1) Let the \”lottery\” teams each rank their top 14 draft prospects.
2) The player with the highest combined ranking becomes the top draftee, etc.
3) Let those top fourteen draftees select which lottery team they would like to play for.
4) If the team agrees, that player is their first round draft selection.
5) If the team doesn\’t agree, they go into the draft schedule according to their win-loss record from the season and the draftee goes into the regular draft process.

This means a team should really want to win to attract top draft prospects. A top draft prospect isn\’t going to want to play for the worst team in the league.

I\’d also like to see some opportunity for a team to reserve the right to draft \”local\” talent. If a guy grew up in New York, it be great to allow the Knicks to claim him before other teams had the option. Or if a player spent a few years playing college ball in Florida, let Orlando or Miami have dibs on signing him.

it is highly unlikely that the spurs get duncan if robinson plays the last month or two of the 95-96 season. with the new rule in place the spurs would have had to justify why they were sitting robinson out — an evaluation by basketball doctors not affiliated with the spurs or any other team. was he legitimately still hurt? was he able to play but still not fully recovered (i.e.: would\’ve played if it was a playoff game but thought it stupid to risk further injury in meaningless regular season games)? was he told to sit due to legitimate fear of reinjury? all of the above are not only possible but likely. but another possibility, however unlikely: were the spurs tanking to get duncan (even if they weren\’t conscious of it, or were in denial about it)? something that looked bad, but might not be as bad as it looked: why was robinson caddying at the par 3 contest at the masters in early april — during the nba regular season — if he was still recoving from foot and back injuries? this is a good example of something stern would be able to investigate to ensure fair play by all teams.

if robinson was able to play and stern discovered evidence that the team pressured him not to (any one of: g.m., coach, team doctors), the spurs should\’ve lost their lottery pick. that\’s how you stop tanking. admittedly, it would be uncomfortable to effectively put a team on trial — analyzing objective medical files (by outside doctors, not team doctors), MRIs, and rehab progress is an uneviable task — but these are the sorts of decisions needed to keep the league clean and protect \”the best interests of the game.\” having to make tough decisions to preserve fair competition is a big reason why the sport has a league commissioner. stern successfully settled the larry brown vs. ny knicks case, he has determined the length of suspensions (or at least has the authority to overrule decisions). his decision on the stoudemire/diaw suspensions, while criticized, was the right one based on the current rules, made by an objective observer. one wonders if this proposed anti-tanking rule was in effect in 1997 if stern would have allowed the spurs to keep their 1997 draft pick. if he did who know how many championships the 76ers, who had the #2 pick, would have won by now. no one is claiming that the spurs tanked, just that they were clearly rewarded by robinson\’s injury and subsequent return to health. chalk it up to good luck for the spurs.

sort of off topic, but mark, please do not let anyone break up the mavs roster to shake things up. the 2006 western conference semis when dallas beat san antonio showed the current roster can beat the spurs. the golden state series was a fluke because don nelson knew the mavs\’ weaknesses (if anything all it showed was that dirk needs a low post game to be unstoppable). last year the spurs lost early in the playoffs after making it to the finals in 05, so what did they do? they didn\’t panic, kept the core intact, making only minor additions. the mavs should think the same way. devin harris is the only guy who can come close to staying with tony parker, josh howard can do the same with ginobili. keep the mavs together. give this group a chance to redeem itself next year the way popovich did this year in san antonio after the mavs beat them in the 2nd round.

\”What else is there to do while I sit here in the Cayman Islands relaxing and enjoying every minute of it then ponder the NBA Lottery.\”

There seems to be a misunderstanding in the US as to the meaning of the words \”then\” and \”than\”. Initially I simply thought it was a typo, however as it seems to be pretty much the norm for American bloggers.

To be honest it\’s a bit of a shame that an individual with the influence and education of Mark Cuban doesn\’t appear to know the difference either!

So, as an act of service I\’ve included the appropriate dictionary.com definition for the word \”than\” -

\”Than – except; other than: We had no choice than to return home\”

Some will accuse me of nit-picking, others might even see grammatical errors in my comments. The point is this – how does this kind of thing contribute to the *stereotype of ignorant, uneducated Americans to the world?

(Not my own view, though I do wonder at times!)

The team with the best record against all non-playoff teams, gets #1, the next best record gets #2 and so on. In the event of a tie, take into consideration their records against playoff teams.

This would encourage doing well all year long, because your either fighting for the 8th slot or for the coveted 9th slot and #1 draft pick. Sure you might have some idiot try to through the games to \’just miss\’ the playoffs, but my guess is that egos would remove that element almost entirely.