Fixing NBA Draft

The pathetic Philadelphia 76ers will learn in the next few hours (May 19) what the arcane calculations of the Ping Pong balls tell them will be their draft position. Fixing NBA Draft

The Sixers had the third worst record in the NBA this year — which is up one from last year — and have a 15.6 percent chance of landing number one and a 46.9 percent chance of finishing in the top three.

The Ping Pong lottery is designed to keep teams from trying to lose in the last few weeks of the season to obtain a better draft position.

Obviously it doesn’t work.

Maybe not so obviously it is easy to fix.

There are 30 teams in the National Basketball Association. The goal is for all teams to keep playing to win through the last second of the last game.

The primary motivation is to make the playoffs and that is followed by attempting to obtain the best seed.

For teams that have no hope in making the playoffs the goal, however,  becomes getting the best possible draft pick which means playing to lose and, no, the lottery hasn’t changed this.

Here is our suggestion: Give the first round exclusively to the 14 teams that fail to make the playoffs with the wrinkle being that it is the team with the best record drafting first. When the second round commences it reverts to the traditional worst team drafts first. This means that all non-playoff teams get two choices before the playoff teams pick — the worst team will get the 14th and 15th choices — and there is a big incentive to win every game one can.

Fixing NBA Draft

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 5-19-15

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 5-19-15

Marion Mitchell Morrison’s stage name comes from Radnor Pa. resident “Mad” Anthony Wayne. However, the Hollywood honchos thought Anthony sounded too Italian so they made him change it to John.