How much are the new lottery rules affecting off-season moves?
I wonder how much the new lottery rules are affecting off-season decisions, I think it changes a lot of the decision-making process for how you construct a team for the next season. With the previous rules, you were essentially trying to either construct a playoff-level team, or the worst team in the league, because those were really the two best ways for the season to be a net positive for the team. Playoffs for obvious reasons, and tanking for the best lottery odds.
Now with the flattened lottery odds and relegation, every team is incentivized to be as good as possible, even if that doesn't mean making the playoffs. I feel like that might encourage GMs to be more proactive about making moves for good players, because even if it's a bad fit, they still raise the team's floor and that's basically all that matters now.
I think it also changes how you value certain players as assets, guys like Ja or Zion—who could see their stock improve a lot if they get moved to a new system—don't have the added risk of lifting you out of the better lottery odds. It drastically simplifies the math for determining if a trade/signing was a good idea or not, since you don't have to consider the opportunity cost of moving out of the best lottery odds: If the move doesn't take you to the playoffs, who cares, you've got the same lottery odds as before, and if the player you landed improved their PR, you can flip em for a profit.
Still don't know why the Hornets traded LaMelo tho, like even using this logic I can't see the reason. They must think his ankles are jello or something.