How to Fix the NBA Draft Lottery
Right after the Cleveland Cavaliers further solidified their futility as a sports franchise by scoring the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft for the third time in four years, the NBA did something very smart that they’ve never done before: They released the video of the actual NBA Draft Lottery drawing on NBA.com.
For all the controversy that surrounds it, the actual Draft Lottery Drawing is remarkably anti-climactic. It’s held essentially in secret prior to the reveal ceremony, with one representative from each team (not the dignitaries who show up on TV later) in attendance with a few select league executives, security, and media members. There are no cell phones or other communication allowed. It has all the excitement of Bingo Night at St. Dominic’s.
In addition, because it is a complex process, it has always had a transparency problem. The mathematical nature of it is not particularly hard to understand, but no one seems to want to explain it on TV. So most fans don’t (or choose not to take the time to) understand it, because math. So conspiracy theories abound. Beware of low-flying black helicopters piloted by David Stern.
This is a spectacular waste of drama. In sports, drama is what drives interest, and therefore, TV ratings. I have previously advocated actually showing that ping-pong ball drawing live on TV for the sake of transparency, but as we can see, it’s not terribly dramatic after you reveal the first pick. However, we can eliminate that perceived opacity by showing the drawing live in a more dramatic setting.
So here’s how you fix the NBA Draft Lottery for maximum drama and transparency: Hold the Lottery and the Draft at the same time.
Here’s how it would work:
On the night of the Draft, all 14 lottery teams head into the evening not knowing where they pick. The Commissioner comes out to begin the Draft, and alongside him on stage are the executives with the Lottery machine. They show the ping-pong balls, fire up the machine, and off we go.
The drawing for the first pick happens live on stage. Everyone in the building will have the number combinations and their corresponding teams printed in their programs, so there’s no possibility of funny business. The instant the Commissioner announces which team won the drawing for the first pick, then that team immediately goes on the clock.
Once they make their pick, we fire up the machine again. The drawing is held for the #2 overall pick, and then that team goes on the clock. Same for #3. Then we do what the league does already, and go in order the rest of the way.
How dramatic would that be? You would have 14 fan bases sweating heading into the draft night, not knowing where or whom they will pick. It would make for incredible prime time TV. You could cut the tension with a chainsaw.
The greatest drawback to this is that all 14 teams would have to spend roughly equal time scouting all eligible Lottery-level players. But they’ve been doing that for months now, so it’s not likely that, in the next month, a team is going to discover some diamond in the rough. This is the age of ESPN and the Internet. They don’t have to fly everywhere at ridiculous expense.
This still doesn’t solve the problem of bad franchises like the Cleveland Cavaliers monopolizing a random event like the Lottery. So we can make two additional small changes the Lottery rules:
- The five worst teams all get an equal percentage shot at the top overall pick. Then the percentage chances go down in order from six through 14. If that doesn’t work, we could go back to the original 1985 rules: Every Lottery team has an equal shot at #1.
- Once you win the Lottery, you are ineligible to pick higher than sixth for the next three years. If you finish in the bottom five during that three-year probationary period, you automatically get the sixth overall pick. If, in the worst-case scenario, the same two or three teams land in those spots, they get automatically slotted into 6, 7 and 8, with the worst of those three drafting highest.
So there you go. We just solved the transparency issues with the NBA Draft Lottery and made the NBA Draft a must-see live television drama.
Thoughts?
