Pat Riley’s end-of-season pressers usually operate on two planes. One is grounded in the Heat's culture and the other drifting into the high-concept ether of basketball philosophy. He’ll reminisce about Adolph Rupp, invoke grit like it’s scripture, and drop just enough mystery to leave you wondering if he’s toying with the press or laying the groundwork for something bigger.
This year, while reflecting on Miami’s campaign and the broader state of the league, Riley was asked by reporter Chris Crouse about the incentive structures shaping the end of NBA seasons. Crouse floated a provocative theory of “Trying to win—being an efficiency to exploit.” Riley, never one to waste words, replied with a teaser.
“Andy has an idea to make it even more competitive at the end.”
Andy, of course, is Heat GM Andy Elisburg. And that off-hand comment might be more than just a throw away quote. It could be a breadcrumb for the future.
In the aftermath of another NBA Draft Lottery where flattened odds brought chaos and minimal satisfaction, the question reemerges. Has the league actually fixed its tanking problem? Or has it just spread the misery around more evenly?
Zach Lowe summed it up bluntly,“Sometimes chalk is gonna win, and sometimes you get chaos.”
Tanking hasn’t disappeared—it’s just evolved. And while the process-era specter still looms, maybe the NBA’s next frontier isn’t punishment for losing, but reward for effort. What if Riley and Elisburg’s “idea” was something deeper? A European-style point system designed to inject real stakes into the post "All-Star break" slog?
The Setup: A Point System That Makes Every Game Count
Imagine a system where every win after the All-Star break feels like a playoff push. Where tanking isn’t a clever rebuild tactic—it’s a liability. Where late-season apathy gets taxed, and hustle becomes currency.
Here’s the pitch:
Regulation Win: +3 points
Overtime Win: +2 points
Overtime Loss: 0 points
Regulation Loss: –1 point
Why 32 games? It’s the last 40 percent of the season where fatigue sets in and tanking quietly takes over. But under this system, the bottom half of the league wouldn’t coast into the lottery—they’d compete for it.
Tiebreakers would favor actual effort:
Head-to-head record in the final 32
Point differential during those games
Total wins in that stretch
It’s clean. It’s competitive. And it might just save the NBA’s dead zone.
Midseason Check-In: Who’s Already Out?
Let’s rewind to the 2024–25 season at the 50-game mark. By that point, some teams were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Here’s a breakdown:
Eastern Conference
10th Seed Cutoff: Chicago Bulls (21–29)
Teams like Charlotte (13–37) and Washington (9–41) were already in near-impossible territory. The Wizards would’ve needed to go 31–1. Good luck.
Western Conference
10th Seed Cutoff: Sacramento Kings (25–25)
The Jazz and Pelicans (both 12–38) needed near-perfection to leapfrog into the play-in race. Spoiler: They didn’t.
By the eye test and the math, only three teams—Washington, Utah, and New Orleans—were truly out. But under a point system? Suddenly, those last 32 games matter, even for teams without playoff hopes.
The System in Motion
Let’s model it. If teams had been awarded points across their final 32 games like so:
Scenario Points
20 Regulation Wins, 8 Reg Losses, 2 OT Wins, 2 OT Losses 56
20 Regulation Wins, 12 Reg Losses 48
17 Regulation Wins, 1 OT Win, 12 Reg Losses, 2 OT Losses 41
The margins grow wide fast. Every game becomes a ladder—or a trapdoor. Win in OT? You’re rewarded. Lose in regulation? You feel it.
Why It Works
Anti-Tanking by Design
Tanking doesn’t just fail to reward you—it hurts you. Every blowout loss is a step backward. But fight hard and lose in OT? You’re still in the game.
Urgency That Feels Real
No more April indifference. Teams like the Spurs or Hornets would be chasing momentum and lottery positioning, with their on-court effort dictating their draft odds.
Tweaks Welcome
Want more chaos? Make regulation wins worth +4. Penalize blowout losses. Reward five-game streaks. The framework is flexible—the stakes are fixed.
Lottery Implications: The Cooper Flagg Sweepstakes
Let’s say the system was implemented in 2024–25. The bottom nine teams were gunning for Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Here’s how things shook out.
Team Win Pts #1 Odds Projected Pick Player
Portland 28 14.0% 1 Cooper Flagg (Duke)
Toronto 27 14.0% 2 Dylan Harper (Rutgers)
Houston (via PHX) 16 14.0% 3 Ace Bailey (Rutgers)
San Antonio 15 12.5% 4 VJ Edgecombe (Baylor)
Philadelphia 15 10.5% 5 Tre Johnson (Texas)
Here’s the twist: Phoenix finished 25–25 at the midway point, then bottomed out. Houston, holding their pick, cashed in. In this system, that slide has visible consequences—and strategic tanking by one team could supercharge another’s rebuild.
The Big Picture
This point system isn’t a gimmick—it’s a narrative accelerator. It transforms the NBA’s quietest stretch into a high-stakes sprint, where every game, every quarter, every possession becomes a referendum on your season.
As Zach Lowe framed it on The Zach Lowe Show
“Is it good that the worst teams are increasingly sliding down the lottery? Is it good if those teams begin to realize—incrementally—that tanking isn't working well enough for us to just shoot ourselves in the foot and put our fans through misery?”
That’s the endgame. Not just lottery reform, but competitive reform. A system that nudges Utah, Washington, and Charlotte toward effort—not exile. As Lowe added,
“That goal has not yet materialized to the point where the league isn’t fining Utah—and it doesn’t pay off.”
But what if it could?
What if Pat Riley’s cryptic tease about “Andy’s idea” was more than an aside? What if the way to kill tanking isn’t punishment—but reward?
The math is clean. The incentives are real. The drama is undeniable.
So here’s the hypothetical: If the NBA wants to fix its late-season malaise—and stop pretending the lottery is a solution—this might be the spark it needs.
Ready for a late-season revolution?