OKLAHOMA CITY – Billy Donovan didn’t even get close to reading the fine print. There will be plenty of time for the Bulls coach after the season ends in a few weeks
What Donovan did know was the NBA presented three different anti-tanking concepts to the board of governors that will now be discussed and broken down, and that the league was looking to add more teams into the lottery process moving forward.
The details of those three scenarios and the changes that will come to the team building landscape? That was above Donovan’s pay grade.
“I saw more teams possibly in the lottery and they are trying to get teams to compete to the best of their ability, but people are always going to look at reason to do for what’s best for their organization and how they need to go about doing it,” Donovan said on Friday. “It could also be a situation too, and I’m sure they are going to take it into consideration, if you do have a team that’s maybe very young, a lot of first-year players, they’re trying to build out of it and maybe the team’s not good enough right now, you could get caught several years even though you’re trying to put your best foot forward where you don’t get the picks necessary, so I get the incentive part but there may be some talk on what about the teams that maybe really are at the bottom, how do they move out if year after year they’re not in position through assets or accumulation of draft picks to really get out of that place? I don’t know what the right answer or solution is.”
As of now no one really does.
According to reports, the first proposal would be 18 teams in the lottery, flattened odds with the bottom 10 teams having an 8% chance of winning, while the remaining 20% of the odds distributed in decreasing order for 11 through 18 in a lottery drawing for all 18 picks.
The second proposal involves 22 teams in the lottery using a two-year record. It would involve lottery teams reaching a minimum win total floor in each season. Teams that fall short then get slotted to meet that floor.
The final proposal is again 18 teams in a five-by-five lottery where the bottom five teams have equal odds of hitting No. 1, a lottery formed from those top five, and the bottom five teams have a floor at 10. Those that fall out of the top five would then get sorted in a separate drawing.
Whichever way the league goes won’t affect the Bulls in this season’s lottery, where they will be hoping for luck to smile upon them.
Out of time
Donovan said it was an easy decision for the medical staff to shut down both Jaden Ivey (knee) and Jalen Smith (calf) for the rest of the season, simply because there was not enough time to get them rehabbed and back on the floor.
“With Jalen there was probably going to have to be another week to 10 days of rehab and then a ramp up, and then you’re moving to the end of the season,” Donovan said. “Same thing was felt with Jaden as well, where he’s made some progress and gains in strength, but he’s not all the way there.”
Slim pickings
With Jalen Smith out and Nick Richards banged up from the Philadelphia loss with a bad elbow, Donovan’s starting five against Oklahoma City was again on the small end in the frontcourt, going with Matas Buzelis, Isaac Okoro and Guerschon Yabusele up front and Tre Jones and Josh Giddey in the backcourt.