Isaac
Years ago
Lottery bound teams tanking games
ESPN's John Hollinger is proposing an alteration to the method that determines the lottery for the annual NBA draft.
Presently, teams realising that their season is doomed tend to lose games and rest slightly-injured stars in an attempt to finish further down in the league.
Hollinger's suggestion makes for an earlier cut-off in determining the rankings.
The draft order and the status of lottery-protected draft picks will remain unchanged for those teams that make the playoffs.Thoughts?
BUT, the lottery Ping-Pong balls for the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs will be determined by the standings as of March 15.
In other words, the Wolves can't start tanking games in April to keep their top-10 protected pick away from the Clippers. They'll have to do it in early March, when they are still fighting for a playoff spot, making it a much more difficult proposition.