Weekly Sporty

Even though the NBA and many other leagues have no problem when it comes to scheduling games on Christmas Day (I think I have made my feelings about that policy well-known), they are a little more realistic when it comes to working on off-the-field issues during the holidays. Yes, three of the major sports leagues are in the midst of their regular seasons and dealing with all the problems inherent with that but at the end of the day these league and team front offices are filled with average human employees, most of whom are more worried about making sure all their holiday presents are bought and wrapped or that their travel plans will go off without a hitch or just generally sitting at their desks but not actually getting much done as they look forward to a random Wednesday off. Rather than fight it most teams accept the reality and roll with it. In fact, the NHL has gone so far as to put a "trade freeze" in place so people can enjoy the end of the year without worrying they will wake up on Christmas morning to find Santa has put them on a new team. As a result, this is a really slow period for sports news, so much so that I couldn't even find seven stories to scrape together to make a Weekly Sporties post. Sure, I could have forced it by talking about MLB teams bidding on a Japanese pitcher even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that is a waste of time but even that story didn't have too much meat on the bone. Actually, as near as I could tell there is only one interesting item from the week but what is nice is that it is such a big, complicated story that I'll spend a few paragraphs on it:

Tanking has been a hot-button issue in the NBA this year. For those of you new to professional sports, tanking is practice of sending out a team designed to lose as many games as possible with the end goal of securing a high draft pick for next year. In many cases it is actually a very smart thing to do because the one thing you never want to do in the NBA is be mediocre as there are only so many talented players coming out of college and they are all gone by the middle of the first round, so sacrificing one season in the name of having 10 years of success is a trade almost any coach and GM would make. The efforts to lose have been especially wide-spread this NBA season because there are supposedly four franchise-altering freshmen currently playing in college, all of whom are expected to declare for the draft as soon as their season ends. Getting one of these players is pretty much the only hope teams which do not play in attractive free agent markets (read: Utah) have of making themselves relevant again because no amount of cap space would ever bring a guy like Dwayne Wade to Salt Lake City. So, as I said tanking may be the best plan for a team like the Jazz. However, tanking is not very fair to the fans because while the team may be under orders to only play at 75%, the tickets are still going for full face value. That can lead to a lot of casual fans who may not understand the long-term goal of the front office to feel as though they are getting ripped off and swear off the NBA for good. The NBA certainly doesn't want that, which is why early in the week a story surfaced that some in the NBA's league office are discussing moving to a wheel system in which teams would have their draft position determined for 30 years at a time. Talk about having a long-term plan in place.

The way it would work is quite simple - all 30 teams would be slotted for one year's draft with no regard to how they finished the season. The next year the team which picked first would be slotted somewhere around 19th, again regardless of where they finished the regular season. This would continue until all 30 teams had selected from all 30 draft positions through a system which looks chaotic but is actually kind of logical. According to the proponents of this plan it would eliminate all tanking because it would not allow records to be any kind of factor in draft position, thus causing teams to take the "we have to play, we may as well win" approach to the regular season. Also, it would allow teams to map out their economic plans just as thoroughly as their basketball ones because they would know right now how much they will have to pay a draft pick in 2020 and therefore how much they could spend on free agency that summer. (To me this is the first crack in the plan because it assumes NBA GMs care at all about financial responsibility. Half the teams in the NBA are in cap hell because they can't think two years out and you want them to make a plan for 30 years in the future?) They also claim it would encourage smarter trades between teams because you could put a distinct value on the draft picks going from one team to another. So, rather than being traded for an ambiguous "first round draft pick" which could end up to be of no value a player could be traded for the #5 pick in the 2030 draft. That ability to explain a pick's value the day a move is made would certainly make it easier to explain a deal to fans, even though they will probably still hate the deal in the moment.

As you would expect, there are many people out there who hate this idea simply because they feel it makes the game far too rigid. They may have a point because what this wheel idea is really attempting to do is bring order to a system which thrives on the fact that "you never know." I mean, half the reason GMs make trades involving picks is that they have no idea where that pick could end up and who could be available at that time. It's is the ultimate riverboat gambler scenario and it is what makes the wheeling and dealing of the NBA fun. Also, whomever came up with this plan clearly doesn't understand how important hope is to basketball fans. As I have said before the only thing worse than rooting for a bad franchise is rooting for a bad franchise which you know is never going to get any better. Think back to a team like the Jazz, which I mentioned earlier. They are having a tough year but they are going to be in a great position to draft no worse than fourth and as long as all the super freshmen declare that means they are sure to come away with a supremely talented player. If this wheel system were in place who is to say they wouldn't be just as bad as they are, only they drafted #1 last year which was an OK but-not-spectacular group. That would mean they would still be bad only now they wouldn't be picking that high again for 30 years. Or, what if it was finally year your to draft first and the talent pool was awful? Imagine waiting 30 years and ending up with Michael Olowokandi? Also, let's not ignore the possibility that a player may see the top of the draft order and decide to stay in college for another season. I'm all for kids staying in school longer but it certainly won't help a cold-weather city bring in talent if a talent player decides to wait a year when they know the Heat will be drafting first. It is the same problem the NBA currently has about free agency which I believe is much more important to address than the way teams draft.

The other thing is that I feel like the tanking this year is more widespread due simply to the incoming talent. Most years the draft is only so-so and teams don't start nose-diving until they are totally out of it. This year is just a perfect storm of teams which have decided to bottom out because they were sick of finishing as 8-seeds and getting bounced out of the playoffs in 5 games and a good crop of potential draftees. No need to overhaul a system which has been in place for 30 years in the name of one odd season. Of course, that isn't to say the NBA doesn't need a better system to figure out its draft order. I have never been a fan of the lottery system mostly because I think it was an overreaction. The number of teams tanking are never as high as the media makes it seem, probably because half the league makes the playoffs. At some point you are just biting your nose to spite your face. Think about it: a team which just misses the playoffs shouldn't be in the running for the first pick, I don't care how slim their odds of winning the lottery are. They will be back next year while the team which loses out on the first pick despite having the worse record for a couple years in a row could be set back for years. (I know there are some saying they can always find a good player later in the draft but if that were true they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.) The idea which I heard this week which I really liked was the one which took three-year winning percentage into account as that would give the teams which have really had a bad run of luck a better chance to turn things around as compared to a team which may have talent but just sprinkles in one bad year due to a few fluky injuries. It may be more complicated but it seems more fair. All I know is this - no matter how the NBA ultimately decides to tweak its draft system I am supremely confident the Knicks will find a way to screw it up.