Appearing Wednesday on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show (YouTube link), commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that the “3-2-1” lottery reform plan will be submitted to the Board of Governors when they meet later this month, relays Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
“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.”
Bontemps points out that the Wizards, Jazz, Grizzlies and Bulls, who landed the top four spots in the lottery, all made an effort to improve their draft status by losing games as the season wore on. Utah was fined $500K in February for “conduct detrimental to the league” after not playing Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter of a pair of games.
Silver stated that the new plan will give the league additional powers to punish teams that engage in overt 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 told Smith. “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.”
Bontemps cites a “near universal belief” throughout the league that some type of lottery reform will be adopted in response to the growing problem of obvious tanking in the past few years.
The “3-2-1” system gets its name from the varying amount of lottery balls teams would be assigned depending on their place in the standings. Those that finish with the fourth-worst through the 10th-worst record would receive three lottery balls each, while the bottom three teams would only get two. The ninth and 10th play-in seeds in each conference receive two lottery balls each, while the losers of the 7-8 play-in games would have one apiece.
It’s a huge change from the current system, which includes 1,001 possible combinations of ping pong balls and gives significantly better odds to the teams with the three worst records.
The proposal would take effect for next season if it’s approved by the Board of Governors, but it’s only scheduled to last through 2029. That’s when a new collective bargaining agreement will be negotiated that could contain fresh anti-tanking measures.
“The system that we’re going to be putting in front of our teams will be in effect for three years,” Silver said. “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.”
Still not entirely sold on this idea.
This is an outrageously terrible idea. Instead of focusing on fixing the rampant officiating issues that actually turn off so many fans to prevent players like Shai and Embiid from cheating the game with foul baiting, Silver is hellbent on punishing the worst teams in the league that already have so many problems as is. Furthermore, the league isn’t losing fans based on the bad teams losing a few extra games late in the season – let it go. Imagine if this was implemented this season and the Thunder secured the first overall pick. No one outside the state of OK wants to see that – could be an issue again next year if the Clippers miss the playoffs again. Regardless, Silver keeps trying to fix things that aren’t broken. Get rid of the joke that is the in-season tourney that no one cares about and unnecessarily skews the schedule.
Officiating and tanking are two separate issues. Tanking obviously needs to be addressed, and Silver is taking steps to do it. Meanwhile your proposed solution is to ignore it and get rid of the in-season tournament. And that’s why you’re not the commissioner lol
Agreed with all that. Flopping is just as detrimental to the game and ugly to fans – maybe more – as tanking late season games bad teams have little chance to win anyway.
They should also cap top 1, 3 and or 5 picks so you cant build a dynasty on welfare money alone.
uncomplicate things : flatten the odds .. every non playoff gets one ball .. you can’t get back to back first picks .. can’t pick top three more than two years in a row .. top five three years in a row