Draft Lottery

[Lord Travis 10,695]

Hate it. 

The teams that are down the bottom need all the help they can get. Giving them even less chance at a good player will only lengthen the amount of time they're down the bottom and create a bigger gap between the strong and the weak clubs. The lottery concept would also break trading, and remove clubs ability to plan their movements. It essentially would randomise list management.

Free Agency has already handicapped weak teams. We only see good players leaving for premiership contenders, not the other way around despite bigger money offers.

If anything, the draft should be even more heavily weighted the other way, where top clubs don't get any first round picks unless they trade for them. That would be more fair than this lottery proposal. The draft was designed to create equality and get elite talent into lower teams so they can rise back up the ladder quicker. We need to stop teams like Geelong making finals every year, and teams like North and Carlton (and us for a while there) missing for over a decade. It's supposed to be equal and cyclical. We need to give the bottom teams more, not give them less chance.

Who gives a [censored] about the draft as an event also. Even if it was a lottery, it's not like people sit down to watch it when they have no idea who the kids are anyway. It's a different underage system to America. The AFL need to stop trying to make it a showcase event like they have in NBA. AFL isn't the NBA, it's our local game, and thank god for that.

[FritschyBusiness 1,478]

1 hour ago, Sydney_Demon said:

Why is this good? I'm sure Spurs fans are ecstatic and Detroit due to bad luck miss out on the top 4 picks despite having the worst record in the NBA. Why do they deserve this result? Did they actually tank more than San Antonio? What do you like about the way the NBA is run? You like lots of meaningless games, with only 1/3 of the teams eliminated. Miami finish 8th, lose to Atlanta (7th) in the play-in tournament, beat Chicage (10th), then go on a streak that could see them win the whole thing. They beat Milwaukee despite winning 14 less games during the season. Jimmy Butler only turns up when the finals start. This is all very exciting but any system when the entire pre-finals is largely irrelevant seems to be something we shouldn't be talking up. 

I do agree with you about excessive player movement, but this is the route people want to go down for the AFL. Of course none of the so-called experts provide any in-depth analysis supporting thir arguments.

Firstly I'll say in sport the word deserve is an interesting one. I don't know if teams really deserve anything, cos you earn Premierships and awards by winning however the number 1 pick you get by losing, is considered a win. 

It's good because it removes a direct incentive to tank. You can do it, but good luck getting pick number 1. 
San Antonio are kind of like Hawthorn, had a solid team that won championships across a very long time. They are rebuilding and hadn't found the right player to build around, now they will have him.
Detroit and Houston traded away their better players to be terrible in the hopes of snaggin him.
Hornets got hit with injuries
Trailblazers are like Freo, they are terrible at the trade table and Dame (like Fyfe) can only carry them so far

I'll agree that 82 games is way too many in a season for NBA, I think its ridiculous.
When you have 30 teams in a league, it's going to blow out, but also all those games bring in massive amounts of revenue that go to the players. Being able to watch your team multiple times a week if you want to is pretty fun though. 
I actually think we play to many rounds in AFL but thats a seperate conversation. 

The play in tournament I like because those games mean something, any kind of knock out game is a spectacle to me.
It puts the players under huge pressure to perform with their finals hopes on the line. 
Jimmy Butler has had a decent season, but he is another level in playoffs. His performance today was a beauty to watch even for a Celtics fan like me.
My favorite thing about NBA is the Playoffs and having to win 4 games, the stories and battles between the sides. the changes in tactics between games, the clutch situations players at put in. Players have to be good on both ends and the weak players get exposed in the playoffs, just look at Dillon Brooks.
There's still things that I don't like about in the NBA, just like theirs plenty I don't like about how the AFL is run. 

In AFL it would be fun to have a play in because it keeps supporters hope in a season a lot longer.
Wouldn't it have been nice in 2017 to have one more crack at getting in when we finishes so close to the 8?
It would have been interesting to see how we turned up the next week after that loss to the magpies.

Now in reality, Not that it would be actually relevant to the competition because outside of bulldogs in 2016, a top 4 team wins every time.

Lastly, the media just wants more player movement because it makes their job more interesting and easier.

