From my experience building a team that is succesfull over a long period of time takes more than god draft picks. It also takes good trades. Perhaps Peer Pressure should be the most effective deterrent to keep people from tanking by putting star players on the farm and littering their roster with overused players.

If you tick off all the owners in your league and noone wants to trade with you then having the best draft picks will only get you so far.

There are some teams who are doing their best and still losing. These teams NEED the draft picks or else they will never have any chance of rebuilding their teams.

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Note: I am playing in TRAD leagues. Perhaps the effect of pick order is more important in REAL TIME leagues, I don't know.