Lottery Reform, Part the Third. From Li Rui:

I think most observers agree that the home-court advantage in playoffs encourages good teams to play hard. In the same way, any reward for losing within a season, whether it be pick order, greater chance of a higher pick, or whatever, encourages bad teams to lose more. This has been, and is, definitely, an eyesore. Any solution had better remove this reward for losing to be viable. Here’s my idea:

Teams that miss the playoffs get one ball each in a lottery. For each consecutive year a non-playoff team has missed the playoffs, an extra ball is awarded to that team, up to (for example) 3. Draw the teams 1-14. Any extra balls reset once you make the playoffs. There would be no incentive for bad teams to lose more in a season (although they may still play kids for experience), but every down year increases the chances for a high-draft-position-inspired upswing.

Lottery Reform, Part the Thousandth. From Jimmy Chow:

All 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs get seeded 1-14 with the team with the worst record being the No. 1 seed, the second -worst team gets the No. 2 seed, etc. If a team does not own its first-round pick, it may forfeit their entry into the tournament. In a full tournament, the 1st and 2nd seed get byes into the second round.

Seeds No. 3-8 get put into the tournament bracket in a standard way. In ascending order, starting with the highest seed that needs to play in the first round (usually that would be the 3rd seed), that team gets to select its opponent from the remaining teams not already in the bracket.

Another method is to randomly draw for the rest of teams, but either way it would make more interesting television than the draft lottery reveal. Rounds are best-of-3. After each round, the eliminated teams get awarded Draft slots. Starting with the lowest seed that was eliminated in that round, that team will receive the next available draft slot that hasn’t been already awarded. For example, if after the first round, the 14th, 12th, 10th, 9th, 8th and 7th seeds were eliminated. Then the 14th seed would get the fourteen pick, the 12th seed would get the 13th pick and so on.

Lottery Reform, Part Infinity. From Roland Beech:

The Mavs/Cuban comments are a particularly interesting case — by many measures (and even Hakeem Olajuwon’s recent comments) the team has been “playing hard.”

I like various complex “hard play” metrics, but a very simple one I like is “Fighting Loss %.” It this shows is in what percentage of a team’s losses was it at least a close game (within 5 points in last five minutes)

… at the All-Star break the Mavs were No. 2 in the NBA with a 70 percent fighting loss percentage (28 of their 40). This is remarkable, it’s always good teams at the top — only one team in the last 10 years with a losing record had a Fighting Loss percentage of 70 percent or more (the 2012-13 Washington Wizards).

Here’s the kicker — hard playing/high Fighting Loss percentage teams (as in 60 percent or better) with a losing record often bounce back big with double-digit increases in wins in the next year. Toronto, Boston and Golden State all had exactly these kind of seasons to kick-start turnarounds and now they are three of the top four teams in the NBA (Houston also had high FL seasons, but never fell below .500).

Maybe the real key to getting great in the NBA isn’t tanking for picks but a habit of playing hard even when you’re losing, which eventually breeds winning.

Sadly, the supposed “fix” by tweaking the lottery slightly will not have any real effect, in fact could make it worse. The more the top 3 picks are randomized, the more important it is to be awful to guarantee a top 4 pick.

The real fix is simple — keep the Draft but make it a simple in/out lottery: all 14 non playoff teams have the exact same odds for spots 1 to 14

— no incentive to lose games

— don’t reward the really bad/mismanaged teams

— an exciting Draft lottery show. Imagine a year where a player like Anthony Davis is coming out and 14 teams have the exact same odds of landing the pick!

— can take a middle-of-the-pack/hard-trying team and make them great … how it should work!

Let me take the last first. Roland, for those who don’t know, is a legend in the analytics game, the founder of the website 82games.com who was thought of so much he has had subsequently VP jobs with both the Mavericks and the Kings in recent years. And as evidenced by his Fighting Loss stat, he keeps on top of these kinds of things. (Thank you for writing, Roland!) It should thus not surprise that of all these ideas I think his is the best and most equitable.