Talking about players moving clubs are the easiest click bait articles to churn out and most of them never come true. 

[Hawny for Gawny 443]

I don’t thing the premise is a bad idea and it works Iarge leagues like the NBA but we are only 18 teams at the moment and the bottom teams are pretty bad. Maybe only the bottom 3-5 teams are included in the lottery

[Lord Travis 10,695]

Is tanking even much of an issue that we need to bring in a lottery system and break the draft system to combat it? It doesn’t seem like the clubs at the bottom want to be there and are tanking as such. Pretty sure Gold Coast would rather move up the ladder than draft another elite junior when they’ve already got an entire list full of them.

What problem is the draft lottery solving? 

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

58 minutes ago, FritschyBusiness said:

Firstly I'll say in sport the word deserve is an interesting one. I don't know if teams really deserve anything, cos you earn Premierships and awards by winning however the number 1 pick you get by losing, is considered a win. 

It's good because it removes a direct incentive to tank. You can do it, but good luck getting pick number 1. 
San Antonio are kind of like Hawthorn, had a solid team that won championships across a very long time. They are rebuilding and hadn't found the right player to build around, now they will have him.
Detroit and Houston traded away their better players to be terrible in the hopes of snaggin him.
Hornets got hit with injuries
Trailblazers are like Freo, they are terrible at the trade table and Dame (like Fyfe) can only carry them so far

I'll agree that 82 games is way too many in a season for NBA, I think its ridiculous.
When you have 30 teams in a league, it's going to blow out, but also all those games bring in massive amounts of revenue that go to the players. Being able to watch your team multiple times a week if you want to is pretty fun though. 
I actually think we play to many rounds in AFL but thats a seperate conversation. 

The play in tournament I like because those games mean something, any kind of knock out game is a spectacle to me.
It puts the players under huge pressure to perform with their finals hopes on the line. 
Jimmy Butler has had a decent season, but he is another level in playoffs. His performance today was a beauty to watch even for a Celtics fan like me.
My favorite thing about NBA is the Playoffs and having to win 4 games, the stories and battles between the sides. the changes in tactics between games, the clutch situations players at put in. Players have to be good on both ends and the weak players get exposed in the playoffs, just look at Dillon Brooks.
There's still things that I don't like about in the NBA, just like theirs plenty I don't like about how the AFL is run. 

In AFL it would be fun to have a play in because it keeps supporters hope in a season a lot longer.
Wouldn't it have been nice in 2017 to have one more crack at getting in when we finishes so close to the 8?
It would have been interesting to see how we turned up the next week after that loss to the magpies.

Now in reality, Not that it would be actually relevant to the competition because outside of bulldogs in 2016, a top 4 team wins every time.

Lastly, the media just wants more player movement because it makes their job more interesting and easier.

Talking about players moving clubs are the easiest click bait articles to churn out and most of them never come true. 

Look, at the end of the day I suppose it depends on where you are coming from, whether you care primarily about the fairness of the competition, or are more focussed on bums on seats and finals excitement. Yes, having a play-in in the AFL would keep more interest in the competition for more fans and would mean more teams have more to play for until later in the season. They've introduced it in the VFL (the Wildcard Round) but there's 3 more teams in the VFL than the AFL so including the play-in games means you're still slightly under 50% of teams getting through to that stage.

Yes, it would have been nice from a Melbourne perspective to make the play-in stage in 2017 & 2020 but frankly if you're not good enough to finish Top 8 of 18 teams my take is you don't deserve to play finals. The other point that would need to be considered (and this will obviously impact VFL this year) is that the play-in scenario negatively impacts the 7th & 8th teams. As you point out it's extremely hard to win from outside top 4. Obviously home ground advantage helps and the higher you finish on the ladder the more  home finals you get, but ignoring that for the moment, teams 1-4 each have an 18.75% chance of winning, teams 5-8 each have a 6.25% chance. With play-ins 5-6 obviously stays at 6.25%, 7-10 becomes 3.125%. So, its extremely difficult to win from 5th or below now and it would become almost impossible from 7th or below.

Your point about player movement is well-made. I would hate something like the NBA system coming into the AFL because it means poor list management would have no consequences. 

