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

[Conscience]

32 minutes ago, elvis15 said:

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.

I dont know, id like to see an example of it first before assuming it doesn't work.

Colorado would have a huge time perios to gain points, while a bubble team like the jets may only be able to earn a max of 4 or even 2 points once they are eliminated.

Plus i dont think a team like colorado should be rewarded for being so bad, its poor entertainment.

 

teams wouldn't buy for this draft race, as that would just keep them in the playoff race longer, and lessen their possible points.

 

[elvis15]

30 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 

But then the original holder of the 1st overall gets screwed. They either have to overbid to keep their own pick and lose a bunch of their others, or they underbid and don't get a pick commensurate with their position. And how does that work if every team gets their own bid?

[Pears]

2 hours ago, Tre Mac said:

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.

I'd like this too. Either that or just take away the lottery completely. 

[hammertime]

Honestly I hate the idea of rewarding tanking. I'd like to see the team with the best record post deadline who gutted it out and worked their bag off and still missed the playoffs rewarded with the best odds in the lotto. 

 

I understand that this makes deadline deals more difficult I don't care the deadline is BS teams retain salary and GM's can stack their teams with salary retained ufa's with games remaining adjusted cap hits it's not a level playing field it's cheep and total bs. Trades should be hockey trades to make your "team" better not golden tickets to willy wonkas stanley cup playoffs. 

 

End rant.

[hammertime]

3 hours ago, Tre Mac said:

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.

I like this idea too. Teams gotta play to win no more rewarding losers. No more participation ribbons for teams who intentionally suck. "play to win the game" or fold your freaking franchise and stop watering down the NHL with your suck!

[Ghostsof1915]

Dump the lottery, and hold a snake draft.

 

You could get 1st overall, but your 2nd rounder turns into a 62nd. Your 3rd a 63rd, etc. The best teams get the first pick in the second round. Tanking only means you get the best 1st/3rd/5th/and 7th rounders. Sure it's great when there's a clear cut 1st overall. But with this system the teams that are lousy, actually get to improve. 

The draft lottery is a gimmick, and as Edmonton and Colorado has shown (outside of McDavid), 1st overall doesn't always guarantee success. 

[westvandude]

5 hours ago, elvis15 said:

But then the original holder of the 1st overall gets screwed. They either have to overbid to keep their own pick and lose a bunch of their others, or they underbid and don't get a pick commensurate with their position. And how does that work if every team gets their own bid?

Well the idea behind this system is that you don't "own" a first round pick yet until you earn it by bidding your other picks. You just happen to have the better chance at bidding for the pick you are holding (the pick you would have gotten in a normal system) than others below you in standing.

 

So here, they either have to pay to have that pick, or they don't bid and lose that pick, but keep the rest of their picks and potentially get bumped 1 level each if the winner had paid with picks higher than theirs. Does that make sense?

 

So like if Canucks had bid their 2nd to win Toronto's 1st, Canucks get the first overall pick, and every team (including Toronto) who has picks behind Canucks's 2nd pick would get bumped up 1 position

[westvandude]

Actually on another note, imagine if you turn this into a live auction (instead of a silent auction). What a show that would be!

 

New rules:

• they have to bid for all of first round picks
• values are the same as original post
• if you win an auction, you may not bid again (so you can only win 1 auction/pick)
• at the end of the auction, all the unused picks get bumped up to fill up the empty spots of used up picks in the auction; then the rest of the empty spots at the bottom get distributed among the teams based on standings

 

So 30 picks, about 2 minutes per pick/auction, that's 1 hour of exciting and nerve-wrecking show for the fans. Everyone would be yelling at their TVs like "BID MORE YOU IDIOT!!!"

 

 

[Master Mind]

3 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

Dump the lottery, and hold a snake draft.

 

You could get 1st overall, but your 2nd rounder turns into a 62nd. Your 3rd a 63rd, etc. The best teams get the first pick in the second round. Tanking only means you get the best 1st/3rd/5th/and 7th rounders. Sure it's great when there's a clear cut 1st overall. But with this system the teams that are lousy, actually get to improve. 

The draft lottery is a gimmick, and as Edmonton and Colorado has shown (outside of McDavid), 1st overall doesn't always guarantee success. 

