The NBA Board of Governors officially approved a new draft lottery system to go into effect starting next season. Meant to curb tanking, the new system punishes the bottom three teams with reduced odds, while also making the lottery be for the first 16 picks instead of just the first four. Theoretically that means that there might be a couple of actual playoff teams that have a real shot at landing a top-3 pick.
The NBA shared the following helpful graphics for the new system:
This reform is likely to cause some major drama come lottery time with all the different possibilities. Previously, the team slated with the worst odds (the 14th team), had just a 2.4% chance to move up, and that was only to get to the top-4. Now the teams with the worst odds are even later (15th and 16th) and will have a 58% chance at moving up. There’s also a significant chance that a team that finishes in the bottom three falls all the way to the 12th pick (25%). Under the previous system, you could only fall back four picks.
The decision to change the rules came after a year in which there was blatant tanking by several teams in order to land top picks in the NBA Draft. Two such teams, Utah and Indiana, were fined $500,000 and $100,000 respectively. Utah likely was glad to pay, especially after their successful tanking led to them landing the #2 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. Under the new system, those fines could be increased all the way up to $10 million, and include forfeiture of draft picks or changing of draft odds or position.
Tanking has really taken on a focus in the NBA over the last decade or so, and this is definitely the most drastic action the NBA has done to fight it. There’s still incentive to be bad, but not outright terrible. Teams at the bottom will likely be doing everything they can to win as the season goes on to avoid being relegated, which should hopefully make for a better experience for the average fan, as rooting for your team to lose is never fun. But the stench of a bad season almost always at least had the promise of getting a high pick that would hopefully turn your team around. That’s no longer a guarantee. Kings fans felt bad dropping from 5 to 7 this year. I can only imagine what the pain of dropping from 1st to 12th might feel like.
It will be a while before we truly understand the ramifications of these new rules, but if there’s one saving grace it’s at least that they’re only in place for three years, which should give the league enough time to evaluate whether they are worth keeping or if different changes need to be made.
Just stopped in to say Mike Brown is taking the Nicks – who were “not so amazing” for a long time… to the NBA finals. I’m really just so glad we fired him and replaced him with Doug Christie who is showing himself to be an elite level NBA coaching genius. Simply a brilliant front office strategy!
Oh, and also that there is a draft coming up, of which we will get some player or another… who is likely to be as good or maybe slightly better than Jimmer or BenMac, but if he turns out to to actually be really good, we will trade in 2 years for a 36 year old vet who was really good 3 or 4 years ago.
That is all. I’ll go back into hiding now. Have a great day.
not so amazing…they were in the ECF last year??
Manufactured crisis averted!
And if you don’t think that the word “tank!” won’t be replaced by the word “fix!,” I have a refrigerated envelope that I’d like to sell you.
LOL. This is just the league telling teams to play who you are supposed to play every night so ther odds making sponsors remain happy.
This is so goofy. The NBA under Silver is grasping at straws in so many ways (IST, constant lottery reforms) it’s comical.
We all know a year or two from now there will be another new lottery system.
It sure is a good way to turn away fringe fans because they don’t know what the hell is going on.
Try explaining this new system to a non-NBA fan and your just going to get confused shrug of iindifference.
You might be right, but I would contend that the fringe fans didn’t pay attention to the current lottery system or any that came before it. They might know if their team got a top pick…but no idea how or why. That’s my experience at least with fans that come and go.
I don’t think it’s crazy complicated. A bit more than before. FOr people that care and want to pay attention to it, I think they will take the time to figure it out. For those that don’t, probably didn’t before either.
I’m glad they did something and maybe not exactly what I want, it’s better than what it was.
Why did they have to do something? Is this supposed “tanking” any more prevalent than it was 20 years ago?
Yes it 100% is more than 20 years ago. Teams were not playing a full lineup of g leaguers and sitting stars for 30 games. I’d bet a lot of money if you did a large sample size study of all star players on losing teams from the 2000s vs 2020s you would find way way less games played now. And way more dudes on minimum type contracts playing high minutes.
I don’t think that’s debatable. If you wanna debate whether that’s wrong or whether teams should be able to operate how they want fine. But there’s no way you cant think it’s worse if watching game for a long time, which I know you have.
Got curious…went back about 20 years to a draft that was “tank worthy”. 2007 was Oden and Durant.
The 2 worst teams were Memphis and Boston. Everybody gunning for those top two guys. All Star Paul Pierce played in 47 games. Seems tanky on surface. He missed games #s about 25-50 with a stress fracture. They did not just shut him down for year. He came back and played for about 20+ more games before not playing last ten (Pure tank). Playing 35+ minutes a night. This was a team that was pretty openly tanking at the time and focusing on young players.. And he came back and played big minutes, later in the year, after a more serious injury early in season. Compare that to Lavine or Sabonis this year.
Pau Gasol played 60 games for the terrible Grizz. He missed the first 20 games of season with injury and they struggled. He then came back to play the last 60 at 36 minutes a game. This was the worst team in the league and they played their best player the entire last 3/4s of the season while battling Celts for worst record.
