Dictionary.com provides the following definition of the word “fair”:
free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice
When I talk to my students about what is “fair”, I note that people often define bias and injustice – or impartial and justice – in terms of their personal viewpoint. A transaction is often perceived as “fair” if people perceive they came out ahead on the deal. If not, then the deal is “unfair.”
For example, if free trade results in your job being taken away, trade is “unfair.” But if barriers to trade mean you keep your job – even though everyone else pays higher prices – then barriers to trade are “fair”. Again, the meaning of “fair” depends on your point of view.
And that observation brings us to the NBA lottery. The Chicago Bulls were not the worst team in the NBA in 2007-08. In fact, they should have been one of the best (a story I will get to sometime this summer). Nevertheless, they are picking first in the 2008 NBA draft.
For many fans of the Miami Heat, Seattle (or Oklahoma City) Sonics, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, etc…, this seem “unfair.” Their teams were clearly worse than the Bulls and therefore are more “deserving” of the first pick.
A few weeks ago I was asked about this by Ethan Skolnik, a writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. If I remember correctly (I was being interviewed, so it’s not like I was the one taking notes), the interview went something like this.
Thoughts on the NBA Draft Lottery Off the Top of My Head
I was sitting in my office thinking important thoughts (and/or surfing the Internet). The phone rang and Skolnik asked if I had time for a few questions. Given what I was doing (apparently not much), I agreed.
I think I have noted in the past that interviews are like taking a test. Except you really don’t have a chance to study, you really don’t know what the questions are ahead of time, and your answers – no matter how silly – are going to be made public. Despite these conditions, interviews are still kind of fun (at least, I have found most reporters make interviews fun).
Skolnik’s questions focused on the nature of the NBA lottery. Although I don’t recall the exact questions, I do remember that he was asking about why the NBA has a lottery and whether or not it is “fair” that the Heat – the NBA’s worst team – is not guaranteed the first pick in the NBA draft.
For the first part of the question I referred to the work of Beck Taylor and Justin Trogdon (more on that in a moment). The fairness question, though, I tried to answer. And Skolnik’s article — NBA lottery: Where math, cheating, hoops meet — noted my responses.
And, so what do you say to Heat fans, if they fail to win the lottery after 67 losses? According to David J. Berri, the same thing you could have said to Grizzlies fans, who watched the seventh-worst team (Portland) earn the right to draft Greg Oden in 2007, while the worst-in-NBA Grizzlies slipped to fourth. And the same thing you could have said to Blazers fans the year before, when their team slipped from the first lottery seed to the fourth spot, as the fifth-worst team (Toronto) ascended to the top spot:
Tough luck.
“I don’t know how you deserve the No. 1 pick if you are the worst team,” said Berri, an associate professor at Cal-State Bakersfield and a co-author of The Wages of Wins. “To say, ‘I deserve the top pick, because I was more incompetent than anyone else.’ What kind of argument is this? You are not owed something here. You made bad decisions. You get what you get.”
Berri notes that, if the Heat played in Europe, it might get something worse than the fourth overall selection.
It might get demoted.
“It’s a quandary unique to North American sports,” Berri said. “In Europe, they don’t have this problem, because if the Heat was in Europe, it would be playing in the National Basketball Developmental League. They would have promoted some other team from the second division.” As in European soccer.
“Then Miami wouldn’t be doing that anymore,” Berri said, of possibly creating conditions to lose on purpose. “The revenue loss would have been so huge, Miami would have been trying to win every single game. In U.S., the teams are fixed, they know they’re fixed, know they’re not going anywhere. In Europe, they don’t have any draft, they can sign whoever they want to sign.”
The Better Part of the Article
The Skolnik article does more report my harsh words for the NBA’s losers. The more important part of the article is the review of the aforementioned work of Taylor and Trogdon. As note in The Wages of Wins, the research of Taylor and Trogdon reported evidence that NBA teams were indeed trying to lose to win a better position in the NBA draft lottery. Skolnik managed to interview both Taylor and Trogdon — who I think I met at the Western Social Science Association several years ago when I was the discussant of the NBA lottery paper (at least, I think I was the discussant on this specific paper).
Now I find the research of Taylor and Trogdon to be quite convincing (and very interesting). But in my experience, people don’t always believe academics. Fortunately, Skolnik also interviewed Pat Williams (vice-president of the Orlando Magic). Here is some of what Williams had to say about NBA teams tanking:
The NBA established its lottery in 1985, largely in response to the Houston Rockets.
“Houston literally dumped the entire last 20 games or so,” Williams said. “In those days … nobody was following it. But they just died.”
