Thursday, February 26, 2026

Time to solve the biggest controversary in America right now…..NBA tanking

 

Mr. Adam Silver is making every effort before the end of humanity and the rise of AI taking over to give us humans some type of value for our sports dollars by trying to figure out how to make the long NBA season competitive for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately the reality is some teams each year will not be good and getting the first round pick is the goal.

And I apologize if someone else has thought of this idea. I do not read too much NBA press or even Mark Cuban’s madness and I am a Mavericks fan. The reason I bring up Mr. Cuban is because to me this sounds like something he would cook up. Anyway if this in some shape form or fashion has been proffered before, then take this as I second that motion.

First step is the season will need to be shortened to 76 or 78 games.

Second step is the teams with the two worst records, go into a drawing or coin flip for the first spot in the draft. The team that loses gets the sixth spot. Teams 3-10 are now playing a tournament for spots 2-5.

Third step is there is a quarterfinal tournament for the last 8 teams. The winner gets the second spot, the team that loses the third. The two teams that lost the semi final type games go into a drawing for picks 3 and 4. The teams that lose the original quarterfinal type games are in a drawing for spots 7-10.

And these tournament games are not played on a neutral court. The teams with the best records get home court advantage and the highest ranking team or the ten spot gets to play the team with the third worst record ie 10 versus 3 9 versus 4 and so on to begin. This means it would be hove a team close to the play in tournament or playoffs depending if the play in tournament is kept to try and win some games at the end to give themselves home court advantage throughout the tournament. This may take some scheduling work since arenas are usually scheduled for quite some time in advance, yet arenas make do with teams making the playoffs so I think this can be done.

10 v 3                                                                                                                                                                                                        

            winner

7 v 6

                                    Winner = second spot in draft

9v4

              winner

8 v 5

And this is just a proposal so any adjustments are open to discussion.

Why not? First by shortening the season a few games it allows for this tournament to take place over about five days where the current season would end. Playoff teams get a week of rest to heal and prepare. It doesn’t add more games to the regular season and this draft pick tournament that players are not already use to playing.

Now TV revenue probably won’t be high because fans won’t be too excited about these games since they are closer to a novelty than the playoffs. What it gives us is the players having a stake in the future of the team. It might mean some coaches won’t play players going into free agency too much unless they felt like they were going to resign them. All this creates some competitiveness for the last few games of the season as teams should play for better positioning in this secondary tournament.  The last two teams have an interesting conundrum since they are in a drawing for 1st and 6th. Do they play for the 50/50 chance of first? Or do they think they can do better in a tournament to get 2nd through 5th?

Again we need viable entertainment these last few years before the rise of AI.

 

Cheers

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