Writing that sentence is laughable to think of it happening in 2020s. Even the stupid Kings weren’t that reckless against the tank.
Small sample size yes…could you find outliers the other way? I’m sure. But I bet if someone actually did a study (which I bet the NBA has) you would find lots of examples like this.
1997, the Spurs finished with 20 wins, which was the 3rd worst record in the league. The previous year they won 59 games and made it to the second round of the playoffs.
They won the lottery and selected Tim Duncan. The following year they finished with 56 wins and were on their way to a dynasty of 5 titles.
59 wins, to 20 wins, to 55 wins and never hitting the lottery again until 2021!!
What is the difference between them and the this year’s Pacers?
They followed the very same strategy to get their team where they are today. They landed the #1, #4 and #2 picks in three straight years.
Where were the outcries of the Spurs tanking?
Same as it ever was…
Oh, and for what it’s worth in 1997 the 4 worst teams won 14, 15, 20, and 21 games.
This year the 4 worst teams won 17, 19, 20, and 22.
Please tell my how tanking is new.
For the chef’s kiss, in 2003 the two bottom teams finished with just 17 wins. Why? it was the LBJ year.
The Cavs had only 2 players who topped 60 games played.
Were they playing to win??? Come on now.
We just making stuff up now and hoping nobody checks?
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2003.html
Boozer, Darius Miles, Ricky Davis and ALL STAR Ilgauskas played most of the season. Most close to 80 games. Not sure what you are looking at, but totally just proved my point. Another fantastic example of it didn’t use to be this bad.
I stand corrected. I don’t know what data I was looking at.
That being said, I still believe tanking is that same as it has ever been. There are example damn near every year. Hell, “The Process” took many years of tanking and actually got the league to change the lottery rulse! Or just 5 years ago the Thunder absorbed Al Horford’s deal for a pick. They only played him in 28 games before sending him home for the rest of the season. He wasn’t injured and the team announced they were “focusing on youth.” The tanked their way to 22 wins that year after they ruled out SGA for the reminder of the season in March, which is right around the time they sent Horford home.
What about when the Spurs traded away their best player in a 25 year old all-star Dejounte Murray for a bunch of picks and Gallo (who they then waved) right before the season many teams tanked for Wemby? The Athletic even reported the Spurs did the trade to tank for Wemby!
So where were all the calls for too much tanking then?
I find it incredibly ironic the the two teams in the WCF totally tanked their way into their rosters and are now drawing record ratings, but the NBA says tanking is a problem.
You wanna know the turning point, Wiz? In August of last year the NBA and it’s online gambling partners made a deal that no prop bets would be allowed on two-way players and 10-day contacts. You know which teams play a lot of those kind of guys? Yup, the tanking teams.
The league is demanding teams play their stars so the sports books get their bets. It’s that simple. It’s not a tanking problem. It is just disguised as one by the paid talking heads partnered with the league.
Really? There are similarities between this years Pacers and 30 years ago Spurs in the broad strokes of major injury, they sucked and then went for top pick…kinda. The details matter.
Last games of season the Pacers trotted out a line up of of complete G league type talent. The Spurs in 1997 trotted out Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro for 70+ games, their starting backcourt that year and year before, along with Dominique Wilkins on the backside of career. Yes, they sucked…but they at least had some reasonable attempt at TRYING to win much of season.
I’m sure we could go back and forth and throw out one offs to support our point. No one is arguing tanking never existed before. It just wasn’t as egregious. I don’t see how someone cant see the Spurs putting out multiple starters from previous seasons teams much of season, as being totally different than what the Pacers did.
Last thing to further contrast the differences in what tanking was then vs now. Nemhard played 57 games this year.
Had a nice 18 game stretch in which he “only” missed 6 games. ONly games he missed in stretch were against the Kings, Grizz, Bucks, Nets, Wizards and Jazz. All other tanking teams. What coincidence!!!
GTFO, that you can find such bogus garbage happening consistently in the past. You could find a dozen other examples of that this year too. Hell the Kings did it and we all complained they didn’t tank hard enough (which was true)
I don’t see much difference, the only main one being that sports analysis/betting continues to be a growing industry and now everything is magnified through extensive media coverage and betting outcomes.
People have always bet on sports illegally though and still do, so none of this is new.
Changes every few years to the All-Star game too.
Tank for 4th-10th worst record!
Snorkel.
Nice!
This is actually great for us. I bet we’ve finished in the 4th-10th worst record more than any other team. Right in our wheelhouse.
Between suck and luck, we could spend the next decade there!
Yeah, but we were doing that while there were 4-10 teams tanking at the time. I think this might make the Vivekification (big names, offense-only, veterans at the end of their careers) of this team even worse, in a desperate, yearly effort to stay out of the bottom three. Klay Thompson will play the last year of his career here if Vivek has any possible way to make that happen.
The Jazz, Pacers, and Wizards are all clearly better than the Kings next season. Memphis is the only team in the NBA that might actually be worse, and maybe the Nets?
My question is whether the Kings can stay out of the bottom three if Ja Morant isn’t injured, refusing to play, or in jail for at least half of next season?
