Changes are coming to the NBA Draft Lottery, and the target is to eliminate tanking. Much like its arena-based brethren in the NHL, the NBA is tweaking its method of awarding the top pick in its annual draft.
We already knew a vote was coming on potential changes and there was an idea of what those changes would look like, but a report Friday morning finally gave a timeline for the implementation of said changes, as well as more concrete numbers for the odds each team would get in the Draft Lottery moving forward.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday that, indeed, the proposed rule changes won’t take effect until 2019. The surprising thing is that each of the bottom three teams in the league will now get the same chance at letting the ping pong balls decide who gets the first overall pick.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/908674462035390464
Sources: Competition Committee has recommended NBA's proposal on Draft Lottery reform, sending it to Board of Governors for a Sept. 28 vote.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 15, 2017
Sources: Competition Committee made recommendation on rules curbing resting of healthy players in regular season to Board of Governors vote.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 15, 2017
A 16 percent chance for each of the three teams means there’s no true incentive to be the worst of the worst. That’s 48 percent of the pool going to the bottom three teams, which is a lot, but means it’s a 50-50 chance those three even get the top pick in the first place. Earlier reports indicated the drop from other spots will be less severe, too, which means plenty of teams will have a legitimate chance at winning the lottery.
That certainly changes the numbers when it comes to tanking, but it might not outright discourage it. All it means is that you don’t have to be that bad in order to get a great draft pick. Hovering around the bottom five or so teams gives you a good shot at landing the first overall pick, so the race for the bottom simply becomes a race to the bottom three or even four.
Many of the rule changes in this vein in recent years seem to be an attempt to protect teams from themselves. Changing the rules on trading unprotected picks and tweaking the draft process won’t keep bad teams from making poor decisions, but it will certainly make the prizes for doing so much less attractive.
