Let's end tanking forever: draft lottery pick delayed 1 year going forward

[TheFunPolice]

Here's an idea that would making tanking even less likely in the future.

 

Why not make it so that there is still a lottery, but it is for the pick in the following year's draft?

 

For example, the lottery in April 2015 would be for the 2016 draft. Also, you could drop 4-5 slots no matter what.

 

I think it would go a LONG way to never seeing this garbage again. The reward would be so far away and so uncertain that tanking would not have a clear prize.

 

Are we really this crazy about losing a game in March 2015 that would not affect the draft order until summer 2016?

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[darksabre]

I think it might ruin the trade market if you do that. Picks have a certain value once you know where those picks might end up being, especially at the trade deadline when it's obvious what teams are going to be drafting better than others. If you devalue picks by pushing their placement out a year then you probably reduce the likelihood of trades, which is bad for the league. 

[LastPommerFan]

I think it might ruin the trade market if you do that. Picks have a certain value once you know where those picks might end up being, especially at the trade deadline when it's obvious what teams are going to be drafting better than others. If you devalue picks by pushing their placement out a year then you probably reduce the likelihood of trades, which is bad for the league. 

 

Baseball has no pick trading (We'll essentially no pick trading, there is one caveat). 

 

If you want to get rid of the tanks, don't let GM's trade hockey players for futures. Make every trade a hockey trade.

[darksabre]

Baseball has no pick trading (We'll essentially no pick trading, there is one caveat). 

 

If you want to get rid of the tanks, don't let GM's trade hockey players for futures. Make every trade a hockey trade.

 

Now that would be interesting. 

[K-9]

I don't think there should be any lottery at all. Team that finishes last, picks first. The false outrage at tanking is comical. "But, but the integrity of the game...yada, yada, yada." Players will play, coaches will coach and let the chips fall where they may. The reason teams are in contention to finish last is because they suck. Period. 

 

GO SABRES!!!

[TheFunPolice]

Baseball has no pick trading (We'll essentially no pick trading, there is one caveat). 

 

If you want to get rid of the tanks, don't let GM's trade hockey players for futures. Make every trade a hockey trade.

I like that a lot.

 

Wouldn't my idea help trades a bit though? You would know in April 2015 exactly when you were picking in the 2016 draft. You could theoretically win the cup and still pick 1st, assuming you went from awful to amazing in one season. Awful in 2015, earn a top pick in 2016, be amazing in 2016, earn a low pick in 2017.

 

The year delay would mean that there is no immediate prize for sucking. You get the prize but you wait a whole season to get it.

 

You could know over a year in advance that you have the #1 overall pick, so you might actually NOT tank and try to build up a team.

Edited April 2, 2015 by TheFunPolice

[Weave]

Baseball has no pick trading (We'll essentially no pick trading, there is one caveat). 

 

If you want to get rid of the tanks, don't let GM's trade hockey players for futures. Make every trade a hockey trade.

 

 

I'm in.

[Robviously]

Baseball has no pick trading (We'll essentially no pick trading, there is one caveat). 

 

If you want to get rid of the tanks, don't let GM's trade hockey players for futures. Make every trade a hockey trade.

Every trade *is* a hockey trade, and most trades (especially at the deadline) are inter temporal.  Someone is giving up something now to get something later, or vice versa.

 

I really doubt taking options away from GMs is going to make the sport more interesting.

[LastPommerFan]

I'm in.

 

Me too. 

 

In Baseball, at the Deadline, you see prospects traded for MLB ready relief pitchers occasionally, but at least at that point your talking about futures who are playing professional baseball. It hurts more to let that kind of asset go, so it happens less than the firesales you see in the NHL.

[I am Defecting]

Yuri: Why not make the non-playoff teams play actual hockey for the draft prize.

 

Are you talking about some sort of draft tournament?

 

Yuri: yes, the should have to earn it.

 

Hockey pucks, rather than pingpong balls?

 

Yuri: Yup, Last placed teams, single elimination, actually playing hockey, for the penultimate prize:

 

A Tournament for a Prize?! 

 

Yuri: seems impossible for you?..

[TheFunPolice]

Yuri: Why not make the non-playoff teams play actual hockey for the draft prize.

 

Are you talking about some sort of draft tournament?

 

Yuri: yes, the should have to earn it.

 

Hockey pucks, rather than pingpong balls?

 

Yuri: Yup, Last placed teams, single elimination, actually playing hockey, for the penultimate prize:

 

A Tournament for a Prize?! 

