Colts, Pacers and Lotteries

May 10, 2026; Chicago, IL, USA; A general view before the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery at Navy Pier. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

I’m not making this any sort of commentary on the Pacers’ misfortune yesterday. I only bring up the lottery, because the NBA is making strides towards reworking their draft process. The NBA is hard targeting “tanking” and it is reported that there will be three different options available for the league to choose from. Each option is going to open up the lottery to all non playoff teams, in some manner or the other. Frankly, it needs to be adopted in all major sports.

Oddly enough, in a society where participation trophies are a thing, finishing at or near a .500 winning percentage is considered mediocrity. On this site alone, much of the feeling about our GM is about his tendency toward mediocre results. Colt fans are not alone, we all heard chants in Pittsburgh to “Fi-er Tom-lin”. We all know his record of non losing seasons, but even that was deemed mediocre. The fact that mediocrity is less desirable than just plain bad, is a little hard for me to wrap my head around.

I know there are others who frequent this site who have been here from the time the Mayflower landed and some have been Colts fans for even longer than that. I had the opportunity (tongue firmly in cheek) to attend all of the home games for 26 years. This include the time B.P. (Before Peyton) It wasn’t pretty. The Colts did not win many games and were outscored by 1000 points in those seasons prior to our lightning strike. We had paper bags, we were the Dolts! One late season game provided more entertainment by watching the flight of paper airplanes, constructed from the team photo poster that was handed out, than the product on the field.

That experience is deeply imbedded and may be part of my perceived “tolerance for mediocrity”. However, I am not oblivious to mediocrity being as difficult to overcome, as sheer badness. Teams who are chronically bad, are thought of as poorly run, but the midland teams are not spared as they are reportedly in “purgatory”. Actually the comparison between the two results is the basis for the article. Why should teams who continue to be bad, be rewarded more than those who continue to be mediocre?

Being bad each year makes the Browns, Jets, and Cardinals the beneficiary of their choice of players entering the NFL out of college. But it hasn’t resulted in changing their stars. You might think that gaining that first overall pick is the ticket to righting the ship, but there is not a lot of evidence to prove this, unless you are a Colts fan. One pick atop the draft, did change our stars. Since Peyton, there have been two number one overall picks who have won a Super Bowl, but only one of them with the team that drafted them and that is Brother Eli. Ironically, his overall record of .500, would make him mediocre in many circles.

If the number one pick has been being wasted on those who most often lose, why not open it to those teams who might actually be a player away from contention? I’d be happy to see the narrative of feeling like you need to lose more to become good, just go away. I’ve sat through 1 – 15, 2 – 14, and multiple 3 – 13 seasons and before it worked out with Manning, there were many failed attempts to right the ship.

Tanking exists, although in football you would be hard pressed to find a player or coach who wasn’t trying to win. It is also hard to justify that it happens, when you see a team that would benefit from losing, still win late season games. I can’t find evidence of tanking working in the NFL. In my opinion, fans and media are far more concerned with how a team’s results affect their draft status, than anyone associated with the team. It wasn’t Jim Irsay who coined “Suck for Luck”.

I can point to MLB’s Astros and Cubs as examples of it working, but there are more examples of bad teams remaining bad. In the NBA, the 76ers even gave it a name, they called it “The Process”. Very few players are left from that process and it has been a failed experiment. Now, did Cleveland lay down to land their local hero? With the statute of limitations behind them and a couple of Gin and Tonics in there system, you might get someone who was in the room to admit that it was discussed and that it happened. OKC, like Golden State before them, have built championship level teams through the draft, but only Holmgren as a #2 could be considered a prize for laying down.

Currently, only the NBA does not give the first pick in the draft to the team with the worst record. Instead of having a system which allows the team with the worst record to automatically get the first pick, they tried making it no guarantee by just giving that team a better chance than most. This doesn’t fix anything as they are still assured of a top pick, if they lose enough games.

I’m in an old baseball league that plays a board game called APBA. It’s a keeper league that drafts the rookies each year and laying down was a problem. We had a couple of members who would not deny the fact that they intended to lose and “Win 100, or Lose 100” was the mind set. If you ask those members if a weighted lottery would work, they would tell you that they were still going to lose to get the most chances at the best pick. Keep in mind, we don’t have fans to keep happy or checks to write.

I proposed something that we have been using pretty successfully for going on 15 years now. I asked a couple of the 100 or bust members, “At what number of the draft would you decide that laying down was not worth it? We came up with the seventh pick, so we adopted that the first six picks in our draft would be a true lottery. All 16 non playoffs teams would have a 1/16 chance to get the first pick. You’d have a 1/15 for the 2nd pick and so on. After the first six slots are established by lottery, the rest of the teams are slotted by record, worst to best.

It works for us and I think that if it was presented to any league, they would find the merits. It would bring some more strategy into giving up 1st round draft picks, if you did not have some idea on whether it would be a top pick or not? It would not involve playoff teams, so you could still count on them to pick later, but for a not playoff team, trading a first round choice could be trading away the first pick in the draft. Once the order is set, deals will still be made to move up or down, depending on your situation.

The lottery could be well timed to steal focus from other sports, or could simply be completed at the owners meetings. Imagine 16 of the most powerful figures in the nation, taking turns sticking their hand in a Crown Royal bag, and pulling out a poker chip with a name on it. I got a case of beer from one of our members for pulling his pick two years ago.

So, what do you think? Would owners be receptive? Would it be better or worse than the system that has been in place for as long as any of us can remember? Is tanking a problem and would this suggestion fix it? I’m still a little butt hurt over the Pacers losing out, but that’s for another site.