After Vivek trades LaVine and the #7 pick for Ja? Maybe.
Exactly. I don’t think the #7 goes, but he’s not going to be able to help himself in acquiring Morant- yet another player that no one in the NBA wants.
They should have been the worst team this year and ended up out of the bottom three. Vivek will always push win now mode and the play-in.
I doubt any of our vets get traded this offseason. Just play the season out with a play-in level team and let those Zach and DDR contracts come off the books next offseason. Domas’ contract is probably more tradeable next offseason as well.
Our mediocrity is finally being rewarded! Maybe I was looking at this wrong
The Vivek Special!
This new tanking format may actually benefit teams like the Kangz and Bulls who suck and need to rebuild but don’t know how to properly tank.
How does the restriction of top pick in consecutive years and and top 5 pick 3 years in a row affect currently protected picks?
Also, I would like to see their process on how they slot a team after it had the 1st pick one year. Are they just removed for the possibility of getting the top pick? Do they re-draw the top 4?
I think it’s a stupid system, in general. But I guess time will tell.
Not sure. As an example, Memphis has Utah’s pick for next year from the JJJ trade. They can’t be happy about this if that’s the case. Maybe they “grandfathered” in future picks?
Hypothetically should the Kings suck in 2030 (I guess that isn’t a hypothetical) and land a top 5 pick, but then Minny sucks in 2031 and grants Sac another top 5 pick, is it fair to punish the Kings?
Maybe it depends on the team’s record that traded away the pick? So let’s say (hypothetically) the wizards had a 2027 unprotected pick from the Nets. If the Nets were the worst team, and the Wizards were a playoff team, would the Wizards get the no. 1 pick?
Yeah, I think they should.
I thought I saw somewhere that the punishment is only for THAT teams pick, not a pick they own from someone else. I’ll see if I can find it, but that part at least makes sense to me.
I think this is great because now the Kings will probably routinely finish with a bottom three record because other teams won’t try to lose as much as possible. I have no doubt if other teams try, the Kings will be shown as the legitimate losers they actually are.
Now that there’s a penalty to being in the bottom three, I’m hopeful the Kings will finish there repeatedly and get bad picks because of it. The only way to get any kind of change is for Vivek (and sadly, the Kings) to be punished for his incompetence. This is one step in that direction.
Very true, driving Vivek out of Sac is the only solution. Doing that is a championship winning year for me at this point.
Agreed. Sacramento should have a parade if he sells the team.
Seems pretty difficult to prevent tanking while also not helping bad teams from getting better through the draft. While these rules may help curb tanking, they reward teams that don’t need as much help with better records, making it even more difficult for really bad teams to get better. So while you solve one problem you create another. There is definitely a better solution than this IMO, this seems like a lateral move overall for the league and hurts really bad teams and franchises like the Kings who really need a great pick. But in the end it is the ineptitude of the Kings overall that will always be the biggest factor in their sustained irrelevance.
I actually don’t mind this rigamarole. Nor did I mind what it was replacing. Issues and complaints about the draft process have been going on since the frozen envelope conspiracy.
In the end, good teams will find a way to be good – either by using their locale in free agency, or scouting, drafting, and developing well. Sure a couple of draft slots higher might make the difference on occasion; but stop picking MBIII over Doncic if you want to help your cause. Or put the right people in place who will stop picking the Thomas Robinsons over the Damian Lillards.
This has all the hallmarks of a bait and switch on the fans. Don’t look at Kawhi and Steve Ballmer and the cheating that went on to sign players over the cap. And, apparently this has nothing to do with the problem of rich teams getting richer and then having a better chance in future drafts. I don’t want this to be another round of attacks on Vivek or about badly mismanaged franchises because that’s ultimately not the point. The Kings are owned by the wealthiest owner in the franchise’s history but about all that can be said about him is that he’d rather meddle in his team than have the balls to blatantly cheat like Ballmer. In the end, this rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic is to keep the sports betting industry happy and has very little to do with the integrity of the game.
Anyone remember “suck for Luck” in the NFL in 2012? I think that’s the first time I heard about the idea of tanking. The NBA introduced the coin flip in 1969 because Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was obviously the next generational NBA player, but that was only for the bottom two teams.
why not just completely separate the draft order from standings and just randomly assign draft slots (maybe have round 2 be the reverse of round 1). every team, on average, should get to pick in the top 5 every 6 years and there is 0 incentive to tank at all
you could also add restrictions such that the top drafting team or top 3 can’t get better than 10 the next year or something too.
Sounds like “The Wheel”
Get the #1 once every 30 years. 32 after expansion. I think that would be fine, but I think the NBA likes the Lottery show.
From a competitive balance perspective, the current system where the worst teams get to pick first is certainly better. Personally, I’d rather have the lottery picks weighted by records over the previous 2 or 3 seasons so the perennially bad teams have better shot of getting the top picks and it would take away the incentive for a good team to try to tank in one year to try to grab a generational talent since it would be much harder to impact the 2 – 3 year average record
Badge Legend