
Draft picks are critical to a rebuilding situation. If you were to suddenly put the worst team in the league and gave them the 30th and 60th pick in the draft (I sorta lost track of what your actual plan is but this situation likely applies) or some other generic 'punishment' for bad teams regardless of circumstance, how can you then expect good GM performance taking a way a critical part of the rebuilding process? They are just going to "turn it on" and suddenly gain this ability to find good players through other means? How? Magic? With no picks or young players to trade to leap forward (what the Wolves should have done about 6 years ago)? It just doesn't really work that way. The lottery by and large makes sense the way it is as a 'worst for first' concept. Not all bad teams are poorly run and there has to be a cycle of change.
....Also, Miami is a well-run organization that has been a consistent winner since the NBA expanded there. They have a very fan-oriented owner and Pat Riley is arguably one of the best GMs of all time. Riley absolutely played a huge role in assembling that team. As did luck.
