Trading Lottery Odds

[The Thin White Duke]

Had an idea the other day: should teams be able to trade their lottery balls away? Now that one team no longer has a 50% chance of picking first, would it make sense to let teams have a bidding war on trying to get the top pick?

As a team with a <10% chance of winning it, if Buffalo offered a 2nd or 3rd for my lottery balls, that's something I'd definitely consider. This would probably get Edmonton to start calling the other bottom 10 teams in an arms race to keep the odds in their favor.

I think it would be overall useful; teams that have been rebuilding and have an enormous stockpile of top-90 picks (Buffalo) are better off spending them to try and guarantee the top talent in the draft, and teams in the 4-10 range that may not have committed to a total rebuild are probably better off with a few more top-90 picks for depth/trading up than a slim chance of picking 1st (Toronto, Philly).

Thoughts?

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[Beerz]

Yeah. No.

 

[NJDevils#4]

I'll trade u Salvador for a pair of balls

 

[Hammettf2b]

Why are there always these crazy solutions to things like this? It's fine the way it is.

 

[Brodeur]

Had an idea the other day: should teams be able to trade their lottery balls away? Now that one team no longer has a 50% chance of picking first, would it make sense to let teams have a bidding war on trying to get the top pick?

Thoughts?

This had been done a couple times, although not in the exact manner that you described.

At the trade deadline in 1998, Tampa traded Bryan Marchment to San Jose. Part of the package that Tampa received included a condition that they'd have the option to swap first round picks. Tampa at that point was far and away the worst club. Earlier that season, San Jose acquired Florida's 1st rounder for Viktor Kozlov. So essentially, Tampa acquired an extra 14.4% (or whatever it was) towards winning the lottery.

Florida's pick ended up winning the lottery, so Tampa was allowed to go from #2 to #1 and ended up with Vinny Lecavalier.

At the 2002 Draft, Columbus wanted to move up from #3 to secure Rick Nash. Florida has the #1 pick and worked out a semi-complicated deal. In exchange to move down from #1, Florida received the option to swap #1 picks in 2003 (ie, they were getting Columbus' probable lottery balls). Florida ended up winning the 2003 lottery outright with their own odds.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

What you're describing is mathematically equivalent to trading picks, which is already permitted by NHL rules.

Closed.