Heard this morning that the league has contacted the bulls organization and saying they are resting too many healthy players and making the tank job too noticeable.
I guess this Paxson ploy of putting the deer in the headlights Hoiberg in front of the camera claiming they need to use this time to evaluate their young talent did not work.
So the league is butt hurt over the Bulls resting Lopez and Holiday but you got the Grizzlies running a lineup with 3 Centers and the Mavericks purposely not playing Dirk down the stretch in close games. If we were resting Markannen, Lavine, or Dunn I would understand the NBA saying something. Justin Holiday fucking sucks and Lopez is solid, but not a star. Adam Silver must have a hard on for the Bulls
Did Silver watch the first chunk of the season? Before Niko decided to actually play team basketball for a month, the Bulls *had* those guys in the lineup and were at the bottom.
WTF is he smoking. The Bulls are giving LaVine minutes and before Lopez was shut down, he was starting shit with refs every game.
I bet some other tanking owner made some kind of complaint. The Bulls should appeal and just call the kettle black.
Silver is a dumbass. It's not a problem with teams tanking. Tanking as a method is centuries old. Silver's warnings aren't going to change shit, except push bad teams to find ways to make themselves worse to justify tanks further.
This is a problem with a top-heavy league, not a tanking league. The lotto can be tweaked a little, but it isn't as a whole, broken. When the league actually curbs player colluding and changes how max contracts work, then less teams will tank. The whole, "It semi-worked for the NHL" argument stopped applying almost a decade ago.
No clue about the NHL argument, but I was thinking along the lines:
1. Worst record
2. Best non-playoff record
3. Second worst record
4. Second best non-playoff record
5. Third worst record
6. Third best non-playoff record
I forgot who, someone with a following was suggesting that the league award teams that have good records with better picks, so miss the playoffs have the 14th from worst record, but then get the best odds for #1 pick.
7-8th seeds will tank. League will become more top heavy. Teams will be more desperate to sign bad contracts and inflate FA values. So as long as nobody is really taking that idea seriously, the bottom half issues can be improved upon.
The NHL argument is how max players are structured as a hybrid between a soft-cap and hard cap methods. But NHL teams are slowly starting to game the system and NBA teams will game most lottery changes as well.
I drew up my lotto version a while ago, I'll post it with the slight tweaks. And even though I'm convinced it improves the lottery considerably, it wont fix the tanking problem. Because the league's tanking problem is a counter-movement to the top heavy problem. It's not a chicken-egg, the top-heavy came first, the tank culture(not tanking, but the new era culture that the NBA has never seen this bad, even in the few post-ABA seasons) came second.
My lotto plan:
2019 adjustments in the Lotto stays the same except for;
-Bottom 14 teams, regardless of playoffs are in the lottery.
-All 1st round playoff losers are in the lottery regardless of record. (some overlap, but not guaranteed, with previous rule). Teams with top 4 seeds will be capped at the top #13th selection, meaning the total number of lottery teams could expand to 18 at a maximum).
-Top two conference regular season records, if missing the conference finals, will not be able to participate in the lottery, regardless if losing in the first round.
-Playoff teams can not exceed the #10 selection.
-You can not pick in the top 2 consecutively.
-A #1 selection is capped at #5 in the following two years.
-The weaker overall conference(W/L) gets two additional balls across the lottery teams.
-The weaker conference among the bottom 7 teams each conference (W/L) gets 1 additional ball bonus in addition.
-In addition to existing lottery balls, lottery teams will be ranked 1-14 in payroll and issued an additional 14 balls for having the highest payroll and 1 ball for the lowest payroll (per the final regular season payroll. Prorating for trades/waivers/buyouts/releases).
-Teams that reach the conference finals will get the final 4 selections of the 1st round, however, regular season record will still apply.
-Playoff teams will be capped at a top-7 selection for 2nd round.
-Teams can not have more than one top 3 selections. If a trade was made, the beneficiary will have the 2nd selection capped at #4, even if it were originally the #2 or #3 pick. Also, to close a potential loophole, teams can not trade a top 3 selection top another team with a top 3 selection post-draft for one full season unless both picks are swapped.
-Any tie breaks in capped picks will be awarded to the team with lower point differential, then coin toss if that is tied as well.
