http://www.lvrj.com/sports/7926527.html

if gamblers demanding that the lottery system is fixed doesnt get things done, nothing will.

and as an aside, im completely down with anyone that favors a change. i think one ball for all lottery teams sounds good (no team would intentionally miss the playoff payoff just for a lottery ball, i'd think). my line of reasoning is that it was ridiculous to let the same crap teams continuosly take the best talent, and subsequently ruin that talent. its like if the lions took the best qb in the draft every year. it wouldnt be long before the whole nfl went under.

Random loosely-related radical stuff I've been thinking about in terms of the draft and lottery:

The idea behind draft picks historically was to prevent teams from cutting each others throats over talent, and prevent the talent from having too much of an edge on the team. In the past dozen years, we've added the rookie scale contract, where the picks are valuable because they can impose cost controls. Oden doesn't have to be paid the $10+ million/year he's probably worth.

The '70s-era ABA league would chip in for paying "elite" players, often with the idea of snagging elite players from the big bad NBA. As a consequence, the league would play hijinks over what teams those elite players would end up on, regardless of draft rights. For example, Dan Issel wanted to play for the Kentucky Colonels because he was a U-Kentucky legend, so the league extracted a deal with whoever had his draft rights. Players even contracted with the league moreso than a particular team, especially in cases where the team was fragile.

Today, you have some of the Euro teams being able to offer more than we can, especially at the lower end. With the fall of the dollar and the rise of world basketball, this trend will continue. JMax might've had himself a better deal in Europe than what we can guarantee a low-1st rounder (~$2 million, total). I suspect the global market will kick the NBA's ass big-time in 5-10 years without adjustments. The Alex Acker who becomes a big success in Europe may not want to take a pay cut to come back to the U.S.

What about something along the lines of an auction? The league (not the teams) "drafts" all players, then puts them all up for sealed bid to the teams in the in the order the league drafted them. Players are then leased from the league to the teams. Problematic teams can have their leases revoked or somesuch. Yes, this is thoroughly half-baked...