NBA Plans Major Draft Lottery Revisions to Deter Tanking, Silver Says
nba-plans-major-draft-lottery-revisions-to-deter-tanking
Speaking at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league will introduce “substantial changes” to its draft system before the 2026-27 season in an effort to curb tanking.
“We are going to make substantial changes for next year,” Silver told the audience, noting that one extreme option would be to detach draft positions entirely from team records. “You could win the finals and get the first pick,” he added, while acknowledging that any overhaul is likely to be less radical.
Silver described himself as “an incrementalist,” indicating the league is weighing significant adjustments without making an abrupt, wholesale shift. He emphasized that the forthcoming plan will go beyond minor tweaks but stop short of a complete separation of draft order and win-loss results.
Options Under Discussion
The commissioner outlined several concepts already circulating among team executives and league officials:
- Restricting protections on traded first-round picks between the top four and the lottery’s back end.
- Barring teams from receiving top-four picks in back-to-back years or after consecutive bottom-three finishes.
- Preventing clubs that reached the previous season’s conference finals from drafting in the top four.
- Locking in lottery odds at the trade deadline or a later specified date.
- Further flattening odds for all lottery participants.
- Calculating lottery odds using a two-year aggregate record, a method already employed by the WNBA.
- Expanding the lottery to cover all eight play-in teams instead of only the four that miss the playoffs.
Silver highlighted the two-year record proposal, calling it a promising deterrent while cautioning against penalizing franchises engaged in good-faith rebuilds. “We’ve got to be a little bit careful about how huge a change we make at once,” he said.
Deep 2026 Draft Intensifies Incentives
The commissioner acknowledged that expectations surrounding the 2026 rookie class have amplified tanking concerns. “You have four players in particular, maybe five, who are true game-changers,” Silver observed, adding that scouts believe the 2027 and 2028 drafts will not be as strong. That dynamic, he said, has created “enormous incentive” for clubs to chase lottery positioning this season.
League offices are expected to finalize and announce the new draft framework ahead of the 2026-27 campaign.
Source: Hoops Rumors
