Richmond coach Damien Hardwick says a NBA-style lottery draft system would solve any tanking issues in the AFL.

He was addressing the problem of tanking, raised when former Melbourne midfielder Brock McLean said the Demons were coached to lose games when he was with the club.

Now with Carlton, McLean said he left Melbourne because he could not be a part of the perception the club was deliberately trying to lose to win high draft picks.

Hardwick says a lottery system could be established to set up the early draft picks.

“Just bring in a lottery. At the end of the day, if your incentive (is) losing, you’re going to lose,” Hardwick said on Thursday.

“If we just bring in a lottery system like the NBA, it’s job done. Let’s not worry about delving into the past – let’s just move forward.”

The Tigers meet Brisbane on Saturday night, trying to erase the memory of last week’s loss to Carlton.

It was Richmond’s third defeat by less than a goal in three weeks but Hardwick said he had encouraged his players to remain upbeat.

“The first couple of days were pretty tough but the one thing we try to take out of it is the emotion as much as possible,” he said.

“We go through a process as well as we can and figure out the reasons we did things well and did things poorly,” he said.