Back when his draft reform idea was intriguing the league between 2011 and 2012, Michael Zarren operated from a simple principle.
Fans should not root for a spot in the lottery instead of their teams.
“I don’t like the idea that fans should be rooting for their team to lose,” the Celtics assistant general manager said last week. “I don’t think that’s a great part of our experience — I won’t comment on management — but just the thought it might be perceived by your customers that it’s better to lose is not a good thing.”
Zarren developed several variants of a wheeled system, with every team rotating through a guaranteed chance at winning a top-three or top-five pick once every five or 10 years, as a way of eliminating records from the draft process.