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A New Entry Draft System (More Complex but Much More Fair)


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EDIT:

Having thought about it more, I think the system I described doesn't work quite well if the team winning the bid has to pay the "holder" all the picks because it still heavily rewards the "holder" for being in that position. I've added some edits in red font to change this.

 

Summary:

  • Here's an outline of a new entry draft system that eliminates luck based outcomes like lottery picks
  • The new silent auction system is more complicated than current system, but very interesting strategically, and much more fair than the current system
  • If you're interested, read through the Structure, and for clarity read the Example; and a short Pro vs. Con list at the end

 

 

Generally, I hate random lottery style rewards. If you win it's great, but if you lose, it's hard not to feel you've been treated unfairly, specially if the prize is worth a lot. I didn't just feel this last year for Canucks, but any year a lottery team wins like McDavid's year. You can now see what a major difference that one pick makes between Oilers and Sabers to be playoff teams, and that pick was purely luck-based!

 

In a salary cap league, IMO tanking should be considered a legitimate strategy with its downsides to consider (losing mentality, etc.), so I would be happy with a pure standing-based draft positions (i.e. no lottery at all).

 

But say you wanted to not reward tanking (the same idea behind current lottery system... so still lower teams have an advantage, just not as much as a no lottery system).

 

Here's a radical proposal that I think would be quite interesting from a strategic point of view, but also from a fairness point of view:

 

Structure:

  • Initial draft positions are set with the reverse of standings as is right now (so the last team is the "holder" of pick 1)
  • BUT, every team has an opportunity to bid on top 10 picks all of the 1st round picks; no team actually owns any of these picks... they only have 2nd to 7th round picks
  • The bidding currency is that year's draft picks (of course whatever picks you actually have after all the trades etc.)
    • The worth of each pick is equal to 211 181 minus Pick# (example: 1st pick is worth 210 points31st pick is worth 150 points, 80th pick is worth 130 101 points, and 210th pick or the last pick of the draft is worth 1 point)
    • The math works so (assuming team's haven't traded any picks) the lowest ranking team would have 840 630 bidding points total, and every rank higher would have 7 6 points less than the previous rank
  • This is a silent auction: each team provides what they are willing to pay for each of the top 10 31 picks, and all bids for each pick are revealed at the same time
  • The winner of each pick would have to give up all the picks their bid, every other team's picks below the given up picks get bumped up by a position to fill up the empty spots; at the end of the auction, all the picks that have opened up at the bottom (since the picks above have been bumped up to fill the empty spot of original winner picks given up in auction) get redistributed amongst all teams based on reverse of standings pay whatever price they bid to the team that held that draft position before the auction (the "holder")
  • The bidding resolution steps are as follows:
    • Pick 1 bids get resolved first
    • The team with the highest price wins the pick and pays the price to the original pick holder
    • If the original pick holder has the highest bid, they give up all the picks they have used as their bid price (replaced with lowest possible picks: last 7th round picks), and everyone else's picks bumps up to fill those picks
    • The tie-breaker goes to the team that finished lowest in standing
    • Then Pick 2 bids get resolved 
    • If the team that won pick 1 has used up any of the picks included in their bid for other picks, those bids are disqualified now only have available picks (so their values are reduced by the already used up pick). Alternatively, you could only allow one auction win per team, in which case all other bids of the winning bidder are disqualified
    • Continue until all 10 30 auctions have been resolved

 

 

An example (say for 2016 draft):

