fresh take on draft reform

Ted Hoffman

The other Rick Zombo
Dec 15, 2002
28,859
8,113
Order the draft based on points accumulated after mathematical elimination. Bad teams will be eliminated earlier, therefore allowing them more chances to accumulate points, but it punishes them for completely gutting their team or "tanking" once eliminated.
Some people act like guys on a bad team get a memo from the front office that says "we're hitting the shitter, please don't try so that we can work on a really good draft pick in June" and they do it loyally because they'll do anything to help the team and just don't care about winning at all. If a team doesn't have talent, it's going to suck - and bad teams by and large don't have as much talent as good teams. Putting out artificial incentives to try and get them to play better doesn't make them better.

It's not like guys show up at the rink saying IDGAF, I'm totally fine if we lose, just make sure my paycheck shows up and telling them "play hard and we'll give your team a better shot at the top picks" gets them to say oh, wait - if I start busting my ass, my team can have a shot at a high draft pick this summer. Goddamn, I don't give a shit about playing for pride and wanting my team to win and going to the playoffs and all that - but that high draft pick? f*** yeah, sign me up, I'm all in for that! Contrary to popular belief, that's not how it works - and that's not how it would work.

Once again, I don't get what's so "wrong" with tanking. I'd rather see 15 lousy teams throw in the towel so 16 really good teams can go wage war battling for the Cup instead of trying to force all 31 teams to be good and having a lot of good players miss out to "protect the integrity of the draft order." One team tanking puts more skill on other teams around the league, which makes those teams better and gives them better chances to get to the playoffs; the more skill in the playoffs, the better because teams are better, quality of play is better, and it's more excitement for the fans. Teams don't hang banners celebrating all their high draft picks. They hang banners for winning. If someone can have a better shot at winning by acquiring talent from a team not interested in winning, let 'em.

If you're really concerned about tanking, I've said what the solution is: yank the 1st-round pick for violating the league by-law regarding competition strength and making a best effort to attempt to win games. You instantly bring tanking to a halt, because teams realize there's a consequence if they try to do it. The fact is, tanking is only a problem for those who have ideas about "fairness" when it comes to allocation of entry-level players, as if everything in life is fair or can be made to be fair.

If teams don't care about winning near-term, great - their loss, their problem to figure out if their grand plan for being crap for all those sweet high picks doesn't pan out. They go to crap and can't attract other talented players down the road and they still suck, ... hey, you took that plan, you figure out how to deal with it. But quit trying to "fix" the "problem" of tanking with half-assed solutions that cause more harm; you're not solving anything, and you're punishing legitimately bad teams who are trying to do the right thing by making it more difficult to get out of their hole while promoting a misguided notion of "we're being fair to everyone" when it gets skewed to the already semi-fortunate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 555Upstairs

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->