By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Following an unprecedented wave of tactical losing across the league. NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed on the Stephen A. Smith Show on Wednesday that the NBA has landed on a proposal to present to the league’s board of governors later this month to revamp the draft lottery in an attempt to curb tanking.
Several teams went out of their way to try to improve their draft position in the closing weeks of the 2025-26 Regular Season, prompting this rapid legislative response to a perfect storm where even local media and fans were actively rooting for their own franchises to fail.
To permanently fix this misalignment of incentives, the 3-2-1 system would give the three worst teams a lower percentage chance of winning the lottery than the teams picking from fourth to 10th in an effort to curb the need for clubs to be as bad as possible to increase their chances of landing a high pick.
“What we’ve essentially done, and we have a proposal that we’re going to be bringing to our team owners at the end of May, and that is to create essentially a system of flat odds, so that you have no particular incentive to be bad,” Silver said. “There’s even something we’re calling draft relegation, that if you’re one of the bottom three teams in the league, you’ll actually have worse odds than teams that sort of are four through up until teams make the playoffs. We’re still playing a little bit with the system there.”
The new framework grants the league office heavy artillery to discipline teams for overt tanking beyond what they have been able to do in the past. “And also ultimately additional authority for the league office that if we do see that type of behavior where there’s a sense that teams aren’t going all out to win, that we can actually take away draft lottery balls, we can change the order of the draft,” mentioned Silver. “Teams have to know it’s not just about paying a financial fine, which they may think is worth it in order to get a top pick, but that it’ll directly impact their ability to get a top draft pick.”
This proposal is expected to be ultimately approved by the league this month, driven by a near-universal belief that something had to change in light of how the past couple of drafts went. The NBA has also reiterated that this will be in place only through the 2029 season, when a new collective bargaining agreement will be in place.
“The system that we’re going to be putting in front of our teams will be in effect for three years,” underlined Silver. “What we’re telling our teams is, the term people use is it will sunset. In other words, this is going to be a new flat-odd system. It’ll be in place for three years and will give us time for additional study to see whether there are other creative ways to better distribute players. And it’ll also give us an opportunity to see how our teams respond to the system, because one thing I’ve learned, whether it’s new provisions in the collective bargaining agreement, new provisions in the draft lottery, which, as you know we’ve changed many times over the years, the teams are incredibly innovative and creative at coming up with ways to work the system.”
Beyond the draft, the 64-year-old executive strongly reaffirmed his satisfaction with the early results of the 65-game rule tied to awards eligibility. “I’m very satisfied,” he stated. “So the issue again was, going into the last collective bargaining negotiation, roughly a third of our All-NBA players had played fewer than 65 games, fewer than 80% of the games. And so the view was, and remember this was a provision that was put in place through a negotiation with the Players Association, everyone was recognizing that we have to put our best foot forward.”
While acknowledging the rigid nature of the threshold, Silver explained that safety nets are available. “We always knew whatever line we drew that there would be players that would fall on the other side of it, the low end of it and there might be a sense of unfairness, which is why we put in place a provision around extraordinary circumstances, that if a player missed the 65 games for a game or two, but that there was an unusual reason that something happened over the course of the season, there’d be a process for making an exception,” he noted. “So I’m happy where that came out. I understand a player like Anthony Edwards was at 60 and missed it. He had the right through the Players Association to appeal that decision. It went to an independent arbitrator who said I’m sorry you missed the 65-game line.”
Ultimately, Silver maintains that the rule successfully achieved its broader commercial goals. “I think that what you have to look at in the totality of the number of players who might otherwise have rested and say, ‘No, that matters to me to be All-NBA. I’m going to play those games I might otherwise have rested,’ or the teams knowing that their players care and got them out on the floor, which is what the fans want to see,” he said.