  • Obviously Matthews is very highly regarded, followed by Laine and then by Puljujarvi and then closely by Dubois and Tkachuk 
  • Some teams might be willing to give up all of their picks to have Matthews, while they probably wouldn't in a draft like 2017
  • For a simple example, let's assume 3 teams only are bidding for pick 1 for Matthews:
    • Leafs really want Matthews so they bid all their picks: 1st (210 points), 2nd (180 points), 3rd (150p), 4th (120p), 5th, 6th and 7th... total points bid = 840 points
    • Oilers don't really need him as much so only bid: 1st (209 points), 2nd (179 points), 3rd (149p) and 4th (119p), total points bid = 660 
    • Canucks also really want Matthews and bid everything they got: 826 points
    • So the winner here is Leafs, but they give up all of their remaining picks, and if they had bid in any of the other auctions, their bids would disqualify (or get reduced in value, depending on which type of system we're using) since they spent the picks already; basically the price to have Matthews was all their other picks in this year's draft
  • Now for pick 2 Laine, between Oilers and Canucks:
    • Oilers bid their 1st (209p), 2nd (179p) and 6th (59p) and 7th (29p): total is 476 points
    • Canucks bid their 1st (208p), 3rd (148p), 5th (88p), 6th (58p) and 7th (28p): total is 530 points
    • So Canucks win this bid, and pays all of those picks to Oilers as the original holder of pick #2
    • The Oilers are now the "holder" of pick 3 since that was part of the price Canucks paid.. and if they included their 1st pick in any of the bids for the remaining picks, the new worth of their 1st is now 207 points instead of 208 points (since it's a 3rd now instead of a 2nd)
  • Once all top  picks auctions are resolved, any team that won their own pick and gave up picks for it, would receive the same # of picks they given up at the bottom of 7th round (the picks that have opened up since their original owners were bumped up to fill the "given up" picks)

 

 

Pros of this system:

  • No more luck based decisions, if you want a pick and you have enough worth in picks to get a player, you can get him, but you have to pay the price
  • Every team has a chance to get the top 30 picks
  • The team that loses it's pick to a higher bidder gets paid a decent return of multiple lower picks, instead of getting nothing if they lose the lottery in the current system
  • This would take out the luck part associated with good vs. bad draft years, since in good draft year where generational players are available, teams would bid a lot to get them, and so to keep that #1 pick if you're the lowest ranked team, you have to be willing to give up a lot of picks as well; and in drafts were the top picks aren't as highly valued, the lowest rank team wouldn't have to bid as much to keep their pick... this results in having either a Matthews and pretty much no other picks, or a Nolan Patrick and a bunch of lower level picks; so the total value to the lowest ranked team in each of those years is much closer than the current system

 

Cons:

  • A fairly complex strategical analysis to see what you should bid on each pick, and throughout the season as you're including picks in trades, you should consider their worth in the upcoming draft... but this complexity should be nothing that $100M+ franchises shouldn't be able to handle
  • That's all I can think of!
  • Potential for collusion amongst friendly GMs?

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, westvandude said:

Summary:

  • Here's an outline of a new entry draft system that eliminates luck based outcomes like lottery picks
  • The new silent auction system is more complicated than current system, but very interesting strategically, and much more fair than the current system
  • If you're interested, read through the Structure, and for clarity read the Example; and a short Pro vs. Con list at the end

 

 

Generally, I hate random lottery style rewards. If you win it's great, but if you lose, it's hard not to feel you've been treated unfairly, specially if the prize is worth a lot. I didn't just feel this last year for Canucks, but any year a lottery team wins like McDavid's year. You can now see what a major difference that one pick makes between Oilers and Sabers to be playoff teams, and that pick was purely luck-based!

 

In a salary cap league, IMO tanking should be considered a legitimate strategy with its downsides to consider (losing mentality, etc.), so I would be happy with a pure standing-based draft positions (i.e. no lottery at all).

 

But say you wanted to not reward tanking (the same idea behind current lottery system... so still lower teams have an advantage, just not as much as a no lottery system).

 

Here's a radical proposal that I think would be quite interesting from a strategic point of view, but also from a fairness point of view:

 

Structure:

  • Initial draft positions are set with the reverse of standings as is right now (so the last team is the "holder" of pick 1)
  • BUT, every team has an opportunity to bid on top 10 picks
  • The bidding currency is that year's draft picks (of course whatever picks you actually have after all the trades etc.)
    • The worth of each pick is equal to 211 minus Pick# (example: 1st pick is worth 210 points, 80th pick is worth 130 points, and 210th pick or the last pick of the draft is worth 1 point)
    • The math works so (assuming team's haven't traded any picks) the lowest ranking team would have 840 bidding points total, and every rank higher would have 7 points less than the previous rank
  • This is a silent auction: each team provides what they are willing to pay for each of the top 10 picks, and all bids for each pick are revealed at the same time
  • The winner of each pick would have to pay whatever price they bid to the team that held that draft position before the auction (the "holder")
  • The bidding resolution steps are as follows:
    • Pick 1 bids get resolved first
    • The team with the highest price wins the pick and pays the price to the original pick holder
    • If the original pick holder has the highest bid, they give up all the picks they have used as their bid price (replaced with lowest possible picks: last 7th round picks), and everyone else's picks bumps up to fill those picks
    • The tie-breaker goes to the team that finished lowest in standing
    • Then Pick 2 bids get resolved 
    • If the team that won pick 1 has used up any of the picks included in their bid for other picks, those bids are disqualified
    • Continue until all 10 auctions have been resolved

 

 

An example (say for 2016 draft):

  • Obviously Matthews is very highly regarded, followed by Laine and then by Puljujarvi and then closely by Dubois and Tkachuk 
  • Some teams might be willing to give up all of their picks to have Matthews, while they probably wouldn't in a draft like 2017
  • For a simple example, let's assume 3 teams only are bidding for pick 1 for Matthews:
    • Leafs really want Matthews so they bid all their picks: 1st (210 points), 2nd (180 points), 3rd (150p), 4th (120p), 5th, 6th and 7th... total points bid = 840 points
    • Oilers don't really need him as much so only bid: 1st (209 points), 2nd (179 points), 3rd (149p) and 4th (119p), total points bid = 660 
    • Canucks also really want Matthews and bid everything they got: 826 points
    • So the winner here is Leafs, but they give up all of their remaining picks, and if they had bid in any of the other auctions, their bids would disqualify since they spent the picks already; basically the price to have Matthews was all their other picks in this year
  • Now for pick 2 Laine, between Oilers and Canucks:
    • Oilers bid their 1st (209p), 2nd (179p) and 6th (59p) and 7th (29p): total is 476 points
    • Canucks bid their 1st (208p), 3rd (148p), 5th (88p), 6th (58p) and 7th (28p): total is 530 points
    • So Canucks win this bid, and pays all of those picks to Oilers as the original holder of pick #2
    • The Oilers are now the "holder" of pick 3 since that was part of the price Canucks paid.. and if they included their 1st pick in any of the bids for the remaining picks, the new worth of their 1st is now 207 points instead of 208 points (since it's a 3rd now instead of a 2nd)
  • Once all top 10 picks auctions are resolved, any team that won their own pick and gave up picks for it, would receive the same # of picks they given up at the bottom of 7th round (the picks that have opened up since their original owners were bumped up to fill the "given up" picks)

 

 

Pros of this system:

  • No more luck based decisions, if you want a pick and you have enough worth in picks to get a player, you can get him, but you have to pay the price
  • Every team has a chance to get the top 10 picks
  • The team that loses it's pick to a higher bidder gets paid a decent return of multiple lower picks, instead of getting nothing if they lose the lottery in the current system
  • This would take out the luck part associated with good vs. bad draft years, since in good draft year where generational players are available, teams would bid a lot to get them, and so to keep that #1 pick if you're the lowest ranked team, you have to be willing to give up a lot of picks as well; and in drafts were the top picks aren't as highly valued, the lowest rank team wouldn't have to bid as much to keep their pick... this results in having either a Matthews and pretty much no other picks, or a Nolan Patrick and a bunch of lower level picks; so the total value to the lowest ranked team in each of those years is much closer than the current system

 

Cons:

  • A fairly complex strategical analysis to see what you should bid on each pick, and throughout the season as you're including picks in trades, you should consider their worth in the upcoming draft... but this complexity should be nothing that $100M+ franchises shouldn't be able to handle
  • That's all I can think of!

 

 

 

I rather the teams not in the playoffs play a small round robin tourney for the first overall.  It can coincide with the playoffs so it would be basically extending the season for every team.  Or not allow a team to get the 1st overall pick if they already had one within the 5 years.