 

Yuri: seems impossible for you?..

This would be cool...

 

A loser playoff for the #1 pick.

 

Suddenly we ALL want them to win!

[sicknfla]

I am afraid when this is all said and done we might be the poster child for why you DON'T tank.

[MattPie]

Please let this season be over before we have more ridiculous anti-tank ideas.

- Move the draft lottery out a year: teams will just "tank" anyways, since they know there will be very good players at the top of every draft. Do you really think that the Sabres would have done something different last year? Or even this year? At best it throws a little variability at the scenario. At worst, a team that suddenly gets good (playoffs, even) from one year to the next still gets a great draft pick at the end of the year.

- Loser tourney for seeding. You'd see some hardcore tanking from the bubble teams during the regular season. Realistically there will be a few teams that figure just missing the playoffs this year and having a great shot at McDavid (because they're the best of the non-playoff teams) is a good plan. Essentially, you'll consigning a group of teams to be perennially bad; the reward for having a terrible team is getting to pick 12th-14th where you're getting at best player that will be coin-flip to ever seriously play in the NHL. If you're happy with the concept of having teams that are bad and will always be bad, this a perfect plan. Most sensible people realize this is a recipe for having teams go bankrupt.

- The no-trades for futures is an interesting concept, but I'm not sure how if solves these issues. The Sabres could have traded players away for the last couple years not for picks, but guys that have just been drafted and wouldn't be playing in the NHL anyway, so we'd be in exactly the same spot in terms of personnel. Except lots of trades don't happen and more guys end up walking in FA, further hurting bad teams who don't have assets to spare.

 

Suck it up, there are bad teams every year. The Sabres a slightly worse than the average these last two years but I'm sick and tired of hearing the whining about it. This too will pass, and if this is really such a terrible thing in your life, you need to get outside and get some perspective on life's priorities.

[Andrew Amerk]

Just create a system where teams compete for draft spots.

 

As soon as you are eliminated from playoff contention, you start earning points every time you win.

 

Teams eliminated earlier can get a head start, but if you aren't winning, it doesn't help you.

 

Simple.

[pi2000]

Why not have the draft lottery odds aligned with point differential in the standings.  

 

So if you have two teams within a few points of each other, there is less motivation to tank since they'll have virtually the same odds in the lottery regardless of who finishes ahead of who.  

[Stoner]

I don't think there should be any lottery at all. Team that finishes last, picks first. The false outrage at tanking is comical. "But, but the integrity of the game...yada, yada, yada." Players will play, coaches will coach and let the chips fall where they may. The reason teams are in contention to finish last is because they suck. Period. 

 

GO SABRES!!!

You left out general managers will manage.

[sicknfla]

Please let this season be over before we have more ridiculous anti-tank ideas.

- Move the draft lottery out a year: teams will just "tank" anyways, since they know there will be very good players at the top of every draft. Do you really think that the Sabres would have done something different last year? Or even this year? At best it throws a little variability at the scenario. At worst, a team that suddenly gets good (playoffs, even) from one year to the next still gets a great draft pick at the end of the year.

- Loser tourney for seeding. You'd see some hardcore tanking from the bubble teams during the regular season. Realistically there will be a few teams that figure just missing the playoffs this year and having a great shot at McDavid (because they're the best of the non-playoff teams) is a good plan. Essentially, you'll consigning a group of teams to be perennially bad; the reward for having a terrible team is getting to pick 12th-14th where you're getting at best player that will be coin-flip to ever seriously play in the NHL. If you're happy with the concept of having teams that are bad and will always be bad, this a perfect plan. Most sensible people realize this is a recipe for having teams go bankrupt.

- The no-trades for futures is an interesting concept, but I'm not sure how if solves these issues. The Sabres could have traded players away for the last couple years not for picks, but guys that have just been drafted and wouldn't be playing in the NHL anyway, so we'd be in exactly the same spot in terms of personnel. Except lots of trades don't happen and more guys end up walking in FA, further hurting bad teams who don't have assets to spare.

 

Suck it up, there are bad teams every year. The Sabres a slightly worse than the average these last two years but I'm sick and tired of hearing the whining about it. This too will pass, and if this is really such a terrible thing in your life, you need to get outside and get some perspective on life's priorities.

Probably the most ignorant post somebody can make on here is when they go all "life priority and perspective" crap. This is a Sabres forum. We discuss the Sabres. For many it is an escape from all the other daily crap we all deal with.

