In this paper, we propose a method for the design of an operational architecture of a Networked Control System (NCS). We consider a control system whose main goal is to control the position of a cart moving along a rail. The implementation of the controller is done through a distributed architecture in which a shared network supports the transmission of the samples between the sensor and the controller. For efficiently handling network congestion, we propose to apply a selective sample drop policy according to a (m,k)-pattern in order to decrease the network bandwidth required by this application during network overload periods. The paper shows how to determine the values of the parameter k that preserve the stability of the system and then how to identify the value of m and the (m,k)-pattern in order to optimize the system performance.