Later in the article Williams offers more:
“But long story short, they do not want teams cutting corners down the stretch to get a better pick. I think they’ve got it tweaked about as well they can tweak it. You’ve got to keep the integrity of the regular season and avoid that temptation to get a better pick. We are not mature enough, so the league office has to do it.”
So there you have it. An NBA executive has explained why the lottery is necessary. Teams in basketball will make an effort to lose to secure a better draft choice. Consequently, the NBA had to devise a system where the incentive to lose was reduced.
I would encourage everyone to read the entire Skolnik piece. As noted, Skolnik interviewed both Taylor and Trodgon , and their insights into the NBA draft lottery are quite interesting. In addition, there is an interesting quote from the increasingly famous Justin Wolfers at the very end.
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
Ryne Nelson
June 9, 2008
I complete agree with your logic here, Dave. Being the worst usually equates to being deserving of the first pick in the draft. This would cause far more foul-play in the League if there was no such thing as a lottery, and the teams out of the post-season picked completely based on record.
Todd
June 9, 2008
The Heat traded Shaq and sat Shawn Marion and Dwyane Wade for a significant part of their schedule. Let’s keep the lottery the way it is.
Tball
June 9, 2008
I agree with the arguments, but I find it fascinating that other sports do not need to regulate against taking games in the regular season.
Based on trades like the Giants trade for Eli Manning, the first pick in the draft is regularly highly coveted, but late in the NFL season when two teams ‘vying’ for that first pick are playing, there is never any material indication of tanking.
Similarly, in baseball where the top half of the draft is dramatically more successful (according to Baseball Prospectus) than the rest of the draft, you do not see signs of teams tanking at the end of the season. Again, some teams will play their younger players, as they are encouraged to do by expanded rosters, and teams that are eliminated from post-season contention do not play with the same gravitas, but you don’t get the indication that anyone is fighting for improved draft position.
And in baseball, if you get your hands on a quality player, the CBA allows you to hold a players’ rights until about age 30 (their most useful years). In football, you can hold a player’s rights for five or six years on a rookie deal (which are frequently their most useful years) with franchise tags for the most useful players. The NBA is the only league in which most a players’ useful years are enjoyed under free agent deals (even when signing with the original club). Orlando lost Shaq. The Spurs nearly lost Duncan to Orlando (by some accounts). Cleveland is already fretting losing LeBron. Kidd spent most of his years out of Dallas. In other words, the rookie deals offer NBA teams a lower percentage of their draftee’s careers than other professional drafts, yet they are the ones viewed as tanking most frequently.
No point here, other than to wonder why the other leagues do not tank games.
tk
June 9, 2008
The European system of relagation should be brought to the NBA. Although its NEVER going to happen, it removes all issues of teams tanking for the no. 1 draft pick, and every game will be competetive. Furthermore, it allows teams in the D-League to shine, and be promoted to the NBA. It will expand the basketball culture into areas where the NBA is not so affluent.
All this is hearsay, itll never happen because the NBA is run as a business, and its primary goal is profit.
porteno
June 9, 2008
TBall —
I think it’s just a structure issue. While sometimes teams overvalue high first round picks in the NFL, the trend has gone away from this. One player won’t make a franchise. Even someone like LT in San Diego needs an O line or he loses so much value. and in baseball, how many times does a #1 pick actually make the pros?
hockey is more like the nba, in that picks have very high value. in that sense, perhaps it is interesting that they haven’t started a lottery. on the other hand, the lottery doesn’t really reduce the incentive to lose enough.
Jason
June 10, 2008
I’ve said it before, but in the continued shameless hope that someone picks up on it, I think I have a solution to the “tanking” problem while maintaining a system that attempts provide some balance to the league in a system that provides weaker teams with a better shot at acquiring newer players.
It’s really quite simple: instead of basing draft order on the most recent season’s record, base it on the length of time since a team has most recently been in the playoffs (or seed a lottery accordingly). While teams may ‘tank’ within a season in hopes of improving lottery odds, I find it vanishingly improbable that a team would purposely avoid making the playoffs for successive years in hopes of landing a top pick at some point years down the line. After all, if the draft is a system to try to ‘help’ teams that have not been successful, is a 15 win franchise that is out of the playoffs for the first year in several and two years removed from a championship really in more need than the 20 win team that hasn’t seen the playoffs in 3 seasons?
Of course, this seemed more reasonable when I watched my Warriors miss out for 13 straight seasons.
Pete
June 12, 2008
dude this is a good post.