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.
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 he came back and played big minutes 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.
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?
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?
Badge Legend