Adam Silver Explains New NBA Draft Lottery Format, Says League Has Authority to Change Odds
Amid a push to eliminate tanking, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and league officials are eyeing a format that could punish teams for intentionally losing.
One way, he explained, is by not allowing the bottom three teams the best odds.
“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 on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show (h/t ESPN’s Tim Bontemps). “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.”
Silver added that the NBA has the ability to change teams’ odds if they are tanking.
“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,” Silver said. “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.”
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported in April that the NBA had disclosed an anti-tanking draft reform called the “3-2-1 lottery” with the league’s 30 general managers. The new format would include 16 lottery teams, flattened odds and a relegation zone that would take lottery balls for the No. 1 pick away.
Teams that finish with a bottom-three record would only get two lottery balls, though they would not be able to fall further than the No. 12 pick. The other 13 teams that do not make the playoffs or the play-in tournament would receive three balls each.
The Nos. 9 and 10 seeds in the play-in tournament would get two balls each, while the losers of the 7-8 play-in games would each get one ball.
The new format would prevent teams from winning the top pick in back-to-back seasons or a top-five pick in three consecutive years. There would also be no pick protection for pick Nos. 12-15.
The NBA is currently able to fine teams for tanking thanks to the Player Participation Policy that was put in place before the 2023-24 season. The Jazz and Pacers were fined for withholding star players from games in key moments in February.
While fines like those dished out earlier this year might deter teams from tanking to an extent, the measures that Silver discussed introducing would surely be more effective since teams’ draft chances would be directly impacted.
