A better ping pong ball draft system.

[Bounces R Way]

Gary Bettman naked and blindfolded spinning around in an office chair throwing darts at team balloons. Only fair way to do it.

 

[McRpro]

Read post #19. The NBA uses external auditors Ernst & Young to do the procedure and there are usually representatives from each team and the league present who can look but not touch. The NHL used Bortz and company last year.

Bettman does say in the draft lottery video that Bortz and Company prepared the random number combination chart but representatives of Ernst and Young were still there supervising the draft.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Just because we haven't seen it used yet doesn't mean that it's not a very stupid lottery system. The system right now is terrible and doesn't address the real concerns around drafting, the draft lottery and tanking. We know the rules, the format and understand how the new lottery system works. We don't need to see it in action to determine whether or not it's stupid.

All draft lottery systems are stupid IMO if a team that barely misses that playoffs could get a 1st overall pick is just crazy.

Imagine the Bruins a team with 93 points and missed the playoffs by losing their last game of the season has the ability to get lucky and draft 1st overall while a team like Maple Leafs that have 69 points fewest in the NHL could possibly end up with a 4th overall pick. It is stupid to let luck of the draw be so impactful on multiple teams future like that.

No matter what is done with a draft there will always be people unhappy with it.

Tanking will always be a perceived problem unless they just give all non playoff teams 1 ball in the machine and whatever team gets drawn first gets 1st overall pick and so on. The problem with that then ends up being teams that need the most help can and will get screwed and have a harder time getting better.

 

[Runforthecup]

I disagree with posts #19 and #23.

The only statistics I know are what I learned getting my degree 40 years ago, and since then in the investment business.

I (perhaps naively) believe any semi intelligent second year statistics student could design a lottery system that was more transparent, fairer and still ensured that talent was being equalized.

My suspicion is that paid consultants (such as those who designed the current lottery ball system) want to make it as complicated as possible to justify what they are charging the NHL. I also believe that they might comment on sites such as this to obfuscate what others might suggest and protect their revenues.

 

[CP]

Babcock saying before the game he wasn't doing everything he could to win really adds to my dislike of the lottery. This year my team Tanked really well, but I found it disturbing. Fans actively cheering for loses bites, and coaches basically saying they are tanking is worse. The more I hear about the system where you accumulate points once eliminated to try to win a lower pick, the more I like it. It means every team tries to win all year. It is much better than the current system.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Unless I misunderstood, wouldn't this increase tanking? It would literally mean, the more you lose, the better odds you get.

Pretty much. Even being safely in last wouldn't be enough as you can always be worse.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Babcock saying before the game he wasn't doing everything he could to win really adds to my dislike of the lottery. This year my team Tanked really well, but I found it disturbing. Fans actively cheering for loses bites, and coaches basically saying they are tanking is worse. The more I hear about the system where you accumulate points once eliminated to try to win a lower pick, the more I like it. It means every team tries to win all year. It is much better than the current system.

The system of points accumulated after elimination is one of the worst proposals I've seen. It by far encourages tanking the most of any system other than outright awarding the first pick to the last place team. People seem to have these visions of GMs trying not to ice a horrible team when in actuality all it does is incentivize getting eliminated from the playoffs as early as possible. Most teams don't get eliminated from the playoffs until the final week or two of the season so they are generally looking at 10 points maximum (realistically more like 6 or 7) after their elimination date. The small handful of truly bad teams though get eliminated much earlier and will easily clear this threshold.

The best way to earn the most points after being eliminated from the playoffs is to simply get eliminated faster, and that's all the system would do.

 

[CP]

Not much faster, maybe 15 or 16 games left, so the worst teams have 5 or 6 more games to accumulate points, which is the whole point that they get a few more games to try to win a higher draft pick, instead of trying to lose games to get one. Teams don't drop out of the playoffs until late in the season because the loser points keep teams in the hunt.

 

[PM]

Fans cheer for their teams to lose because they are smart fans that realize every team eventually has to rebuild. Even the mighty Red Wings sucked once upon a time. Funny enough in the NFL most fans are always cheering for a win, it is rare to see Tank movements like we do in the NHL. And they have an actual normal draft without some stupid lottery.

Unless we switch to a relegation and academy model this is how it works. But I guess most people here won't be happy either if everyone can claim players while they are still children and all the Canadian teams get first dibs on the Canadian players in their local market area.

I think the fans of the currently good teams just want to see their teams be good forever while feasting on 25 other mediocre teams whose fans blindly support their mediocrity.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Not much faster, maybe 15 or 16 games left, so the worst teams have 5 or 6 more games to accumulate points, which is the whole point that they get a few more games to try to win a higher draft pick, instead of trying to lose games to get one. Teams don't drop out of the playoffs until late in the season because the loser points keep teams in the hunt.

The trick to accumulating the most points after you've been eliminated isn't to to try and be as competitive as possible. Its to maximize the number of games played after you've been eliminated. The way to do that is to get eliminated as soon as possible.

 

[Runforthecup]

Gary Bettman naked and blindfolded spinning around in an office chair throwing darts at team balloons. Only fair way to do it.

Rather than that why not give fans a turn at throwing darts at Gary Bettman while he is naked, blindfolded, and spinning around in his office chair?

 

[Brooklanders*]

I think the lottery system is fine. Tanking is unavoidable.

The only problem I have is the same team should not be allowed to pick first overall two years in a row let along three.
To me that needs to be changed.

 

[LeafsLegendAkiBerg]

Babcock saying before the game he wasn't doing everything he could to win really adds to my dislike of the lottery. This year my team Tanked really well, but I found it disturbing. Fans actively cheering for loses bites, and coaches basically saying they are tanking is worse. The more I hear about the system where you accumulate points once eliminated to try to win a lower pick, the more I like it. It means every team tries to win all year. It is much better than the current system.

Could you link me to that quote? Googling it didn't return any results.

 

[AslanRH]

Lottery should be decided by shootout. Another NHL event that can be televised and bring more excitement to the fans.

sarcasm smiley not needed I hope

 

[Seachd]

Unless I misunderstood, wouldn't this increase tanking? It would literally mean, the more you lose, the better odds you get.

This is how I would see it working.

 

[radapex]

Oh look, it's the hourly "fix the lottery system we haven't even tried once yet" thread.

We've had exactly 1 draft with the new odds, and 0 drafts with the new rules. Let's wait and see how it plays out. IIRC, with the new rules there's only like a 30% chance the last place team will even pick in the top 3.

 

[Tom Collins]

I don't know what the best way to deal out the balls is. All I know is I would actually like to *see* the lottery happen for once, ping-pong balls and all, instead of having the lottery take place in some secret hidden undocumented back-room from which some ultra-secret superspy covertly emerges under the dark of night and hands Bill Daly the results in a sealed envelope (you know, like how they usually run the lottery).

You know they actually DID show the entire lottery process past season, right?

 

[Tatar]

Here's a draft idea:

All non-playoff teams get 40,000 draft points. Playoff teams get 30,000 draft points

NHL holds a silent Draft Auction

Players are introduced in accordance to their draft rank

Each team has 2 minutes to submit their silent bid

Highest bidder drafts the player

Tiebreaker goes to the team with the worse seasonal record

Losing teams lose 5-10% of their draft points they submitted

All the draft points you get can be used to go "all-in" on one big star, or stretched to draft 30+ players

Every team has a chance to draft every player