On Wednesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver pledged that the league is going to make reforms to its draft-lottery system to reduce teams’ incentive to tank.
“Certainly going into next season, the incentives will be completely different than they are now,” Silver told reporters.
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On Friday, details emerged about what might be forthcoming.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the league presented “three comprehensive anti-tanking concepts to its board of governors,” although modifications are expected to each proposal “before a formal vote in May.” All three would expand the lottery to include teams that make the postseason, but they diverge from there.
While each of the three proposals could help curb tanking, they might also backfire spectacularly when it comes to the overall purpose of the draft lottery.
What Changes Is The NBA Considering?
Under the current system, the 14 teams that miss the playoffs all get slotted into the lottery in reverse order of the standings. The teams with the three worst records all have a 14% chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick, and the odds decrease from there. The league draws the top four picks via the lottery, and the remaining picks are then assigned in reverse order of records.
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The three proposals that the league office reportedly presented Wednesday are drastic departures from that system, according to multiple reports.
The first proposal would widen the lottery from 14 teams to 18 by including all eight teams that made the play-in tournament rather than only the four that wind up missing the playoffs. All 10 teams that miss the playoffs would have an 8% chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick, while the remaining 20% of the odds would be split among the eight play-in teams in descending order. All 18 picks would be drawn via the lottery.
The second proposal would expand the lottery to 22 teams—the 14 that miss the playoffs and the eight that lose in the first round. They would be ranked based on their record across the prior two seasons, not just the past season. Each team would automatically start at a “minimum win-total floor” no matter how many wins they actually get. And the top four slots would be selected via lottery.
The third proposal is the most complicated. It’s what sources described to both Charania and The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer as a “five-by-five” method. It’d be an 18-team lottery where teams with the five worst records all got the same odds at the No. 1 pick. The first five picks would be drawn that way.
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After that, the remaining 13 teams would draw for the sixth through 10th pick. Any team with one of the five worst records would be guaranteed not to fall lower than 10th.
All three of those proposals would remove certain teams’ incentive to tank. It could increase others’, though.
But that isn’t even the main problem with them.
What Is The Point Of The Draft?
In its efforts to combat tanking, the NBA appears to be losing sight of the point of the draft itself.
Silver often says he wants “parity of opportunity” in the NBA. Some teams will be better or worse than others long term based on their management, ownership or some combination of the two, but he doesn’t want any team at a structural disadvantage.
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The draft is integral to that. The NBA’s proposals are seemingly ignoring that, though.
In theory, the draft is supposed to provide the worst teams in the league a path out of the basement. A top-three pick isn’t guaranteed to net a superstar, but getting one of the first few choices increases the probability of finding an impact player. It often takes multiple swings of the high-lottery bat before teams vault back into the playoff picture.
By expanding the lottery field and decreasing the worst teams’ chances of landing the No. 1 overall pick, the NBA is effectively moving toward being a pure randomizer.
Tanking increases the number of teams in contention for a high lottery pick, but it isn’t always as rampant as it is this season. The 2027 and 2028 draft classes reportedly aren’t measuring up to this year’s projected group, which could decrease tanking on its own over the next two years.
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According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, the NBA is also considering increasing the penalties for teams found guilty of tanking. Silver could “take away that team’s draft pick, move it to the end of the lottery or first round and also increase fines into the millions of dollars.”
That’s the type of incremental change that could tamp down on tanking without fundamentally altering the structure of the draft. Anything that flattens the odds further or increases the number of teams in the lottery will drastically expand the range of potential outcomes for the league’s worst teams.
Charania and Fischer both reported that the league is fully expecting modifications to these proposals by its special May board of governors meeting to discuss tanking. The NBA wants to pass any changes before this year’s draft and free agency so teams know the potential stakes of their moves well ahead of time.
The league just needs to ask itself which it’s prioritizing more: its desire to snuff out tanking, or the parity of opportunity that Silver wants? Because these proposals could inherently punish legitimately terrible teams by decreasing their chances of getting out of the league’s basement in a timely fashion.
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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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