The element of tanking within the NBA has always been a thorn in the side of the league. Recently, the league distanced itself from the practice, by promising changes to the format.
Now, three proposals have seen the light of day.
Proposal 1: Lottery expansion to 18 teams
According to Shams Charania of ESPN, the first proposal would see 18 teams — the bottom 10 that miss the play-in tournament, as well as the eight qualifying play-in teams — all take part in the NBA draft lottery. Per ESPN:
“The bottom 10 teams will all have an 8% chance of moving up in the lottery, with the remaining 20% of the odds being split among the eight play-in teams in descending order from 11th through 18th.
“All 18 spots would be drawn as part of the lottery in that format.”
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Quick take: This is essentially a lottery expansion, which leaves out only teams that have made it to the playoffs directly off a top-6 seeding.
The idea, in isolation, isn’t that terrible. The truly good-to-elite teams are still excluded, and the rules would be easy for fans to grasp, which may not be the case for the second and third proposals.
Proposal 2: The 22-team lottery
In the second proposal, according to ESPN, the 10 bottom teams that miss the play-in tournament, the eight that qualify for the play-in, as well as the four playoff teams that lose in the first round — a total of 22 teams — would all be included in the NBA draft lottery.
Those 22 teams would get ranked across two seasons (the previous season and the one just completed) by their combined record, instead of just the one season as is custom.
In this proposal, per ESPN, “each team would need to reach a minimum win total floor in each season, to mitigate the need to lose every game possible.”
For example: If the minimum floor for an individual season was 20 wins, a team that wins under that amount of games would still be 20-62 for lottery purposes. And should a team win 40 games and 20 games across the two seasons, it would average out to 30 wins for the lottery.
Per ESPN: “In this system, the top four spots would be drawn as part of the lottery, as is currently.”
Quick take: This is where the league could face unintended consequences by looping in actual playoff teams.
What if the Oklahoma City Thunder lose in the first round, due to injuries, and now qualify for the lottery? That would make arguably the deepest team in the league eligible for a potential franchise player.
How does that help create parity? Or balance? Granted, it’s a long shot from a pure odds perspective, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible, which is a door that needlessly opens.
Furthermore, this is far from fan friendly, and only serves as yet another reminder that the NBA is indeed a league of lawyers. The language here, as well as the accompanying rules in this proposal, would be enormously difficult for fans to get a good read on year-by-year, having to include past seasons in the overall calculus.
Proposal 3: The double lottery
The third proposal is one that basically has a double lottery, where the same 18 teams from the first proposal (the bottom 10 teams that miss the play-in, plus the eight that make it) would be entered into the lottery. Per ESPN:
“The teams with the five worst records would then all have the same odds, with them descending from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft.
“After those five picks are selected, there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams.”
In this proposal, to prevent a bad team from falling too far down the draft board: If any of the teams with the five worst records didn’t acquire a top-five spot from the first lottery, the lowest they could wind up in the second lottery drawing would be 10th.
Quick take: It seems counterintuitive that the team with the worst record could technically select 10th. The league has spoken of parity for years, and has celebrated the many different champions of late.
This opens the door for bad teams to stay bad, even if they go about this process ethically and not blatantly tank. How can the league celebrate parity, while instilling methods that could indirectly lower the impact of parity?
Overall thoughts
There’s no getting around this. Come hell or high water, the NBA will have its anti-tanking rules, even if the problem is much overstated and very much a recent result of three ultra deep drafts, in 2023, 2025 and the upcoming 2026 iteration, with franchise-altering players helming them.
There was no tanking in 2024, nor are there expected to be teams that aggressively seek a top pick in 2027.
With the wavering levels in the available talent pool, which differs year from year, this seems like much of a nothing-burger. For the NBA, however, that’s far from the case.
If forced to choose, I’d personally go with Proposal 1.
It resembles the current setup the closest, and it doesn’t quite pry the door open to good teams entering the lottery, which just seems like such a bad idea, given the consequences of perhaps extending a championship window, while not even opening it for others.
We’ll see where the league, and the 30 team owners, land on this when they meet in May.