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This is really thinking outside the box, I give you credit for that.

 

I'd be a bit concerned that teams in full tank will really sell things off solely for "currency" for the draft which defeats the purpose of a lottery. 

 

I still like some variation of the worst is first or lottery but I really get tired of seeing Edmonton, Arizona, Colorado, etc always in the hunt. Edmonton appears to have gotten past that but these other teams need to be addressed. Teams should only be allowed 3 top 5 picks within a 5 year period. Anymore and they drop to the last lottery position.

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29 minutes ago, westvandude said:

Once all top 10 picks auctions are resolved, any team that won their own pick and gave up picks for it, would receive the same # of picks they given up at the bottom of 7th round (the picks that have opened up since their original owners were bumped up to fill the "given up" picks)

So... if I am reading this right, all you would have to do is trade for an extra pick ahead of the draft and then you could outbid anyone that hasn't done the same.

 

And if that didn't happen, the worst team would simply have to bid all of their picks.  They would get the first overall pick, and then they would get all their picks back anyways, because they were in the first position originally.

 

I don't see that this would resolve anything.

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19 minutes ago, Tre Mac said:

Or not allow a team to get the 1st overall pick if they already had one within the 5 years.

I wouldn't mind a rule (or rules) around having so many top 5 picks in consecutive years, the extreme tanking of the Oilers was getting a bit out of hand 

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15 minutes ago, goalie13 said:

So... if I am reading this right, all you would have to do is trade for an extra pick ahead of the draft and then you could outbid anyone that hasn't done the same.

 

And if that didn't happen, the worst team would simply have to bid all of their picks.  They would get the first overall pick, and then they would get all their picks back anyways, because they were in the first position originally.

 

I don't see that this would resolve anything.

Bingo. So the team that tanks the hardest by selling all their vets and finishing last wins the silent auction, and then gives all the picks they bid back to themselves.

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Tanking is embarrassing to the sport, and no draft structure should encourage it.  No one is going to watch hockey if they know their team is going to throw the game just to get a better draft position.  They need to at least have the illusion that they're trying to win. 

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9 minutes ago, The Sedge said:

Tanking is embarrassing to the sport, and no draft structure should encourage it.  No one is going to watch hockey if they know their team is going to throw the game just to get a better draft position.  They need to at least have the illusion that they're trying to win. 

No one will watch their team for a year - ok 

 

Gets a player named Connor Mcjesus or franchise player, and you have all your fans back (y) 

 

Couple years of suffering = years of success. I see tanking as worth it. 

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1 hour ago, Where's Wellwood said:

Doesn't really seem fair that a team needs to give up potentially all their picks to pick where they were positioned anyway.

well a good strategy for that team might be to lose that pick

and get the multiple pick compensation instead

the team could end up with a lower 1st round pick and a double pick in each round thereafter

pretty decent compensation for losing their original draft order placement

 

this is a pretty interesting alternative to present random draft selection system

where the losing team (nucks last year) get nothing for their drop in draft position

 

perhaps a tweek on the current random draft selection process

is that a team is compensated with an additional 2nd round pick (at the mid point of the 2nd round) for every draft position they lose in the first round through the lottery

(if you slip from 3rd overall to 5th overall, you get the 5th pick plus 2 second round picks in the middle of that round)

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And if the next best bidding team only bids a 3rd and a 4th? It's a silent auction, so you'd never know the return. The assumption in this structure should be that the last place team would be the one to bid highest for the 1st overall, so outside of that you might as well make a moderate bid only just in case it goes through. Any other team wouldn't bid all their picks for instance to try and win but then lose them if they somehow do.

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25 minutes ago, The Sedge said:

Tanking is embarrassing to the sport, and no draft structure should encourage it.  No one is going to watch hockey if they know their team is going to throw the game just to get a better draft position.  They need to at least have the illusion that they're trying to win. 

True.

 

The problem is, sucking is not always intentional.  Some teams just come by it naturally.  There has to be some hope that the team will eventually be able to climb out of the basement.  The draft gives that hope.  Unfortunately, the system that tries to help teams get back to being competitive also rewards teams that tank.

