Stop Rewarding Teams For Not Making The Playoffs. Jason Minnix Has An Idea To Stop Tanking In The NBA.

April 10, 2023 12:06PM CDT

FILE – France’s Victor Wembanyama defends during the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 European Qualifiers match between France and Bosnia Herzegovina in Pau, southwestern France, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Wembanyama’s season for Metropolitans 92 in the French league keeps getting better. He’s scored at least 30 points in his last two games, and his team has now won seven consecutive contests. That’s helped them pull into a first-place tie with Cholet with a 7-1 record. (AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)

The NBA regular season is over.

The Spurs were successful in their quest to finish in the bottom 3. The Dallas Mavericks waited
until the final week of the season to raise the white flag and NOW the league is investigating.
“The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the
Dallas Mavericks’ roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night’s Chicago Bulls-
Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions,” NBA Spokesman Mike Bass
said.

Seriously.
Jason Kidd did not sound like he was on board with the decision.
“We were fighting for our lives, and understanding this is a situation we’re in, but the
organization has made the decision to change” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said during his pregame
media availability according to ESPN.com. “So, you know, we have to go by that and that’s
something that happens. So the guys that are playing, we got to go out there and put our best foot
forward, and we talked about that this afternoon.”

Kidd continued: “It’s decisions sometimes are hard in this business. We’re trying to build a
championship team. With this decision, this is maybe a step back. But hopefully it leads to going
forward.”

The NBA rewards teams for losing. You cannot rebuild from the middle. Teams know the best
way to rebuild is to get in the lottery and hopefully land a generational player. One player can
change the course of an NBA franchise.

It’s comical that the Spurs (and Rockets and Pistons, and…) have been taking all season. The
Mavs went all in with a trade for Kyrie during the season that didn’t work. Then the Mavs made
a business decision that the NBA is going to investigate?

Since it appears more teams would rather be in the lottery than the Play-In, I go back to
something I said months ago.

Instead of a reward, there has to be a penalty for not making the playoffs. A massive fine and
give the best lottery odds to the teams that make the play-in teams with equal percentage of
getting the No. 1 pick.

The top 8 picks would go to the eight teams in the Play-In. Then the non-playoff teams would
pick and then the playoff teams. And I would add that you cannot pick in the top 8 in back to
back years…maybe even a three year window between top 8.

While the plan needs work, the goal is to creative competitive basketball and stop rewarding
teams that lose.

Let me know what you think on Twitter @JasonMinnix and listen to The Blitz weekdays 3-7pM.