This one is important for several reasons. The first one could be thought of as ‘fan protection’. It’s unfair to fans of a team to have games, portion of season, or in some cases entire seasons where their favorite team is tanking in order to get higher draft picks.
Creating a system that removes incentives for tanking is also important to protect the integrity of the game. There should never be a game where fans are left to wonder whether one of the teams is attempting to win or lose the game. This becomes especially important if betting on the games is legalized at some point.
It’s also a pretty awful situation for athletes and coaches to be put in, when they need to balance the practical benefits of tanking a game vs. considerations of ethics, rules and pride. A good system for running the league should avoid creating that kind of dilemma.
I don’t necessarily know the best solution to the problem, but there are plenty of options. I’d definitely be in favor of letting the fans vote on which solution is the best. I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas out there, but here are some possibilities:
Implement a ‘weighted lottery’ – In theory this provides less incentive for tanking than the current NFL system. In reality, the NBA uses this and has an even bigger tanking problem than the NFL. Not good enough.
Implement a ‘limited random lottery’ - Everyone who misses the playoffs gets a completely random draft position ahead of everyone who makes the playoffs. Speaking of which…are we definitely going to have playoffs in this thing?.
Implement a ‘full random lottery’ - All teams get completely random draft positions. Removes all incentive for tanking, although it still doesn’t provide positive incentive for winning. I think this would be my preference, although I reserve the right to change my mind.
Eliminate the draft entirely – Seriously, this is an option. I don’t like it though. The fan-run draft will be too much fun not to have one.
Integrity based draft – This article floated an interesting structure for an ‘integrity based draft’ that provides incentive for winning: article
My instinct is that it’s too complicated and wouldn’t be well-received by most fans, but it’s creative enough that I thought it was worth sharing.