I would definitely be in favour of this.

 

Eliminates the potential of a rigged lottery, and doesn't reward tanking as much.

 

All while keeping it simple. While the OP may or may not be on to something, it would be too complicated for casual fans.

[Dekey Pete]

15 hours 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.

And that's why I prefer the current system.  I feel like the financial reward of bringing fans into your seats (by playing to win, even if you're not winning) outweighs the benefit of getting a slightly better percentage in the draft lottery.  The crappiest teams are still going to get the best picks every year, but there isn't going to be as much of this embarrassing race to the bottom we've seen Edmonton perfect over the past 10 years.

[elvis15]

On 3/6/2017 at 10:49 PM, westvandude said:

Actually on another note, imagine if you turn this into a live auction (instead of a silent auction). What a show that would be!

 

New rules:

• they have to bid for all of first round picks
• values are the same as original post
• if you win an auction, you may not bid again (so you can only win 1 auction/pick)
• at the end of the auction, all the unused picks get bumped up to fill up the empty spots of used up picks in the auction; then the rest of the empty spots at the bottom get distributed among the teams based on standings

 

So 30 picks, about 2 minutes per pick/auction, that's 1 hour of exciting and nerve-wrecking show for the fans. Everyone would be yelling at their TVs like "BID MORE YOU IDIOT!!!"

So, how would teams trade 1st round picks at the deadline or earlier if they don't "own" them? And if somehow they could, how could teams keep their own pick and the one they traded for?

 

I'm still not in favour of teams having to trade away other picks to get the picks they normally would based on their position in the standings. Too many reasons this doesn't work even beyond that.

[westvandude]

15 hours ago, elvis15 said:

So, how would teams trade 1st round picks at the deadline or earlier if they don't "own" them? And if somehow they could, how could teams keep their own pick and the one they traded for?

 

I'm still not in favour of teams having to trade away other picks to get the picks they normally would based on their position in the standings. Too many reasons this doesn't work even beyond that.

The whole premise for this idea or something similar is to take out luck (and therefore unfairness) in draft positioning, and rewarding good scouting and good strategic analysis. As has been shown clearly over the past several years, some years you have a generational player (McDavid), some years you have a couple generational players (Matthews, Laine) and some years you have none (arguably this year or some years before McDavid's)... if your team happens to suck at the right time AND you win the lottery, you get the generational player. And if not, you're at a major disadvantage. From a game/league design point of view, this is a major flaw that produces outcomes based on factors out of the teams' control. A good game would never have a lottery system unless there is absolutely no other better way to do it, and even then, the winner of the lottery must lose something else (and the loser must gain something else) in order balance the luck out at least a little bit.

 

I know my idea has a lot of holes, but I strongly believe in the premise behind why we need such an idea. 

 

This particular idea is based on the fact that usually the really clear better picks are the top of the first round, and for those, each team must be giving up something else to get them. In this version of the idea, no one actually owns any 1st round picks. They're all up for auction. You can't trade 1st picks, only 2nd to 7th. 

 

Not sure if it's better to limit every team to only one 1st rounder (so teams would bid more to get the highest possible one) or multiple 1st rounder (so teams would have to be more strategic with their bids, and if they can read other GMs strategies well enough, they could end up with multiple 1st rounders at good prices).

 

For example in McDavid's year, the team with the most picks (value adjusted) can guarantee to win him, but at the cost of having the rest of their picks be 7th rounders (unless the rest of the 1st round players are also valuable enough that teams pay lots of picks for). Everything else equal, Buffalo would have had him, unless they weren't willing to give up all their picks and Oilers were. 

 

[The Lock]

I think there's a point where we can start thinking too complex. This thread strikes me as an example of how more complexities in a system can lead to more problems. There are some legitimate concerns that have been brought up.

 

At the end of the day if you have a doorway, do you really need more than just a door to fit that doorway? It's one thing to streamline that door to make it more usable, but another thing entirely to suddenly throw some complex math equations that need to be solved in order for that door to open.

[Rush17]

On 06/03/2017 at 2:07 PM, westvandude said:

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?

 

 

 

why is this so complicated lol

 

how would u sell this to fans?