Rant #2,107: Every 1's a Winner

When is losing a good thing?

When you are one of the non-playoff-bound teams in the National Basketball Association and you are positioning your team for the college draft this summer.

It probably happens in all sports leagues, but it appears to be more evident in the NBA, where teams that are completely out of the running for a playoff spot appear to play at maybe 89-percent efficiency and actually try to lose games to get a better position in the college draft, where one player can make a lousy team into a great one.

The rumors about this have been going on for years, and case in point is the Philadelphia 76ers, who were horrid for several years amid rumors of not playing their best, always had good draft picks, and finally, this year, appear to be playoff bound.

Tanking is not good for anyone. It has to turn off the players, who are being paid big money as professional athletes to play their best each and every game. It has to turn off coaches, who are trying to teach and win at the same time, and who have to basically sit on their hands and buy into this philosophy. 

And it has to turn off the fans, who pay good money to see their team win, or at the very least, give some indication that they are trying to win.

Sitting out top players down the stretch with fake injuries, not playing your best players, and players and coaches showing little inclination to do their best are tell-tale factors that a team is tanking.

And when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban basically tells his team, as he did a few weeks ago, that in the long run, they will be better off if they lose games rather than win them, you know that tanking is not a mirage in this league; it does happen, and it is a problem that has to be addressed.

There is a simple way to stop the alleged tanking in the NBA by the league’s worst teams as they jockey for position in the lottery.

Simply give the teams more chances based on wins, not on losses. In other words, if the New York Knicks end up 30-52 (they are currently 26-45), they get 30 ping pong balls in the lottery, one for each win they have. If the Brooklyn Nets’ record is 28-54 (currently 23-48), they get 28 balls, on down the line. That way, the more wins you have, the more chances you get to get the highest draft picks. That is the perfect way to stop the alleged tanking.

True, you want the teams with the worst records to have the biggest chance at landing the top picks. However, you also want a competitive atmosphere on the court.

All the teams that do not qualify for the playoffs are bad, and some are worse than others. But the “worse” factor should not be done purposely.

By utilizing this change in the system, I believe you will get both, and there won’t be any talk of tanking, because teams will want to win as many games as possible to have the best chance in the lottery.

And why is futility being rewarded anyway? Give the best of the worst the most chances.

And as for the draft positions of those teams making the playoffs, do it pretty much the same way, but make the playoffs even more important—use both the regular season records and the playoff records combined to determine draft position.

In other words, if the Golden State Warriors win 62 games during the regular season (currently 53-18), and let’s say, they repeat as champions, winning 16 games during the four rounds of the playoffs, their win total for the year would be 78, and let’s say the Milwaukee Bucks win 45 games during the regular season (currently 37-33), and 12 more during the playoffs, their total would be 57.

The Warriors would get the top draft choice among the playoff teams because not only did they win the most games combined during the season and playoffs, but they were the champions, too.

The only way that the top wins team in the regular season and playoffs combined would not get the next highest draft pick after the lottery teams is if that team did not win the championship. Championship-winning teams would always pick right after the lottery teams do.

So, let's say the Warriors play the Bucks in the championship round, meaning that each team won its first three playoff series, totaling 12 wins each. It comes down to the seventh and deciding game, meaning that each team has won a total of 15 games in the four rounds thus far. 

But somehow, the Bucks win the seventh and deciding game. The Warriors win total, 77, was the best in the league, but the Bucks won the championship, so even though their win total is 58, they are the champions, so they pick right after the lottery teams pick in the first round.

Success must be rewarded on all fronts, and I believe that this is the right way to run the NBA draft lottery.

Sure, teams trade away picks, teams get picks, there is a lot of maneuvering going on, but why reward a team that is the worst in the league with the very first pick in the draft, which, of course, with the current system, doesn't happen too many times anyway.

"Reward Success"--that should be the new slogan that the NBA uses for how they slot teams during the draft.

Honestly, it is bad enough that poor teams get high first round picks to begin with, but that aside, rewarding teams that really do try to do their best each and every night is the right way for the NBA to go.

Tanking is not fun for anybody, and this would make each and every game on the schedule--even for the bad teams--extremely important.

I mean, this is not brain surgery, but something has to be done so that teams don't lost almost on purpose, and using this method would make all 82 regular season games on the schedule almost like playoff games.

It is certainly better than the way they handle the draft now.