 

You've been around here for awhile MattPie. You usually have some good insight and opinions. Sorry, but that wasn't one of them.

[LGR4GM]

Or since it has worked well for something like 50 years we can just keep drafting the way we are with the changed lottery.  Maybe we should take away all the teams that won cups because they sucked so bad to get the 1st overall pick?  Self. Hating. Stupid.  

[ddaryl]

Here's an idea that would making tanking even less likely in the future.

 

Why not make it so that there is still a lottery, but it is for the pick in the following year's draft?

 

For example, the lottery in April 2015 would be for the 2016 draft. Also, you could drop 4-5 slots no matter what.

 

I think it would go a LONG way to never seeing this garbage again. The reward would be so far away and so uncertain that tanking would not have a clear prize.

 

Are we really this crazy about losing a game in March 2015 that would not affect the draft order until summer 2016?

 

Thoughts?

 

 

I have no issue with tanking.. Sometimes you have to clean house and start over

[MattPie]

Probably the most ignorant post somebody can make on here is when they go all "life priority and perspective" crap. This is a Sabres forum. We discuss the Sabres. For many it is an escape from all the other daily crap we all deal with.

 

You've been around here for awhile MattPie. You usually have some good insight and opinions. Sorry, but that wasn't one of them.

 

That's a fair point, I really thought about leaving the life stuff out but being sleep deprived I left it in. :)

 

But there is truth there: I have a friend that likes to say, "when a friendship is consistently more trouble or a negative factor in my life than the benefit I derive from it, there's no reason to continue it." I feel like some of the posters here are in that situation with the Sabres. I've watched (in some form) every game this season because I still enjoy watching. If that weren't the case, I wouldn't watch and I don't think anyone would blame me. Why devote something like 240 hours of the year to something that you hate doing (that is supposed to be entertaining)? Sure, some of the jerks might call the folks that disappeared the last two a bandwagon fan but screw them.

[matter2003]

This happens in every sport and I don't see what the big deal is. If your team is bad, how else are you supposed get good?

[Drunkard]

This happens in every sport and I don't see what the big deal is. If your team is bad, how else are you supposed get good?

By drafting multiple sure fire hall of famers in the late rounds like Detroit. Any approach that includes drafting high in unacceptable to some people unless it is other teams doing it.

[apuszczalowski]

By drafting multiple sure fire hall of famers in the late rounds like Detroit. Any approach that includes drafting high in unacceptable to some people unless it is other teams doing it.

the problem isn't drafting high, it's intentionally sabotaging your roster by dealing away the majority of your talent to make yourself bad enough to get the first overall pick. Good teams and GMS cam build a winning team without having to be the worst team in recent history hoping to have the best odds at the #1 pick.

 

Want to stop tanking, make the draft lottery for every draft position for all teams that don't make the playoffs. Meaning a team that misses the playoffs by a point could chose first overall and the team coming in dead last can pick last before all of the playoff teams. Tanking would be meaningless and would make fights for the last playoff spots more exciting cause teams will continue to try and make the playoffs instead of giving up and playing for a draft spot. The only negative for the league is it could make the trade deadline less exciting with less teams willing to have fire sales

[Drunkard]

the problem isn't drafting high, it's intentionally sabotaging your roster by dealing away the majority of your talent to make yourself bad enough to get the first overall pick. Good teams and GMS cam build a winning team without having to be the worst team in recent history hoping to have the best odds at the #1 pick.

 

Want to stop tanking, make the draft lottery for every draft position for all teams that don't make the playoffs. Meaning a team that misses the playoffs by a point could chose first overall and the team coming in dead last can pick last before all of the playoff teams. Tanking would be meaningless and would make fights for the last playoff spots more exciting cause teams will continue to try and make the playoffs instead of giving up and playing for a draft spot. The only negative for the league is it could make the trade deadline less exciting with less teams willing to have fire sales

I don't want to stop tanking because I don't see anything wrong with it. To me, tanking is just rebuilding on a massive scale and most teams don't consider it an option out of the risk of alienating the fan base. Luckily, we do have a strong enough fan base and it will give us an opportunity to draft top 3 (hopefully top 2) picks in consecutive years so we can insert 2 truly blue chip prospects around the rest of our rebuilt roster. The worst teams are in most need of talented players so it makes logical sense to me for them to draft the highest.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Drunkard

[LGR4GM]

This thread is primarily bull excrement smeared all over the internet.