Bulls’ Billy Donovan Sounds Off as NBA Considers Extreme Draft Lottery Changes

The NBA is once again confrontingthe elephant in the room — tanking — and this time, the potential response could be far more aggressive.

Commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s Board of Governors are now discussing major changes to the draft lottery, along with harsher penalties for teams that manipulate lineups, player availability and in-game rotations to lose.

Silver made it clear in February that the league is no longer looking at this as a minor issue.

Now, it appears the action part of the plan is well underway.

“I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level,” Silver said following a two-day NBA board of governors meeting, per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. So, it’s one that we take very seriously, and we are going to fix it. Full stop.”

Bulls HC Raises Real Questions About NBA Tanking

Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan offered an early look at how teams may view the proposal — and the uncertainty that comes with it.

“I saw more teams possibly in the lottery and they are trying to get teams to compete to the best of their ability,” Donovan said on Friday, per Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. “But people are always going to look at what’s best for their organization.”

That’s the balancing act the NBA is trying to solve, and Donovan made it clear there’s no easy answer.

“If you do have a team that’s maybe very young… trying to build out of it and maybe the team’s not good enough right now, you could get caught several years,” he said.

That’s where the concern comes in.

The league wants to eliminate incentives for losing. But teams at the bottom often rely on those same incentives to improve. Take them away entirely, and you risk creating a different problem.

“I don’t know what the right answer or solution is,” Donovan added.

The league has already flattened lottery odds in recent years, but teams have continued to find ways to operate within — or around — those changes. Managing minutes, resting key players, and adjusting rotations late in games have all become part of the strategy.

Expanding the lottery spreads out the odds. Penalties increase the risk.

Together, that combination could change how teams approach the final stretch of the season.

But whether it actually stops tanking is another question. As long as losing carries any benefit, teams will look for ways to take advantage.

And as Donovan’s reaction shows, the league may be closer to sparking debate than fully settling it.

NBA’s Lottery Changes Signal Bigger Shift

If the league doesn’t change the incentive structure, tanking will continue to show up in different forms.

The most notable proposal involves expanding the draft lottery beyond its current 14 teams.

The league is considering formats that would include 18 or even 22 teams, pulling in Play-In participants — and in some cases, even teams eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

One proposal would give the worst 10 teams equal odds at the No. 1 pick.

Another would introduce multiple lottery tiers, limiting how far certain teams can fall and reshaping how picks are distributed across the board.

The goal is simple.

Reduce the reward for losing.

But the bigger shift may come from how the league plans to enforce it.

Sources say the NBA is also discussing penalties that go beyond standard fines, including the possibility of moving draft picks down the board — or removing them entirely — for teams found to be deliberately tanking.

“Without stricter penalties, you could still have crazy behavior,” one league source said, per The Athletic’s Joe Vardon. “You have to have something in place that is so drastic, a team would actually think twice.”

With the draft lottery approaching, every team will be watching closely — and weighing what these changes could mean for their future.

 

Derek Hryn Derek Hryn is a writer for Heavy.com. He has extensive experience covering the NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA football and basketball, along with providing expert fantasy football analysis for DraftKings and SB Nation. His work has been featured at Sports Illustrated, USA Today, NBC Sports, The New York Post, and others. More about Derek Hryn