When teams "fighting" for the most ping-pong balls overtakes pride and the natural competitive desire for "W"s, it's time to do something. As analytics grabs a tighter rein on sports in general, the old "why would we ever not do everything we can to win" gives way to the more logical long-term thinking that teams are employing by resting and benching their veterans and better players. I don't fault teams for planning for the future but the fact that Lakers fans are upset when their team wins, regardless of standing, it isn't the best look.
Enter my solution for tanking. The Late-Season Inversion Table.
Currently, out of 1000 combinations, the teams in the lottery receive - in descending order - 250, 199, 156, 119, 88, 63, 43, 28, 17, 11, eight, seven, and six assigned combinations. Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention and with trades that contain protections, there is little reason besides aesthetics to put a competitive product on the floor. But what about young teams that are growing? Is this best for their growth? Isn't it better for the Lakers or the Nets... oops, never mind... to learn to win and not be punished for picking off teams with better records?
The first 62 games of the NBA season is 75.6% of the season. If you take the 1000 combinations and reduce the possibilities to 200, 140, 115, 95, 65, 45, 30, 20, 14, 10, seven, six, five, and four you have 756 combinations. For the last 20 games, you have 244 combinations up for grabs. The lottery teams with the BEST records in those 20 games receive 50 extra combinations then 36, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12, nine, seven, four, three, two and one. No matter what happens, the team with the worst record over the first 62 games will still have the most combinations - even if they finish with the worst record, they receive 201 combinations and the next highest a team could have would be 190 (if the team with the second-worst record over the first 62 games finishes with the best record over the final 20).
With additional combinations available at each position, teams will want to win and improve their odds of a high draft pick instead of tanking to do so. For teams that are hopeless and can't seem to win regardless, do we really want to "reward" them by improving their odds? Doesn't make sense to me.
