Rewarded for losing?

Last week the Clippers won the NBA Draft lottery, ensuring the opportunity to draft college superstar/man-beast F Blake Griffin from Oklahoma. Now although the Clippers weren't the odds-on-favorite to win the ping-pong ball lottery - with about a 17% chance - was anyone really surprised that they ended up with the top pick? During the past 25 years of the Clippers' miserable existence in Los Angeles, they have made the playoffs four times - advancing past the first round only once - but have only finished with a winning record three times. In their extended history back to the 1970 inaugural season as the Buffalo Braves, they can boast only two more playoff appearances.

In short, the Clippers are the bottom of the bucket when it comes to the NBA hierarchy, and they have been since the 70s.

That seems to go against what everyone seems to call parity in the NBA. Sure, there are cycles in which some teams have down years, but even in those down years those teams still make the playoffs or at least come close. Take the Boston Celtics, for example. In their 63 years of existence, the Celts have missed the postseason just 17 times. , a majority of which were a consecutive streak in the 90s. But the Clippers, they don't even come close.

Part of the problem may be the current system that the NBA currently employs in the form of the lottery and the Draft. It's common knowledge - or at least commonly perceived - that teams sometimes tank the last portion of the season in order to ensure a better chance at a top pick.

How about instead of rewarding teams for doing poorly, how about punishing them, so to speak?

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine that is crazy about football - soccer - about how her brother's favorite team in the English Premier League nearly got relegated to a lower league last season. In the EPL, the bottom three teams get sent down to the minors, so to speak, and three teams from the lower league come up to take their places.

What a fantastic idea! Why haven't American sports taken this same approach? Granted it may be too late to take that approach now that many American sports are well-set in their ways, but if we think that there is parity in professional sports now, actual incentive to compete - aside from money, which is currently the motivation to win - would make professional sports infinitely more interesting.

When it comes right down to it, American sports team owners would never approve this sort of system, though. For them , its all about money. If their team were to be relegated they would lose out on millions and millions of dollars. In order to compensate for this, a new collective bargaining agreement would have to be signed mandating that luxury taxes be paid by those teams in the highest league and spread out to the lower league(s).

Ultimately money would get in the way of creating a more competitive sports landscape in America. But should that really surprise anyone, because aside from the Clippers finishing in the lottery, the biggest guarantee in sports is that money will always be the foremost factor in dictating what teams and leagues do, not competition.

Think I made some great points? Did I say something that you disagree with? Anything that you think I missed? Let me know: comment below.