By Adewale Apata
Only 6 out of the 28 (21%) players selected to a 2018 All-Star roster were drafted outside of the top 10 of their draft class. On top of that, 16 out of the 28 (57%) players from the 2018 All-Star rosters were selected within the top 5 of their draft class! Yet Commissioner Adam Silver can’t seem to figure out why bad teams tank.
Here’s what Silver had to say about tanking, “(NBA) governors have taken steps to address the underlying incentive issues by adopting changes to our draft lottery system.” The 2019 draft lottery reform reduces the chances of the bottom 3 NBA teams from receiving a top 3 draft pick. However, the incentive for bad teams to lose is still not eradicated because the worse teams still have the best chances to receive the top picks.
Click this link https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/913480042352693250 to view the 2019 NBA draft lottery reform for yourself.
The only way Adam Silver can eliminate the “incentive issues” with tanking is by eliminating the NBA draft and adopting a system where every NBA draft prospect becomes a free agent.
The draft was designed to give the worse teams the best chance to select the best draft prospects. This gave fan bases of the worse teams some hope for the future. Eliminating the draft would make bad teams like the Magic, Suns, Kings, Nets, etc… permanently irrelevant. So, his plan to get rid of the incentive for bad teams to lose while maintaining the NBA draft makes no sense. Adam Silver just created a nonsense lottery reform that won’t even stop tanking.