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The NBA Draft Lottery

If you follow basketball, you probably heard earlier in the week when the NBA draft lottery took place. In this year’s NBA draft, there are two players who are considered far and away the best in the draft: Greg Oden of Ohio State University and Kevin Durant of the University of Texas. Everyone knew this was the case early in this past NBA season, so as soon as some teams, basically the Grizzlies and the Celtics, realized they were out of the running for playoff spots, they made somewhat dubious decisions the rest of the way and ended up losing a bunch of games.

Why would teams make such decisions? Because the team with the worst record in the NBA is the most likely to receive the first overall pick in the next year’s draft. The NBA does their draft system a little differently than most leagues, where in these other leagues the draft order is determined from an inverse ranking of the teams’ records from the previous season. The NBA weights each team inversely in proportion to their winning percentage from the previous season, and these weights determine how likely a team is to win the draft lottery.

The NBA’s intent is to discourage “tanking”, i.e. trying to lose games, so a team could guarantee it gets the top pick. A lot of people in Memphis and Boston are upset, because even though those teams finished with the two worst records in the league, neither team received a top two pick in the draft. Such is a lottery, folks. Of course those who are upset think the NBA should go to a system where the worst team gets the first pick and so forth.

But the NBA is in a unique position, because the teams in its league are most effected by the addition of a single superstar. In baseball, one great hitter can make a difference, but there are still eight other hitters that each get opportunities to bat. On defense, one great fielder can make a bunch of great plays on balls hit to him, but he can’t field every position, and he doesn’t have much of an effect on where a hitter is going to hit the ball.

In football, each side of the ball has eleven starters. One great quarterback can make a big difference to an offense, but without an offensive line, a running back, and wide receivers, he won’t be able to do much. And he’s definitely not playing defense. He can’t help it if his team simply gets out-scored each game.

But basketball is different. Each side has five starters, and one superstar player can make a world of difference. The whole offense can be funneled through this one player, and this one player, if excellent defensively, can at least attempt to shut down the other team’s superstar offensive threat. One great player can make the difference between a playoff team and a team with the worst record in the league.

And that’s why the NBA has to guard against tanking. What if the league went to a system where the worst team automatically got the first overall pick in the draft? Well, at the end of the season, in the final game or two, they would have perfect information about what needed to happen to guarantee themselves that draft position. It’s not hard to imagine a “must lose” game in the final game of the season so they could lock down the first overall draft pick. I imagine it would get pretty ugly.

Do teams still have the incentive to tank with a lottery system? Absolutely. Every team not in the playoffs would still like the best chance to get the first overall pick in the draft, and the best chance goes to the team with the worst record. So while you don’t guarantee yourself that selection, you make it as likely as you possibly can. But a win or two here or there toward the end of the season may not effect the lottery weights drastically, and you wouldn’t have a situation where the outcome of a single game would guarantee your position in the upcoming draft. I think the lottery, especially given the special status of a superstar in the NBA, is still the way to go for that very reason.