00:00I don't know that this new system of the lottery the last five years is necessarily working,
00:04but it has prevented teams in the bigger markets and also teams in that tank mode from appearing
00:10in the lottery three straight years. I have a feeling we're headed there in the NBA. I have
00:15a feeling Utah in particular, Washington as well. I think starting next year, there's going to be
00:21some new collectively bargained lottery that's going to prevent teams from doing this multiple
00:27years. Do you feel the same way here or do you think, hey, if this is the way it is,
00:32it's the
00:32way it should be? What do you think is headed? Yeah, they seem dead set on overhauling the
00:41current lottery format. And I strongly disagree with that decision because you have a current
00:50format that a team like the Brooklyn Nets, whose only real chance that I feel turning things around
00:55is getting, you know, a superstar with a high draft choice. We're awful again, and they
01:01are drafting sixth in a draft where, you know, you're desperate to end up with a top four
01:06pick. And you end up where, you know, a team like Oklahoma City last night, people went into
01:13wondering, are they going to end up with the top four pick? Maybe the first overall selection.
01:18Well, that would be likelier in their new format. And, you know, this Craig very well with the
01:24Dodgers. Dynasties can be good, but they can very quickly become off-putting. The Dodgers
01:31signing Kyle Tucker was very off-putting. Now, it's quieted down because the Dodgers aren't
01:37winning, you know, at a 120-game pace, right? I think they have like the seventh best record
01:41in baseball, kind of funny enough. But if OKC go back-to-back championships and add a top
01:48five pick, it's very off-putting here. And I feel like that's what the NBA is flirting with.
01:54And I feel like they're ignoring them increasing the likelihood of something like that being on
02:01the table in the future, Craig. Yeah. I think, I don't have a counter to it, Kevin, and you know
02:06the NBA much better than me. But what I would say is there has to be a system in place
02:11that prevents
02:12the coaches from not playing their starting players in the fourth quarter, like we saw with
02:17Utah in particular. Like, to me, that's just not only insulting for people who are watching on TV,
02:24but Kevin, you can't do that to paying fans who are going to games to see players play. So, I
02:29mean,
02:29I don't know what the answer is to that, but that can't continue.
02:32Yeah. Well, I would agree with you, Craig, on that. I think, one, the system in place is they just
02:36started finding Utah. And Utah's counter wasn't, we didn't do anything. It was, well, why don't you
02:41find these other teams? Right. The NBA should be like, you're right. Boom, fine, fine, fine. Because
02:46that stuff is incredibly egregious. But I also, I go the complete other way that we should just,
02:52the NBA should copy the NFL. There is no lottery. Where you are is where you are. Because I think,
02:58because it's an odds-based thing, a team like Utah buries their head in the ground and says,
03:06get as low as possible for the odds. There was a point in the year where Utah would have,
03:09oh, we can't be as bad as Washington or as bad as Brooklyn, but we can get close. And I,
03:17now they're not going to get rid of the lottery because they're convinced basically a more drastic
03:21lottery is the fix. But I think that they're just pushing the wrong direction with all of this. But
03:27I don't know if they care, to be honest, Craig. They may just say, all we need to do is
03:32stop
03:32teams trying to lose. We don't care if we're not giving those teams a realistic chance at creating
03:39championship contenders.
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