Riley: Non-playoff teams should play tournament for No. 1 pick

Everyone in the league has their own solution to address tanking, but Miami Heat president Pat Riley's suggestion might be the most entertaining.

Riley wants non-playoff teams to play a tournament for the right to select first overall, instead of having a random lottery with weighted odds determine their fate.

"What I'd like to have is a two-out-of-three lottery playoff ... The lottery teams play a tournament for that (No. 1) pick," Riley told Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel on Monday.

Riley added, "No more tanking at the end ... so play for it. Let's have a little playoff for the top pick in the draft."

The current rules reward those at the bottom and penalize teams that come closest to making the playoffs. A franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers that had no aspirations of winning landed the second pick for a third straight year, while a team like the Heat that refused to tank after a 11-30 start got the No. 14 selection following a brilliant finish.

Under Riley's structure, there would always be an incentive to build the strongest roster possible. The Heat didn't make the playoffs, but their roster would have ranked as a favorite to win the lottery sweepstakes and take the top pick. At the very least, it would create an entertaining product.

But there are flaws, too, with Riley's plan. Low playoff seeds might choose to tank into the lottery if they prefer a strong chance at a pick over a small chance in the postseason. This structure might also leave poor franchises without any chance of upward mobility through the draft.