Returning to the simple, one ball/card per Lottery team system, which the NBA used until 1990, when it went to the weighted system to give the team with the worst record the best chance to get the first pick, would also be my preference for fixing the current system. As Roland wrote, the beauty of a system like this is that it would fully democratize the Lottery and give all teams in all situations a chance to get better fast.

For the sake of argument, let’s say New Orleans stumbles down the stretch and misses the playoffs by a game or two. How great would it be for the future of basketball there if the Pelicans got the first-or second-pick and could add a great young player to team with Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday and/or DeMarcus Cousins if he re-signs? But it would also provide immediate help to the Phoenixes and Sacramentos of the league if they were so lucky. Most importantly, as Roland wrote, going back to the old system would eliminate any benefit from tanking — and, thus, would likely end most of it around the league. Which is the best possible outcome for everyone.

We discuss guns. Again. From Scott Young:

On March 5th as part of a response to a Mailbag question you said:

‘If it will make the discussion go easier, why don’t we just stick with the AR-15? Can we agree that such a weapon serves no legitimate “home defense” purpose?’

I would like to question a few assumptions inherent in that response: 1) that the discussion should be easy, 2) a rifle (or any other legally owned firearm) has a sole purpose for home defense such that if it does not serve that purpose it can be banned with impunity, and 3) that gun ownership (and the Second Amendment) are about personal defense in the first place. I thought (briefly) about engaging you in a long, well-thought out, difficult discussion on the relationship between government and citizenship, but the last couple of Mailbags you have posted have displayed a lack of appetite for such an email.

So I will leave it at this (with the invitation to open a more complete dialogue if you have the time, energy, and desire): The Second Amendment was placed in the Constitution to protect the citizens (you, me, all Americans) from tyranny. The tyranny of the United States government. This allows the possibility that perhaps, maybe, there might arise a government that would shockingly abuse its power to such a great extent that armed rebellion (similar to the one the framers had ever so recently engaged in) might become necessary again.

As a final question for you to respond to, or answer in a Mailbag, or simply to meditate on is this: what level of legal gun ownership are you willing to live with (and why)?

Well, let’s unpack all of that, Scott. First, I do not assume that any discussion about banning certain types of guns (or, in our country, banning anything) would or should be “easy.” I would cite in response the quote attributed by most to Albert Einstein: “what is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular.” Getting Civil Rights and Voting Rights and Housing Rights for African-Americans was not “easy.” Nor was it “easy” to get women the vote. Nor was it “easy” to get same-sex marriage rights. But, in all of those cases, it was the right thing to do. So is common sense gun regulation.

The “tyranny” argument supporting the availability of all weapons for everyone is, as you no doubt know, one that has been twisted into grotesque caricature over the last few decades by a relentless push from the right wing of the American body politic, financed in large part and fanned rhetorically by the National Rifle Association (which is, by the way, its complete right to do; our country is based on the notion that if you can get enough people to agree with your position on anything, you can try and get it codified into law). But that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with that push.

Warren Burger, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appointed by Richard Nixon — he, no liberal — famously said in 1991 that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Even the late Antonin Scalia — he, also, no liberal — wrote, in the case that actually established, in the Supreme Court’s view, a Constitutional right of citizens to carry weapons in 2008, Heller vs. District of Columbia, that there were limits to the Second Amendment:

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. ‘Miller’ said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ 307 U.S., at 179, 59 S.Ct. 816. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’

I would argue that the AR-15 is a “dangerous and unusual weapon.”

And, while many cite the example of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Schenk vs. United States in 1919 that a person cannot falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theatre as evidence of the limits of the First Amendment protection regarding free speech (Schenk, a socialist, had been arrested and charged under the Espionage Act, whose limits on speech during wartime were upheld by the Court), the Court’s current position on First Amendment limits was set in a case where, ironically, the Court overturned the conviction of a Klansman for speech that had initially been viewed as advocating violence. The case, Brandenburg vs. Ohio, was heard in 1969.

