By Chris Linvill

     The Philadelphia 76ers are just plain awful and anyone who is a fan of basketball knows this. It is hard to watch when someone is trying to root for them but cannot stomach how bad they are.

    The 76ers are in a rebuilding phase where they are trying to get the best players possible in the next draft. Nobody knows if they are even going to get the best player, seeing as how the NBA lottery is going to be our obstacle even with the worst record.

    Last year the worst record belonged to the Milwaukee Bucks even though the 76ers tied the record for most losses in a row in NBA history last season with 26. The 76ers finished with the second to worst record.

     The NBA Lottery was put into effect in 1985 and was supposed to help prevent tanking, but that obviously isn’t working out.

    As a fan, it sucks to know that the team that I am rooting for is losing on purpose and I have to wait a whole year, or even two or three, to see them try to compete and win.

    The NBA is planning to change the draft to make tanking go away altogether but the fact is it won’t because it will still have the worst teams with the highest chance of getting the number one pick in the draft.

    Solutions are out there and I feel like the worst team should not get rewarded because they were the worst on purpose, but regardless of that, they have to get the best pick to keep the league balanced.

     The teams in the NBA are either at the top or bottom of the pack and the teams in between that don’t get much recognition or have a good shot at getting a top pick.

     The NBA Lottery, as it is now, consists of a lottery ball drawing of the first three picks with the worst record having a 25 percent chance of getting the first pick, the second worst record has a 19.9 percent chance and the third worst having a 15.6 percent chance of first pick.  After that, it drastically decreases for each team in order from worst to best record for all non-playoff teams.

    After the first three picks are selected via the lottery ball format, the rest of the picks are assigned from worst to best record automatically.

    NBA Commissioner Adam Silver proposed a new lottery draft that was voted down by the NBA owners back in Oct.  The new proposal would level out the chances of all 14 lottery teams to get a shot at the first pick and suggests that a higher amount of the picks will be drawn with the lottery ball format.

    There are many different proposals out there from the one mentioned to every team getting an equal chance at number one.  While I don’t agree with the proposal of all teams with an equal shot, there still has to be a change of the NBA Lottery to prevent tanking.

    The proposal that was voted down made it clear that teams are continuing to tank and, in fact, the 76ers are one of the votes that were against the reform because it would hinder their shot at the number one pick.

    Silver and the owners of the NBA can change this to reverse their image of a league where it is ok to lose on purpose.  It may take time to come up with a proposal for the draft that everyone agrees on, but when one is found it needs to be implemented immediately.

    When we as fans buy a ticket we want to get our money’s worth.  We don’t pay to see mediocre professionals on a team who should be good to their fans because that is the only support they have.