Dynasty Lottery for first overall. Does your league do it? (1 Viewer)

[habman]

After tanking issues to try to get the first overall pick in our dynasty league we are going to institute a lottery system where the worst teams get more "ping pong balls" in the lottery.

We have a 14 team dynasty league where top 6 make the playoffs.

The remaining 8 teams will enter a lottery for the top 3 drafts picks where the worst team gets 8 balls, 2nd worst gets 7 balls all the way up to the best non-playoff team getting 1 ball.

We are also going to have a toilet bowl for the 8 non-playoff teams where each win earned will get that franchise an extra ball.  So the most extra balls a franchise can earn is 3 if they win the toilet bowl.

If your league does a lottery for draft picks how has that worked out for you? 

Are there any cons to it other than the worst team not guaranteed the first overall pick?

Is the extra ball idea dumb?

Are there any other suggestions on how to do it differently?

 

[mquinnjr]

I like this a lot. Kind of like the NBA, although teams still tank. Gives you less incentive however to do so.

 

[Raging weasel]

I've been using a lottery system for 15 years and it's worked pretty well. 3 years ago I added the toilet bowl paying $25 to the winner and a separate total points during the playoffs pot for $50 to try and keep interest up. Like your extra ball for a win thing, may steal that

 

[ShamrockPride]

6 year 16 team league I'm in has done it for years now. Works well. Teams will still try and get low, but there hasn't been any blatant tanking. But I think that has more to do with the personal quality of your leaguemates themselves.

Our league let's all 8 non playoff teams have a spot in the lottery, but it's astronomically weighted for the lowest 4 teams. Teams 9-12 combined have like a 2% chance to win the #1 pick.

 

[strong]

yeah. we've never really had an issue with it, but a relatively new owner in our league benched a top 10 RB & a top 10 WR in week 12. he lost by one point. after some messages about it, he adjusted his lineup for week 13 and put in his top ranked guys, but still left a top 15 RB & a top 15 WR on the bench for... some real snoozers.

he lost both weeks, by only a handful of points. the teams that beat him got a bye and a final playoff spot.

we have an "illegal lineup" rule on the books and i can ding him his first round draft pick, but that will undoubtedly lead to some hostility in the league.

we're thinking of instituting a lottery in response, but i'm not sure if we should put it in place for the 2018 rookie draft or 2019.

 

[habman]

6 year 16 team league I'm in has done it for years now. Works well. Teams will still try and get low, but there hasn't been any blatant tanking. But I think that has more to do with the personal quality of your leaguemates themselves.

Our league let's all 8 non playoff teams have a spot in the lottery, but it's astronomically weighted for the lowest 4 teams. Teams 9-12 combined have like a 2% chance to win the #1 pick.

That's the funny thing as we have a good bunch of guys.  Our tanking issues really haven't been teams obviously tanking since we have rules against it.  It has been the bitterness caused by owners accusing each other of tanking by pointing out minor judgement calls in starting lineup submissions.  Example starting Haushaka over Tucker.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

After tanking issues to try to get the first overall pick in our dynasty league we are going to institute a lottery system where the worst teams get more "ping pong balls" in the lottery.

What would you use for the actual lottery? Is there a website that simulates the "pin pong balls".

 

[habman]

What would you use for the actual lottery? Is there a website that simulates the "pin pong balls".

We are a local league so we can do the lottery with most everyone present so I bought a bingo machine with a cage.  We will just assign sets of numbers to the franchises.  I looked into buying ping pong balls with our team logos but it was going to cost about $500 to get enough for each franchise in the league so the bingo machine made more sense.  Plus we can play bingo if things get boring!

Really though you can just put pieces of paper in a hat and draw from that.

That being said I probably have enough know how to create an online simulation if there isn't one out there already.

 

[Hankmoody]

What would you use for the actual lottery? Is there a website that simulates the "pin pong balls".

http://www.draftpicklottery.com/#weighted

 

[icehouse]

Yes, to discourage tanking. Bottom 3 teams. 

 

[NeverEnough]

Are teams still allowed to trade their draft picks after the lottery?

 

[Tool]

Are teams still allowed to trade their draft picks after the lottery?

Of course.

 

[Tool]

My main league has done lottery system for years.10 teams, only 4 playoff spots, so last gets 6 balls, 9th 5, etc.  We have an illegal lineup rule for obvious attempts at tanking.  Some mild/subtle tanking goes on but overall it works well.

 

[ShamrockPride]

http://www.draftpicklottery.com/#weighted

Yup. This is what we use.

 

[seabronc]

Anybody award draft order by potential points as a way to deal with this? Pros/Cons?

