Order of Draft Pick selections

[Tiger Spirit]

A caller to 3AW the other night made a suggestion that could stop the debate about clubs playing for draft picks.

I didn’t hear exactly what he said, but I believe the suggestion made was that instead of the first pick in the draft going to the 16th placed team, the team finishing 9th gains pick No. 1.

This probably makes sense in a lot of ways because why should there be a need to wait until a team hits rock bottom before gaining any advantages?  Such a system could help teams like Richmond, who have hovered in the middle reaches of the ladder, season after season, only to eventually hit rock bottom after a number of seasons going nowhere.

Had such a system been in place before now, could it have made any real difference to Richmond over the years?

And would there be any disadvantages to this system?  The only one I can think of at the moment is that, in their attempt to get into the finals, clubs could hold back on playing as many young players?  Which may not necessarily be a disadvantage anyway.

Is there any merit to such a system?

[the_boy_jake]

Some merit, although the problem at the bottom end is that there are teams down there that have an ordinary list and deserve assistance (e.g. Carlton) and others that are poorly coached and/or gutless and/or milking the system and shouldn't be helped (e.g. Hawthorn).

My idea has been that the picks are allocated as follows:

The teams, starting with the last placed team choose the first round pick that they want. As you go up the ladder, teams can only choose from the picks that have not yet been selected. Each team gets their selection for every odd round, and the opposite pick for every even round.

So lets say that the team that finshes last chooses to have the first pick. They get awarded the first pick in rounds 1, 3, 5, 7 and the last pick in rounds 2, 4, 6, 8. The team that finishes 15th may think that the player they want is going to slip through to pick 4 and can choose to have pick 4 as their first pick. They get pick 4 in every odd round, and pick 13 in every odd round. The team that finishes 14th might think that the first round and a bit is very good and the the quality tapers off thereafter, so they choose to have pick 16 as their first pick in order to have two picks when the quality is around.

So that would mean

16th: picks 1, 32, 33, 64 etc.
15th: picks 4, 29, 36, 61 etc.
14th: picks 16, 17, 48, 49 etc.

Seems pretty simple and allows some small advantage to the teams finishing last, but not enough to encourage failure. By making the decision up to the clubs, it seems to actually reward those clubs with recruiting nous even more.

[Razorblade]

Or how about just scrapping the PP system and leave it at that?

I'd like to see the AFL use the lottery system like the NBA does, but as we know the AFL has to be orginal with EVERYTHING they do!

[mightytiges]

 As the ladder stands the draft order is:

1. Hawthorn
2. Carlton
3. Collingwood
4. Hawthorn
5. Carlton
6. Collingwood
7. Essendon
8. Richmond
9. Bulldogs
10. Port Adelaide
...
20. Hawthorn
21. Carlton
22. Collingwood
23. Essendon
24. Richmond
etc...

It's ridiculous when 3 teams end up with priority picks as it punishes the sides that come 13th and just above with 3 teams taking up the best 6 picks before anyone else gets a look in and 9 out of the first 22. That's almost half!

The priority picks themselves need to be at least randomised say within the first 2 rounds so you don't get tanking as a certain club that wears B&W stripes is doing this year . I'd rather priority picks were only handed out after multiple years down the bottom which reflects a truly poor list and not just one bad year due to one offs such as a bad run with injuries.