[layzie 33,737]

5 hours ago, FritschyBusiness said:

 

I love the NBA lottery system. NBA is my second favorite sport and I love how its run (besides the excessive player movement)

So 14 teams miss playoffs and they all get lottery balls. The bottom 3 all have a 14% chance at pick 1 and the worst they can get is pick 5. (I have attached this years lottery odds)

This is what happened to Detroit this year, They had the worst record (17-65) and they slipped back to pick 5 in the lottery.
Spurs who had an equal % chance at pick 1 won it
Rockets also had equal % chance but slipped to 4th
Hornets come up and grabbed 2nd Trailblazers grabbed 3rd. 

Generally the poor teams still get decent draft picks but you won't get the first. 
This year 7"5 freak athlete Victor Wembanyama is probably the best prospect since Lebron in the draft and those 3 teams were all trying to give themselves the best chance to get him. 

There have been some miracles in drafting where teams with less than a 3% chance have won the lottery. 
https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/chicago-bulls/top-5-nba-draft-lottery-miracles 

IMG_1426.avif 150.35 kB · 0 downloads

I'd be open to it for teams missing the 8. At least then the 9th and 10th finishes aren't the 'dead zone' and teams developing still have a chance at talent.

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

5 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

Hate it. 

The teams that are down the bottom need all the help they can get. Giving them even less chance at a good player will only lengthen the amount of time they're down the bottom and create a bigger gap between the strong and the weak clubs. The lottery concept would also break trading, and remove clubs ability to plan their movements. It essentially would randomise list management.

Free Agency has already handicapped weak teams. We only see good players leaving for premiership contenders, not the other way around despite bigger money offers.

If anything, the draft should be even more heavily weighted the other way, where top clubs don't get any first round picks unless they trade for them. That would be more fair than this lottery proposal. The draft was designed to create equality and get elite talent into lower teams so they can rise back up the ladder quicker. We need to stop teams like Geelong making finals every year, and teams like North and Carlton (and us for a while there) missing for over a decade. It's supposed to be equal and cyclical. We need to give the bottom teams more, not give them less chance.

Who gives a [censored] about the draft as an event also. Even if it was a lottery, it's not like people sit down to watch it when they have no idea who the kids are anyway. It's a different underage system to America. The AFL need to stop trying to make it a showcase event like they have in NBA. AFL isn't the NBA, it's our local game, and thank god for that.

You can't expect the system to create total equality of outcome, and I'd still like to think there's some room for good list management, coaching and club culture. However, I agree that free agency generally runs counter to the AFL's equalisation strategies. The fact that Geelong had the capacity to pick up the Jack Bowes Contract and Pick 7 in the 2022 Draft shows something is not working the way it should.

Having said that, I believe the current combination of the salary cap & the draft including priority picks & preferential draws based on ladder positions is working reasonably well.

I actually like the Draft as an event. I have no problem with showcase events per se, but the NBA lottery is just a gimmick that I believe is all about media hype, is fundamentaly unfair, and produces outcomes that run counter to eqialsation policies the AFL should be persueing.

1 hour ago, Lord Travis said:

Is tanking even much of an issue that we need to bring in a lottery system and break the draft system to combat it? It doesn’t seem like the clubs at the bottom want to be there and are tanking as such. Pretty sure Gold Coast would rather move up the ladder than draft another elite junior when they’ve already got an entire list full of them.

What problem is the draft lottery solving? 

I can't talk about the NBA but I don't believe the AFL has a tanking problem. I'm sure sides that can't make the 8 send players away early for season-ending operations, play younger players earlier & experiment with players in different positions but this is all aimed at long term gain so I have no problem with it. 

56 minutes ago, layzie said:

I'd be open to it for teams missing the 8. At least then the 9th and 10th finishes aren't the 'dead zone' and teams developing still have a chance at talent.

Teams who finish 9th or 10th get better draft picks than Finals teams. They also get better draws for the next season. Why should they get access to a lottery? You might possibly have a point that it's better to finish 18th than 9th purely in terms of access to future talent, but actually winning games has it's intrinsic rewards as well.