 

[cliffhuxtible]

We use a system in our longtime pseudo-dynasty league that works reasonably well:

Top 6 teams (playoff teams) slotted on the basis of final playoff performance. Picks 7-12

Bottom 6: quest for the top draft pick tournament: bottom 3 teams in each division, highest 2 score advance to semi-finals, winners of those games play each other for the top pick in the draft. The remaining teams are awarded lottery balls to determine 2-6, with the worst performing teams getting more balls.

Long story short, the ability to play for the top pick makes trying your best well worth it. At the same time, we use lottery system to try to help out teams that are truly terrible.

This is not a league with tanking issues, but this hybrid approach discourages tanking. 

 

[Spin]

We use the reverse order of potential points, for teams missing the playoffs, from weeks 1-13 to determine the top spots. 

It's impossible to tank without cutting all your top players, as even on the bench they contribute to potential points.  It's worked really well for us, and always identifies which teams really need the top pick to help be competitive again.

 

[Spin]

We use a system in our longtime pseudo-dynasty league that works reasonably well:

Top 6 teams (playoff teams) slotted on the basis of final playoff performance. Picks 7-12

Bottom 6: quest for the top draft pick tournament: bottom 3 teams in each division, highest 2 score advance to semi-finals, winners of those games play each other for the top pick in the draft. The remaining teams are awarded lottery balls to determine 2-6, with the worst performing teams getting more balls.

Long story short, the ability to play for the top pick makes trying your best well worth it. At the same time, we use lottery system to try to help out teams that are truly terrible.

This is not a league with tanking issues, but this hybrid approach discourages tanking. 

So the 7th best team, a team that likely barely missed the playoffs, gets the # overall pick?  Seems dumb to have to "win" to get the best pick as the teams that need it, usually can't win.

 

[kurtrudder]

Anybody award draft order by potential points as a way to deal with this? Pros/Cons?

yes Paragon leagues use this method of Potential Points (PP) to determine non-playoff team draft order.  The pros are that it does eliminate most tanking.  Starting lineups don't really matter though we still keep an eye on it as you don't want teams handing over W's because they are not trying to put their best team on the park each week.

The cons are that "tanking" for want of a better term becomes much more strategic and therefore more difficult to nail down. So what teams will do strategically and legitimately is that they will determine that this season they will be poor so they will build for the future.  They will trade away players for picks....players who will be scoring points for them this season so lower their PP.  The only issue our leagues have had is when the "build for the future" team makes terrible trades and gives away fantastic players who are valuable in the short and long term and don't get close to their legitimate value.

Overall, I actually don't see it as much of a con to be honest. It ensures teams keep refreshing their roster and focus on the future when required.  As long as they don't do so in firesales, then as a commish, I am happy that they are playing within the rules.

 

[kurtrudder]

We use the reverse order of potential points, for teams missing the playoffs, from weeks 1-13 to determine the top spots. 

It's impossible to tank without cutting all your top players, as even on the bench they contribute to potential points.  It's worked really well for us, and always identifies which teams really need the top pick to help be competitive again.

well said, this highlights the many positives of  using PP to determine draft order for non-playoff teams

 

[cliffhuxtible]

So the 7th best team, a team that likely barely missed the playoffs, gets the # overall pick?  Seems dumb to have to "win" to get the best pick as the teams that need it, usually can't win.

The 7th place team could win it, but they aren't guaranteed to do so. In practice, we rarely find that the worst teams "can't" win, so we don't find it dumb at all. Could be specific to our league, but we don't have many teams that are outright terrible.

 

[tangfoot]

I would quit a league that implemented this rule, unless it was much more heavily weighted toward the worst teams.

As mentioned above, Potential Points seems to be the sweet spot between tanking and rebuilding.

 

[Hankmoody]

So the 7th best team, a team that likely barely missed the playoffs, gets the # overall pick?  Seems dumb to have to "win" to get the best pick as the teams that need it, usually can't win.

Record is a terrible way to try to judge who is a "worse" team than another.  Teams get lucky or unlucky with the schedule and who they play what week all the time.  I've seen plenty of 3-10 teams that are far better than the 6-7 team that almost (or did) got into the playoffs and we've all seen the whining posts about "I am highest scorer in league and missed playoffs but the 2nd lowest got in".

Regarding the bolded, you'd be surprised how much better shape owners keep their teams in when they know they aren't going to be gifted an early pick by tanking.  No more dumping Boldin for a 4th when I know I can get draft position out of post-season wins.  So as a result, bad teams get even better offers for those types of players from contenders.  We just had a trade where a guy offered Fitzgerald for offers.  I offered a 2nd and 4th but another contender gave up two 2nd's plus a throw-in - who turned out to be Marquis Goodwin which got him a win this week.  If he's tanking he probably wouldn't have even asked for the throw-in and he certainly wouldn't have had the leverage to ask for those picks.