How Lottery Reform Will Help the Celtics
The NBA owners will vote on a proposal to reform the draft lottery on Wednesday, giving teams less of an incentive to finish at the very bottom of the league, according to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The reform movement is a direct response to the tanking strategy implemented by the Philadelphia 76ers and its general manager Sam Hinkie, but the Sixers aren’t the only team fighting the change. Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti has also spoken out against the restructuring of lottery odds at this week’s Board of Governors meetings, raising concerns that it could increase the gap between small and large market teams. While the Bucks and possibly two other teams could join the Sixers and Thunder in opposing the move, the measure is expected to pass, according to Wojnarowski and Grantland’s Zach Lowe.
There’s a reason Boston owner Wyc Grousbeck and GM Danny Ainge aren’t joining the calls from Philly and OKC. With an abundance of draft picks in the next few years, the new system can only help the rebuilding Celtics. They’ve made it clear that they want changes to the system that place a greater emphasis on winning. Assistant GM Mike Zarren proposed eliminating the lottery entirely and replacing it with a rotating wheel system where teams would receive predetermined draft slots each year. Ainge spoke to the Boston Herald last December about his issues with the current lottery system, saying:
“There are just all sorts of things that are in the current system that don’t work and don’t put all of the focus on winning, which is where it always should be. I just don’t like that teams are being rewarded for losing. I don’t think that’s good for ownership. I don’t think it’s good for fans. I don’t think it’s good for players and coaches, anybody in the business.’’
Under the new proposal, the reward for losing wouldn’t be nearly as great. Currently, the NBA’s worst team has a 25-percent chance of receiving the No. 1 pick, the second-worst team has a 19.9-percent chance and the third-worst team has a 15.6-percent chance. The league also only has a drawing for the top three slots before ordering the draft by final record, so the worst team receives the fourth pick at the very least.
The reform measure would give the teams with the No. 1-4 worst records an equal 12 percent chance to get the first pick, an 11.5 percent chance for No. 5, 10 percent for No. 6, 8.5 percent for No. 7, 7 percent for No. 8, 5.5 percent for No. 9, and 4 percent for No. 10. It would also extend the drawing to include the first six picks rather than the first three, so the worst team could fall all the way to the seventh pick.
The three worst teams would have their odds of picking in the top-three drop from 64 percent, 56 percent, and 47 percent, respectively, to an equal 35 percent. The 10 worst teams would all have at least a 13 percent chance of receiving a top-three pick.
So how does this affect the Celtics?
Boston has its own first round pick in 2015 as well as the Clippers’ and the Sixers’ if it falls outside of the lottery. We can ignore LA and Philly’s picks since the proposal only affects the lottery and the Clippers aren’t missing the playoffs. But this would help the Cs in the upcoming draft.
Boston shouldn’t be worse than Philly, Orlando, Utah, and Milwaukee this year. The proposal gives the Celtics more of an incentive to be at least decent, since finishing ahead of those teams—and potentially the Lakers, Wolves, and Kings—wouldn’t affect their draft positioning nearly as much as it did under the old system. The screams at Brad Stevens to stop trying to win—and pleas for Ainge to not provide him with winning players—can subside, and we’ll start to really see if he can coach in the NBA.
It’s huge in a potential Rajon Rondo trade too. Under the old system, unless they could somehow get within a puncher’s chance of title contention, it would make more sense for the Celtics to pick up assets—either picks or young players—that would help in the long-term, but hurt the short-term win total to increase the chances of a top-three pick. The lottery reforms make being stuck in the middle less dangerous, at least with a relatively young team. Not only can Boston get good players in a Rondo trade and still find value in its 2015 pick, but the Cs can also push for a first-rounder in the trade and hope Rondo can’t lead his new team to the playoffs, giving that pick more value. If the Celtics go all-in on a 2016 playoff push, falling short wouldn’t be nearly as catastrophic as it is now, because they’d have a real chance of jumping into the draft’s top-6.
Brooklyn owes Boston its 2016 and 2018 first-round picks and a pick swap in 2017 if the Nets have a better draft position. Brooklyn is a borderline playoff team right now, and there’s no guarantee the Nets can right the ship going forward. Since it’s unlikely Brooklyn slides all the way to the bottom of the league, the new lottery odds make a Nets regression out of the playoffs all the more helpful to the Celtics.
There are, of course, downsides to the proposal. It could incentivize teams to fall from a conference’s final playoff spot into the lottery, give talented teams an extra chance to pick up a star player in a rare down year, or not even deter the worst teams from tanking anyway. That doesn’t matter to the Celtics. It gives them a better reason to win and it gives their future picks more value. It’s no surprise they aren’t fighting it.
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