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Enjoy.

Hi, Doug. We’re getting down to the final four. Let’s hope the injuries stop and the play continues to be exciting and compelling.

A few years ago, I’d read the NBA leadership was floating a couple ideas:  eliminating the draft, or setting a rotation where draft choices were established, irrespective of teams’ records. For example, a team would have the number one selection and the next year it’d have the last pick. Midway between number one selections, that team would have the second pick, and throughout the cycle, which is based on number of franchises (a 30-team league would have a 30-year cycle), every team would be slotted in at all spots.

The rationale was because the NBA has a salary cap, this system allows teams to plan, trade, draft and scout accordingly. Eliminating the draft is also competitively viable with a salary cap. While European sports leagues develop players without drafts, it’s the lack of a salary cap that keeps the same teams perennially strong. With a salary cap and no draft, or using the 30-year cycle, wouldn’t the onus be on ownership and management to show how good they are?

You were an observer in the draft room. Is there any talk about changes? The league needs to keep all teams relevant for every game.

Is the allure of the tank and optimistic drug of a lottery-winning pick changing team fortunes too grand to give up for the entertainment and news buzz of the league?

My greatest wish to increase competitiveness, entertainment and eliminate tanking is a shortened NBA regular season. While you don’t think that’s going to happen, what’s the tipping point? More injuries? More money?

Thank you for your Pacers and Pascal Siakam reflection. Within the greatest leaguewide skill level ever seen, perhaps the Pacers are on to the next revolutionary phase of the NBA game: playing a full-court 48-minute game requiring a 10-player rotation. The Cavaliers were worn down playing the Pacers. Even with medical advances, injuries are accumulating, especially to stars playing heavy minutes. An unwavering ability to focus seems to be climbing the charts as a required skill and necessity for players entering the league. (Is this what Scottie Barnes needs to improve?) The Pacers team fitness and concentration is at such high skill levels. They’re leaving the star-centric team model gasping for air. The Oklahoma City Thunder is on the same path, and the Golden State Warriors, who turbocharged the last revolution, tinkered with it. Impressive to watch. Hard to emulate.

I’d love to see a Pacers-Thunder championship series. Great basketball, no injured stars so far, and we have rooting interests on both teams.

—Paul from Port

As I mentioned in the Insider this past week, there is some chatter about lottery changes, but it’s not really loud and I didn’t get the sense anyone is really pushing now for major change. And frankly, I don’t think there’s a need to. History — no worst team has got the No. 1 pick since the odds were flattened four or five years ago — should show teams that blatantly tanking for an entire season doesn’t work. Perhaps a slight tweak in the odds between the worst three and the 11 other non-playoff teams might be a consideration, but that’s about it.

I do think the allure of Cooper Flagg’s potential created an outlier this season, too.

I’m typing this Saturday and am with you on wanting a Pacers-Thunder final. Fun teams that play an entertaining, team-based style. Of course, 10 or so more games of Nikola Jokic’s brilliance wouldn’t be too bad, either.

I notice you mentioned this week that the Raptors are going to Spain this summer, and I think they did the same thing somewhere in Florida last summer.

I also know you weren’t there — I don’t think any media was — but is it a full-blown training camp with two-a-days and everything?

That seems a bit much and I don’t think the players association would approve.

—Steve in Hamilton

No, it’s nothing like that. And technically, attendance is completely voluntary and officially arranged by the players rather than by the franchise.

Lots of teams — I’d venture to say the vast majority — have sessions like it at some point every summer, although not many get 100 per cent attendance like pc28����did last summer.

Did the league gamble and wait for Game 7 of this series to announce whether Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or the Joker are the MVP? Surely they have to take advantage of the moment, even if they couldn’t plan for it?

—K�����

You’d like to think it was good planning or good fortune, but nope.

The awards announcements are the domain of TNT, so I don’t expect the MVP to be made public before Game 1 of the East final on Wednesday night at the earliest. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

The drama and excitement of the draft lottery has now passed. Given the Raptors fell to ninth, it is hard to imagine this team being fundamentally better next season.

Yes, they will likely have a better win/loss record given the addition of Brandon Ingram (though worst case he spends considerable time on IR, or best case he has a managed workload) and fielding their top players every game and in tight situations.

What can the Raps do to really take the next real step forward given their cap reality?

—Michael McKnight

A hill I am willing to die on is that the addition of a nine-year veteran who has averaged more than 20 points a game in the last six seasons, who has shot better than 34 per cent from three-point range for three straight seasons and has an effective field-goal percentage of 50 per cent or more in each of the last seven seasons is an absolutely fundamental improvement. Now, how Brandon Ingram fits with this group is an unknown, but that’s all. Every expert in the world can guess that it won’t work. I’d rather wait and see if it does.

So, they will be fundamentally better. And that’s a step, isn’t it?

They won’t be championship favourites or anywhere close to it, but they will be better and that’s what you want: incremental growth. Step by step, always with hiccups. But all that is much different than, say, 2015-16 here.

The “cap reality” is not an issue. It’s easy to get around it through trades, individual development and working on the edges.

It seemed very implausible that the Mavericks would trade Luka Doncic. The explanation they gave for trading Doncic also seemed implausible.

That the Mavericks traded Doncic without offering him to other teams to attempt to get greater value also seems a little implausible.

That the Mavericks would trade Doncic to the Lakers — of all the teams out there — seems very, very implausible. It guaranteed criticism of the trade.

That the Mavericks won the NBA draft lottery — this too was statistically very implausible.

One aspect of the league being a players’ league is the feeling that the fix is in against your city. We get an article every year about how hard (sob, sob) it is to be in Toronto. We see that the top-notch players either won’t sign in pc28����for more money or leave quickly if they are traded here. It’s irritating. At the same time, in the NBA too many good players congregate to one of four or five teams. And those teams win a disproportionate amount of the championships.

When Doncic was traded, it seemed rather bizarre. It was like the NBA decided LeBron James needed one more chance at a championship. It was like the NBA decided they need a superstar to replace James in L.A. I know you’ll say the NBA had no role. I’m talking about the feeling, not the reality. Yet another superstar on the Lakers.

People prone to conspiracy theories will see the Mavericks getting the first pick as the explanatory missing piece making sense of the otherwise nonsensical trade. They had a 1.8 per cent chance of getting the first pick.

I’m not prone to conspiracy theories. I don’t believe the NBA was in on this, and I don’t believe this was in any way part of the Doncic trade. I do think it is incredibly bad timing and a strike against the lottery system.

My only question: How much was bet on the Mavericks winning the lottery by people not including those living in Dallas? (I know, neither of us know the answer to this.)

My real question: Do we trade up to get a higher draft pick? Or do we trade our pick to get a young decent centre?

—Jeff V.

First, this: ”At the same time, in the NBA, too many good players congregate to one of four or five teams. And those teams win a disproportionate amount of the championships.”

Those days don’t exist any more, and there have been six different champions in the last seven seasons (if Boston loses, and I’m answering this Friday afternoon) so the second point is demonstrably wrong.

As for the trade, unless they could deal for Cooper Flagg — and no one will be able to — there’s no one there any team would feel they must try to trade for. I’d suggest right now there’s a tiny chance the Raptors would trade back, but zero chance they’ll move up and an overwhelming belief they’ll pick at No. 9. Whether that’s a centre or not is unknown, but my spidey sense is that it won’t be. It’ll be a good shooting four to groom, and they’ll find a backup five in the G League or summer league.