The NBA informed all 30 teams that it began a new review of the league’s policy changes regarding “tanking” on Friday, according to ESPN. Shams Charania.
The league plans to review rules regarding “draft pick protections, revised draft lottery rules and other approaches” as part of the review, according to Charania.
The league previously approved a change in lottery format in 2017, with the new rules implemented ahead of the 2019 draft.
Each of the three teams with the worst results from the previous season have identical 14 percent odds of winning the first overall pick. Before the update, the worst team had a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery, while the second worst team had a 19.9 percent chance. The third worst organization also had a rating of 15.6 percent.
The NBA too introduced the play-in tournament in 2020, giving teams in the bottom half of their respective conference standings more opportunities to stay competitive and try to clinch a playoff spot.
ESPN Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton discussed tanking solutions with “league sources” in March, with one proposal involving removing some pick protections. Under the potential change, the picks would only be the top four protected, lottery-protected or unprotected.
Another idea was to flatten the lottery odds even further, according to Bontemps and Pelton.
The NBA has incentivized teams with losing records to chase wins instead of improving their draft positioning in the past, and another change could be on the horizon.
