NBA Pitches Three Draft Lottery Reforms Aimed at Curbing Tanking
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The NBA has outlined three separate draft-lottery overhauls to team owners in an effort to discourage tanking, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The concepts were presented during this week’s Board of Governors meetings and could be put to a vote in May after further discussion and possible adjustments. Any approved changes would take effect for the 2026-27 season.
Proposal 1: 18-Team Lottery, Flattened Odds
• Lottery field expands from 14 to 18 teams, adding the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds from each conference.
• Each of the 10 worst clubs receives an identical 8% chance at the top pick.
• The remaining 20% odds are distributed in descending order among the other eight teams, with the 11th-worst team holding the best chance in that group.
• All 18 selections are determined strictly by lottery.
Proposal 2: 22-Team Lottery, Two-Year Record Formula
• Field expands to 22 teams, covering all non-playoff clubs plus the eight teams ousted in the first playoff round.
• Lottery positioning is based on an average of the previous two regular seasons. A club posting 45 wins one year and 25 the next would be treated as a 35-win team.
• A win-floor mechanism is added; if set at 20 victories, a 15-67 season would be treated as 20-62 for lottery purposes.
• Only the top four spots are drawn, mirroring today’s format.
Proposal 3: 18-Team Lottery, Equal Odds for Bottom Five
• Lottery grows to 18 teams, again inserting the seventh- and eighth-seeded playoff clubs.
• The bottom five teams share identical odds for the No. 1 pick. Odds decrease from the sixth-worst team downward.
• The first five picks are drawn initially, followed by a separate drawing for the remaining 13 selections.
• A bottom-five club could slip no further than 10th overall.
League officials acknowledged that certain details, such as how play-in winners that advance beyond the first round would be handled, still need to be ironed out. Team owners and front-office executives will continue to study the proposals over the coming weeks, with the league signaling a willingness to refine each plan before May’s vote.
Commissioner Adam Silver has repeatedly pledged to crack down on deliberate losing, a concern heightened by the anticipated strength of the 2026 draft class. “We are going to fix it — full stop,” Silver said Wednesday.
Source: Hoops Rumors
