Since the invention of the NBA draft, there have been attempts to reward losing teams with early picks so as to find more competitive balance in the league but this strategy always led to the desire to tank.

A number of iterations of the draft and associated 'tank' motivations came about through the years. At first teams picked in reverse order to their success. Then they switched to a coin flip between the two worst teams, and then came a lottery for the worst 3 teams, followed by a weighted lottery that allowed a potential for any non playoff team to have a chance for early picks. While the goal of the different derivations of draft seemed to reflect a desire to curtail tanking, it hasn't really been very effective, and in some ways the changes have made the tanking phenomenon worse.

This very season we can well see by the management of our own team that the system is encouraging loss. Here we are, not at the very bottom of our league, and yet we are incentivized to lose as many remaining games as possible. This isn't good for anyone.

We currently have 30 teams. Due to the play-in tournament, the top 20 teams are competitive till the end of the season. They have real reason to attempt to win all of their games. Once teams are mathematically (or nearly so) eliminated from the potential of post season opportunities, the incentive switches form winning to losing. But this needn't be so. There is no reason anyone should have to watch 'tanking for tanking sake'.

The solution is simple, top 20 teams take, from worst to best, the last 20 picks. The lottery of the worst 10 teams would be equally rated. Each team has a 10% chance at any of the first 10 picks. Being the very worst earns you nothing more than what any team that doesn't make the playoffs will earn.

With this arrangement, if you have a chance to make the playoffs via the play-in, you fight to win. If you fail to make the play-in, then you play your games with no incentive to lose because, regardless of your record, you are guaranteed to have a 10% chance at number 1, and a %30 chance at a top 3 pick, 50% chance at a top 5 etc.

To me this seems like a reasonable compromise that would benefit competitiveness at all levels of the league.

What say you? Crazy talk or a good idea?

Would you propose something different, and if so what?