Days after the NBA greenlit a “3-2-1” draft lottery process that actually penalizes the three worst teams in the league, Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday that next season will be “a world we’ve never seen before — where all 30 teams have an incentive to win all of their games."
Designed to eliminate tanking — which Silver said reached new heights this season due partly to the perception of a deep 2026 draft class — the new rule gives teams finishing fourth through 10th three lottery ping-pong balls, as opposed to just two balls for the bottom three teams. The No. 9 and No. 10 play-in seeds will also receive two balls, while the losers of the 7 seed vs. 8 seed play-in games will get one lottery ball.
It is a stark contrast to this past season, when the three worst teams had a 14% chance to win the lottery and the Wizards (the last place team) did, in fact, earn the No. 1 overall pick.
The flattened odds were approved by the league’s Board of Governors last week, with Silver saying Wednesday, “I was pleasantly surprised that the various stakeholders came together relatively quickly. I think there was largely agreement among our team owners, our general managers and our coaches, and then ultimately the players association as well ... that we needed to make some quick changes here. ... So now standing here in June, I’m thrilled frankly that we got this done this year. Looking forward to seeing how this will play out next year -- teams have an incentive to win all of their games.”
Silver was quick to point out the new format will be a three-season trial in the event there are glitches or a superior template.
“We found ourselves in a situation this year where all of a sudden it seemed like a third of the league maybe was responding in what an economist would say was very rational behavior, but nontraditional behavior in terms of what they saw as a clear incentive to fall to the bottom of the standings,” Silver said. “... But we ultimately concluded that we needed to take immediate action.
“The concept is clear that if you’re one of the worst-performing teams in the league, your chances of winning the lottery actually decrease. And I should add at the same time, and I think part and parcel of this issue is how will the draft continue to operate. Is there still a means to rebuild your team for the draft? And I’ll just say that for the teams [with] the bottom-10 records, they still will have a 70% chance. I’m blending all their odds together of getting a top-10 pick. So record is still connected to your performance on the floor, but there’s no particular incentive to, there’s a disincentive to be one of the worst-performing teams and there’s no incentive to be bad. And this is something we haven’t seen before in this league.”
Under the new rules, critics believe the truly bad teams — who did not try to tank — will stay truly bad. But Silver said, as a result of the revision, franchises may need to build smarter and more dynamically.
“I think in this new system through the lottery, it’s going to put more emphasis on drafting deeper,” Silver said. “I think it’s going to put more emphasis on scouting during the season where you’re paying a lot of attention to maybe players six through 10 on rosters that traditionally haven’t gotten the same focus. I mean, you remember when you and I got involved in this league, there were sort of maybe two or three players and everybody else on every team.
“Also, I’m fond of saying when I got to the league in the early ’90s, roughly 5% of the players were international in this league. Now it’s roughly one third. There’s this global pool of incredible talent. I’ll lastly just look at these two teams [the Spurs and Knicks in the NBA Finals], how deep they are.”