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There was a method that I heard last year, forget who mentioned it, but I really like it and feel like it would prevent fans from wanting their teams to lose down the stretch.  

 

Basically as soon as a team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, points earned after that point go towards the draft. The team with the most draft points get the best odds in the draft. 

 

The worst team still has the best chance because they are playoff eliminated first but this way the eliminated teams are still playing for something.

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1 minute ago, Conscience said:

There was a method that I heard last year, forget who mentioned it, but I really like it and feel like it would prevent fans from wanting their teams to lose down the stretch.  

Basically as soon as a team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, points earned after that point go towards the draft. The team with the most draft points get the best odds in the draft. 

 

The worst team still has the best chance because they are playoff eliminated first but this way the eliminated teams are still playing for something.

Still doesn't work. Teams who are genuinely bad wouldn't earn many points even if they were eliminated, and teams out of the playoff race trying to get something back for pending UFAs would be hurting their chances at the top pick. I guess they could flip from being sellers to buyers in an effort to try and win remaining games, but then that'd cost them picks and prospects as well which is counter-intuitive to a team that's probably rebuilding.

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1 hour ago, goalie13 said:

So... if I am reading this right, all you would have to do is trade for an extra pick ahead of the draft and then you could outbid anyone that hasn't done the same.

 

And if that didn't happen, the worst team would simply have to bid all of their picks.  They would get the first overall pick, and then they would get all their picks back anyways, because they were in the first position originally.

 

I don't see that this would resolve anything.

I think the long post may have caused this point to be missed, but if the original holder wins their pick, they lose all of the picks they used as bidding price (as payment for having the high pick):

 

  • If the original pick holder has the highest bid, they give up all the picks they have used as their bid price (replaced with lowest possible picks: last 7th round picks), and everyone else's picks gets bumped up 
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10 minutes ago, goalie13 said:

True.

 

The problem is, sucking is not always intentional.  Some teams just come by it naturally.  There has to be some hope that the team will eventually be able to climb out of the basement.  The draft gives that hope.  Unfortunately, the system that tries to help teams get back to being competitive also rewards teams that tank.

Most of the time there is nothing intentional about losing other than the Leafs of last year and the Sabres and Coyotes of the previous year. Teams normally just suck because of inept management, key injuries throughout the season and unanticipated performance  declines from key players. I understand the premise of wanting to give the bottomfeeders hope through the draft process but I don't think it is always the team with the bleakest future that finishes at the bottom of the standings. How many years has the media been asking if this will be the Oilers year because of all the perceived young talent they had/have. The point is that they did not need that same hope as other teams that did not have that level of prospects. The same could be said for the Coyotes this year....is their future bleaker than the Canucks? Or even the St. Louis Blues for example?

IMHO teams that miss the playoffs should all have an equal opportunity with the draft lottery. If I'm an owner of the 19th place team I have lost as much playoff revenue as the 30th place team and I don't want to see them with an advantage to get a McDavid so they are going to be better than my team the next year and get their playoff revenue.

 

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One of the main purposes of this system would be to create a market for the top picks, so a year where a generational player is in play like McDavid or Matthews, one team doesn't get lucky to win that lottery, and instead they would have to pay a higher price in picks in order to get such a fundamental player that everyone else also wants. 

 

The current system is just way too luck-based. From lottery draws, to which year your team sucks to draft high and if there are as good of a top draft picks as previous years. 

 

With a system like this, really good players would cost a lot of picks regardless of who wins it. 

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6 minutes ago, westvandude said:

I think the long post may have caused this point to be missed, but if the original holder wins their pick, they lose all of the picks they used as bidding price (as payment for having the high pick):

 

  • If the original pick holder has the highest bid, they give up all the picks they have used as their bid price (replaced with lowest possible picks: last 7th round picks), and everyone else's picks gets bumped up 

OK, so what if the worst team doesn't bid at all?

 

Would they still lose the first overall pick even though they never risked it by bidding?  Would they also have all the picks from the team that won the auction for 1st overall, so theoretically doubling up their picks?

 

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