Honesty they need to prevent tanking. They should never incentivize losing more. It's worse than the NFL draft setup because of sheer number of games.
I'd rather have flat rates for everyone or the lotto odds flipped (i.e. worst team has worst odds) than the current system. Or penalize teams for repeatedly being in the lotto or getting a high pick in previous years. Like I dunno, if you're in the Top 3 then you drop X amount of spots in the lotto for a number of years. Or have flat rates and you can't get a top 3 pick for like 3-5 years after previously getting one
I don't watch other bad teams enough to know how much better they would be doing but the Magic would probably be a 33-35 win team at season end if they weren't tanking. And I firmly believe if not for horrendous injuries we would be a fringe playoff team.
I shouldn't ever be cheering for my team to lose or getting pissed because they win but that's exactly what happens with the current system. The 2 recent wins that took us from 1st to 7th is a prime example of that. It's like the difference between Doncic and I dunno, Bamba or Trae Young?
The answer is simple:
Tie record into revenue sharing. See how much teams want to tank knowing they can't offset losses from putting out a shitty product by getting paid by the league. Put a performance tax on teams that routinely fall in the bottom 5. ---
TheRock ~ I had a name, my father called me Blues.