Brandenburg, a Klan leader in Ohio, had invited a reporter to come to a Klan rally in 1964 in which the usual things about black people and Jews were said. Brandenburg spoke at the rally and said the usual things Klansmen say about the government being on the side of blacks and Jews and against the white man. But because the reporter was there and wrote down the things Brandenburg said, he was subsequently arrested and ultimately convicted under Ohio’s Criminal Syndicalism statute, that state’s version of a law passed by many states after World War I, most notably California. That law forbid “any doctrine or precept advocating, teaching or aiding and abetting the commission of crime, sabotage (which word is hereby defined as meaning willful and malicious physical damage or injury to physical property), or unlawful acts of force and violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing a change in industrial ownership or control or effecting any political change.”

Brandenburg hired the ACLU (!) to appeal his conviction after subsequent Ohio courts had upheld it, and in ’69, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction — and in doing so, overturned much of the precedent set in the Schenk decision. The Court held that abstract discussion of violating laws, as Brandenburg had done in his speech, could not be subsequently punished by government — with one exception:

Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. (emphasis mine)

The point is that there are, in some cases, limits to free speech, and thus, limits to even the First Amendment — of which journalists, especially, are quite protective. And, as Scalia wrote in supporting Heller, there are limits to the Second Amendment as well. (There are limits to just about all the Amendments; police cannot enter your home and search it, as enumerated in the Fourth Amendment — unless they have probable cause and can get a warrant from a judge to do so.)

I would not support any law or law enforcement body that tries to take away legally purchased handguns (and I would include in this automatic/semiautomatic handguns like the Luger, Glock, Beretta, etc., that not only are used for home defense and sport, but also have historic and/or retail value). I would not support any law or law enforcement body that tries to take away legally purchased rifles (but not knockoffs of the M-16, like the AR-15, or other military weapons). I would not support any law or law enforcement body that tries to take away legally purchased shotguns (I am willing to listen on the arguments about why you’d need semiautomatic/automatic shotguns). I think any of those types of guns, used individually or in tandem by people who have been properly trained to use them, are more than adequate enough for home defense, and certainly should be free to be used for hunting, target shooting and the like.

I draw the line at guns like the AR-15, that are not, as much as you or others may argue, designed for hunting, or home defense, or anything of the sort. They are designed to kill as many human beings as possible in as short an amount of time as possible. They are weapons of war, which were designed to be used on a battlefield, not to be purchased by teenagers or the mentally ill. Fox News contributor Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters — he, he writes for the third time, no liberal — just wrote that these types of weapons should be banned from civilian use.

I support a ban on the AR-15. I also support slowing down the process of legally purchasing other guns. The reasoning is the same as it would be for someone who wants to buy a car, or a house, or who wants to become a lawyer, or a doctor. No one says ‘why can’t I become a doctor in three days?’ We all understand that such an important undertaking requires that you demonstrate, over a period of time, that you are competent and trustworthy enough to handle the job. We all understand that buying a car requires you to demonstrate that you can drive well enough to use one, that you have enough money to buy one and can make the payments, and that you can purchase insurance to protect yourself and others in case of an accident. Buying a gun should require, at the least, similar demonstrations of fitness. In Japan, it takes four months to get a gun, during which time prospective buyers have to take classes in gun ownership and use, visit their local police, and are thoroughly investigated to see if there are any red flags in their background, if they can properly lock and store the weapon(s) in their homes, and the like. And then, they get their gun.

I applied for the Global Entry program a few years ago, which allows for expedited security through airports around the world. I had to meet with and be interviewed by law enforcement. I had to wait a few weeks so that they could check me out. Which they did. Eventually, I got my Global Entry card. I did not ask, ‘why can’t I get my card in 48 hours?’ If you are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide in your past, why would that kind of procedure to get a gun be a problem for you? And before you ask, no, it would not catch every crazy person who wanted to buy a gun. But it would catch more of them.

