05-22-2023, 01:11 PMboom Wrote: Playoff bonus pools could be interesting - say, $500,000 to each player for getting in and escalating with progress - to give teams some accomplishment for making it in.

I really like this. It would probably be better to have playoff qualification outright pay a nice penny, and then maybe extend lottery picks to losers of the first round at a lower odds so teams are not only costing their players cash by missing, but they aren't a given for a top 4 pick either. I think tanking should be a bit more disincentivized, primarily through less-guarantee on draft pick odds might be nice... And if you pay for playoff qualification and round wins in an actually nice amount, it does help support the middle of the pack a bit more as they continue to get reasonable pick odds to move up in the draft, while also getting a little bit of a pay bump for not tanking full on and keeping the league a bit more balanced. I think you might be giving a lot of money to cup winners, but cash is one thing we can give top teams without really upsetting the balance too much, so it's probably worth it to reward middle pack teams more for at least trying to make the playoffs instead of full tanking. Even if you move back as a full-tanking team, there have consistently been really strong players available in the top 10~ for a while now, but you don't get the guarantee of a super high value pick you can try to sell to accelerate your full-tank rebuild anymore.

Qualification: 1M?
Round Win: 500K?

Losers of Round 1 get some balls in the lottery to move up at a low rate?