Interesting. I left a comment too. I know we've all talked about this many times before...


http://www.18to88.com/2010-archives/march/i-just-fixed-the-nba-draft.html

Do you guys agree with the comments at the very end that the Wolves should be punished in the draft because we suck so bad???

If not, comment help welcomed.

I don't like it. It creates just as many problems as there are now.

The imbalance between the 2 conferences is a major problem with this proposal. In recent years, WC teams get eliminated much earlier than EC teams who have similar records. That's obviously pretty unfair to those bad EC teams.

And then there are teams that are truly bad that can't win games. Why does it make sense for them to have no shot at the #1 pick? Hypothetically, there could be a team so bad that didn't win a game all year and under this system they'd get the #9 pick or whatever? I just can't endorse a system that runs on that premise.

As some people pointed out in the comments there, it would most likely also create a period of midseason tanking. It'd probably be a lot shorter than the tanking we see at the end of the season now, but it is in some ways worse if you think about how awful it would be to be a fan of team that is blatantly tanking in the middle of the season.

The NBA is failing. It's time for radical change, although I'm sure that will never happen.

1. The regular season is too long.

Play the teams in your division 4 times each (16 games) + every other team 2 times (50). Then maybe 4-6 more "rivalry" or "swing" games that the league picks. For the Wolves, maybe it would be against the Bucks, Spurs, Celtics, or whoever. 72 games. Not too much shorter, but short enough where the season would just be getting over right around now.

2. If the season is too long, the playoffs are way too long.

I don't really see them EVER changing this, but it needs to be shorter.

3. Implement a Bill Simmons playoff play-in tourney

This would be so ridiculously epic and awesome. The top 6 teams from each conference are in and the rest of the teams play a double elimination tourney for the final 2 spots. This would help with tanking, but yea, something else would need to implemented as well. The real promise of this is how awesome for the fans it would be. The revenue created from this alone would offset the shorter season. Teams like the Hornets & Grizzlies wouldn't be out of the playoff hunt, they'd still have a great chance of making it in. Bad teams like the Wolves could try and play the ultimate spoiler or even cinderella by knocking the favorites out of the playoffs. I don't see the downside here.

4. As I mentioned in point #3, the draft lottery needs a makeover as well. It's just not doing enough to reward teams that are legitimitely bad.

One amusing thing about that proposal. This year excluded the Wolves fortunes would have been 100% better if this had existed since 1988. What franchise has managed to crap it's way out of the high lottery by hustling to 5 worthless victories more than the Wolves.

Every damn time this franchise gets out of it's own way there is someone there to drive over it's foot with a John Deere riding mower. Anytime I picture the Wolves drafting 3rd I start to feel numbness spreading over my body.

Damn it Stern will you just give us the play in for the last spot. We don't ask much.

roundhouse wrote:
Nice comment. And you make some great points. I think you should go leave this comment in the article I linked... I'd love to see the dude's response to this.

Yea ok I posted it over there.

roundhouse wrote:
Yeah, I got an email saying you left the comment. Nice work, I can't wait to see the responses. Not being a jerk, but I mean in the way that its a great discussion going on over there and this should bring even more to it.