Similarly, a ban on the AR-15 and similar types guns would not end all mass shootings. It would not end all killings associated with domestic violence. It would certainly not stop all crime. No sentient person would argue the contrary. My argument is that we have to start somewhere. There is a reason the most of the most recent mass murderers used this particular gun. No, it wouldn’t stop anyone from stabbing death, or getting killed by getting hit in the head with a shovel. When we have a spike in mass stabbing/shovel deaths, perhaps I will rethink my position.

Send your questions, comments and requests for the world’s best and worst piano playing beagle basset to daldridgetnt@gmail.com. If your e-mail is funny, thought-provoking or snarky, we just might publish it!

MVP WATCH

(Last week’s averages in parenthesis)

1) James Harden (29.7 ppg, 4 rpg, 7 apg, .564 FG, .905 FT): Making 40-burgers seem commonplace.

2) Kevin Durant (33.8 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 4.3 apg, .463 FG, .909 FT): This seems … disloyal. Where are your principles, man?

3) LeBron James (29.8 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 7.5 apg, .561 FG, .571 FT): My invite, apparently, got lost in the mail.

4) Kyrie Irving (15 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 4.5 apg, .571 FG, .1.000 FT): Uhh, we’re gonna need to take 10 here. As a matter of fact, let’s just take lunch here and come back at 2, okay?

5) Anthony Davis (27.7 ppg, 9.7 rpg, 6.3 bpg, .516 FG, 1.000 FT): Just turned 25. Ooof.

BY THE NUMBERS

54 — Years since Boston last hosted an All-Star game, a streak that will continue after the Celtics decided last week not to make a bid for the 2022 Game. Boston hosted four of the NBA’s first 14 All-Star games at the old Boston Garden, but the last of those was in 1964.

334 — Days, per Elias Sports Bureau, since the Rockets, Warriors and Cavs all lost on the same date. Each went down Friday night, to the Raptors, Blazers and Clippers, respectively — the first time that had happened on the same date since last April 10, near the end of the 2016-17 regular season.

98 — Career triple doubles for Russell Westbrook, after posting his 19th of the season Saturday in the Thunder’s win over San Antonio. Westbrook will soon become just the fourth player in history to have 100 triple-doubles when he hits the mark, joining Oscar Robertson (181), Magic Johnson (138) and Jason Kidd (107).

I’M FEELIN’ …

1) A million moons ago, Doc Rivers coached an Orlando Magic team whose leading scorers were Darrell Armstrong and Ron Mercer to an improbable 41-41 record, missing the playoffs on the last day of the season. It was a great coaching job. The job he’s doing this season with the Clippers, who might just sneak into the playoffs despite trading/losing Chris Paul before the season and moving Blake Griffin during the season and having about 11,931,104 injuries to the players that were left, is just as good.

2) My beloved American University Eagles are dancing again for the second time in four years, after beating Navy for the Patriot League championship Sunday morning! They didn’t lose a game all season at home (including a win over the Big 10’s Penn State), they set a school record for wins with 26 and they featured the Patriot League Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, along with the conference tournament MVP. Pretty great season! Congrats!

3) A Sunday seeing Tiger in red again, near the top of the leader board, getting himself back into form and ready to challenge for championships again, is a beautiful Sunday indeed.

4) Juliet Macur, a brilliant writer and journalist, writes and journals brilliantly here.

NOT FEELIN’ …

1) Utah has won six straight and 18 of its last 20 games, Rudy Gobert has been outstanding and Defensive Player of the Year worthy. Yet the Jazz is still in ninth place in the west, and outside the playoffs, this morning, tied with the Nuggets. But Utah has a great chance to move ahead of Denver and catch the eighth-place Clippers with a very favorable schedule down the stretch.

2) Enough with the LeBron billboards begging him to come play for your city. Stop groveling. He’s a basketball player, not Amazon II. Thousands of jobs aren’t going to come to town if he plays for your squad, nor will Elon Musk build a high-speed rail system for your town. Just get on with life.

3) Who in the everloving holy hell thought this was a good idea?

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Longtime NBA reporter, columnist and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here andfollow him on Twitter.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.