According to Brian Windhorst of ESPN, the Philadelphia 76ers don’t much care for the proposed NBA Draft Lottery reform ideas, and want them delayed for a year. The Sixers, it is said, feel that the reforms would penalized them for the plan they have in place (tanking over multiple years, going completely young and getting multiple high draft picks). The proposed reforms would mean that the top projected lottery teams would all have the same odds to get the first pick. Thus trying to discourage tanking
My own thoughts? I'm generally ok with a one year tank (I advocated as much at the beginning of last season) but I'm one of "those" people who firmly believe that a multi-year tank job has a negative affect on a team. You can be bad by playing your draft picks, but outwardly TANKING multiple seasons can create a losing culture and I'm one of those guys who feel that particular culture is hard to get rid of.
As far as the NBA’s proposed Lottery reform? To be honest, if they got rid of the Lottery itself I wouldn’t mind. I think multiple teams having a shot at the first pick tends to encourage being bad … and I think that you actually limit tanking if you have as standard “worst record/first pick” scenario. Sometimes the Lottery penalizes some teams (ala the 90’s Nuggets who never advanced higher than their projected slot … and in fact slid backward multiple times) and rewards others that don’t deserve the top pick (ala Cleveland this year). So I’d rather have defined slots than a gamble at the end.
Those are my thoughts. What's yours?