This means that one team can get 157 total chances max, instead of the 2019's 140 chances.
Also means that a number of teams will be SOL for the #1 pick this year.
Now fixing the top heavy problem....
The league will need to address player collusion somehow that is effective. And Max contracts need to be eliminated or reworked so teams have a much harder time seeing more Miami moves, or countermoves, like Golden State. The Boston big-3 trades have somewhat been addressed, but the change in max contracts would also have an impact on the KG/Ray Allen trade.
Teams will still tank, nothing changes that. But at least it's not a 12 team race to the bottom. And with lotto changes, it wont be the same 3 teams tanking until they hit on a superstar(which the 2019 rule changes might actually make things worse).
Fans generally don't watch teams that tank, so that risk should exist IMO. Philadelphia JUST got out of this argument, it took the Clippers many years to get out of this argument, but we have the Nets now. It's always going to be someone. And IMO, that is a case for improving the lottery system. Not race to the bottom.
I dont know how you can fix the top heavy problem since these super stars want to go where they want and play with their buddies. There should have been a rule against Durant going to Golden state. Its not that hard, you can only have 2 max players? Can only sign your birds rights players to max contracts to exceed the 2, or 3. Cant sign a max player if you have 3 max players? I mean there is a way around this, but then every 5 years a team would tank so they could start growing their own max players like they should and this would start all over again.
I agree though, I thinking we lose more games with Holiday and Lopez, unless they are talking Asik, fine than we will with our little 3.
I mean there is a way around this, but then every 5 years a team would tank so they could start growing their own max players like they should and this would start all over again.
Successful teams develop players. When someone says, build through the draft, they don't mean, get lucky with a lot of top selections. They mean draft guys, be patient, let them work in the system and give them a few years to fit until they reach their potential. Let teams draft their busts, firesale and panic, but stay calm and collected, just keep building.
Teams that develop and go through rough patches with players, stick with them, wind up with better success than teams that give up on sophomore slumping players for peanuts every few seasons. OMG, 22 year old person is a scrub, but they were a 20th+ selection in the draft.... Yeah, that line of reasoning is not supported by the majority of historically successful examples(especially when you factor in injury and the median of development with later picks). Yet, it is a popular thought process among fans, maybe those who haven't had their own kids and seen them go through 10 years+ of phases, up and down. Or maybe just people who develop opinions based on playing video games? IDK, but either way, the historical examples are on my side of this argument, that if you want to build through a draft, you need to polish turds, develop those later picks. Not bank on white knights, which is extremely rare.
Successful teams develop players. When someone says, build through the draft, they don't mean, get lucky with a lot of top selections. They mean draft guys, be patient, let them work in the system and give them a few years to fit until they reach their potential. Let teams draft their busts, firesale and panic, but stay calm and collected, just keep building.
Don Nelson took the D-League seriously when every other team treated it as a burden. Jerry West took his connections and built on top of what Don Nelson established. They did what is right for their situation and stuck to it.
All while 10 other teams were trying to mimic Pop's Spurs system and 10 other teams trying to do on-the-fly rebuilds and mimic D'Antoni's modern pick-and-roll(sadly, we're in this bunch). And a small bunch of desperadoes that want to run Princeton systems without having the right players in place to do so.
Now teams are trying to mimic parts of the Warriors without the right players and development core. And all we're seeing is short spurts of Stan Van Gundy, when there are a ton of winning recipes that still work. Yet, you need the right players and personnel. There is a PREMIUM on the Pop system players and personnel, on the D'Antoni/Van Gundy/Warriors players. The next big thing will be a team that commits to something NOT in line with what pop-spectators consider the state of the league, but taking the best of the rest and making the best system for them, developing players to play that style.
So while the Warriors *were* that example (the last few seasons they pretty much traded in a ton of chips outside of building through the draft), they aren't the best team to mimic because the cat is out of the bag.
It is funny that the Bulls apparently can't even tank right though. They could have just Bogan'd Lopez and there wouldn't be much they could say about it. Or you know, traded him at the deadline.
They definitely did not need to tell the press they are resting starters for no reason. Other than that, big whoop. In 2018, 12 teams are tanking to some degree.
