NBA Lottery 2012: 5 Ways to Fix the NBA Lottery and the Tanking Epidemic

Tanking has become one of the biggest issues in the NBA.

Teams purposely lose games late in the season in order to move up in the lottery order or fix their playoff matchups.

Small injuries suddenly sideline star players for weeks so their team can continuously lose in order increase their chances of securing a high lottery pick. 

The Golden State Warriors performed an incredible tank job with a late-season decline allowing them to fall into a place that gives them good odds of keeping their pick.

The New Jersey Nets benched Gerald Wallace and Deron Williams late in the season with injuries that did not seem too concerning.

Here are a few ways to discourage the idea of tanking so NBA fans can enjoy hard-fought victories up to the final buzzer of the season.

Remove the Option of Protecting Picks

First-round picks have become a common trading piece in the NBA. However, teams have begun restricting these picks.

The Warriors' first-round pick was top-seven protected, and their late-season tank job can be largely credited to their effort to retain the pick. 

By eliminating the option of protecting picks in the first place, teams are forced to make a set decision when first making the trade.

The option to tank in order to increase their chances of keeping the pick would then be eliminated, solving one of the many problems that tanking causes. 

Envelope Lotteries

Before the current ping-pong ball system was put into play, the NBA used envelopes to determine the order of the draft.

Each of the non-playoff teams would get their name in an envelope that would be drawn in a random order on lottery day.

Actual records meant absolutely nothing.

Going back to this system would eliminate any threat of tanking.

Mini-Tournament

Bill Simmons proposed a means of eliminating tanking with a very different approach.

Instead of your lottery chances being determined by your record alone, each team that doesn't make the playoffs would play in a single-elimination tournament with the winner receiving the first pick.

Borderline teams might tank so they miss the playoffs, but by limiting the number of teams to the bottom eight, you eliminate this possibility.

Not only would this provide a solution to the tanking issue, it would also increase NBA revenue and give fans another exciting event to watch.

Financial Incentives

Every move made by owners and the league is to increase the income for both the NBA and individual teams.

Using this reliance on money, the NBA can offer financial incentives encouraging teams to continue winning.

If the league were to offer a certain amount of money for each regular-season win, teams would have a reason to win games despite not making the playoffs.

A team like the Warriors, who could have put together a decent amount of wins had it not been for those "injuries," could have made a decent profit.

This would also discourage playoff teams from losing purposely to improve their matchup.

Promote Late-Season Wins

This video proposed a solution to the NHL tanking problem, and the idea directly translates to the NBA.

The seeding of the teams is based on the number of wins a team manages after being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Teams that narrowly miss out won't have a chance to win many, but teams that are out for a while have the shot to excel in this category.

By losing purposely, they cannot secure a good pick, even if they were mathematically eliminated a while back.

However, it promotes the idea of winning games, so despite being mathematically eliminated, there is an incentive to win.