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 this year’s 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.”
The NBA’s Board of Governors is reportedly scheduled to vote on lottery reform on May 28.
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.
Don’t do it!!!!!
They should also cap top 1, 3 and or 5 picks so you cant build a dynasty on welfare money alone.
That’s included in this proposal. Teams would be prohibited from getting the No. 1 pick in back-to-back years or a top-five pick in three consecutive years.
Oh good! Id prefer to see that extended a bit but its a good start.
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
Ridiculous idea, because you can’t punish losing – to truly work, you must incentivize winning. Some teams are going to be in the bottom three – whether they try to be there or not. Punishing them just continues cycles of losing. All the odds should be flat, and then allow teams to earn better odds through winning. Whether it be wins total among non-playoff teams, or wins after a certain date or game number, or wins over other lottery teams. There are a lot of ways to ensure teams play their players and play hard to earn odds. Some teams are still going to suck, and punishing them is going to backfire on the league.
How is winning not already incentivized? Isn’t that the point of the game?
I don’t get the difference. Any scheme in which you “incentivize winning” is gonna end up with teams that suck getting fewer lottery balls.
The idea needs work.
It stops decent teams tanking to try get a better pick. But the actually bad teams struggle to get better not getting elite talent.
For example the likes of Brooklyn who really only have MPJ and Claxton. They get shafted for trying to develop guys. Whereas teams like the Bulls and Kings who are always half way competitive but still suck they get better chances at top talent.
Yes it’ll stop teams losing on purpose but it won’t make bad teams better either.
Said it a bunch of times, just as you can trade draft picks you should be able to trade cap space. Imagine a team hard capped with a strong roster they don’t want draft picks they would rather an extra 10 mil to spend in FA. Teams developing guys in a rebuild they don’t care about the how much players contracts are they just want a top 5 pick.
Imagine right now the GSW gave up pick 11 or whatever to idk the Grizzlies for 15mil extra cap space. They can then maybe afford a to bring in a solid FA addition and try win a title. Meanwhile the Grizzlies speed up their rebuild and bring in another young guy.
That to me helps the league more
NBA is in the weird stance in between the NFL with a hard cap no team is allowed to spend more than another, and the MLB where you can literally buy your championships. Fans of NBA teams don’t want it to be closer to the MLB cause the small market teams won’t ever have any real chance at winning. I don’t hate your proposal, I kind of like it actually but I don’t see how the NBA would allow it to happen.
The NBA should abolish the lottery and put in strict rules of no top 5 picks in back to back seasons. Under those rules if a team is awful and makes the wrong pick, then they can retry the season after next at getting a top talent. Teams that don’t draft well are going to be at the bottom of the league no matter what new draft rules they put in. The NFL is the draft that makes sense and wants every team to get better instead of picking and choosing what team they want to see succeed.
Tanking is by far the most serious issue that the league faces, as it goes right to the integrity of the league’s outcomes. Only the potential issue of games being fixed for gambling purposes would be in the same category of seriousness. No sports league can tolerate these.
Unfortunately, a serious issue requires a serious solution. This ain’t that. In truth, Silver likely can’t be a part of a serious solution, let alone be its architect. I’d vote this down. A non-solution to (relocation of) the problem only insures the problem will continue.
I truly don’t understand the point of the odds relegation if it’s not a punishment for consecutive years at the bottom. This whole thing seems to be a way to prevent teams from fully bottoming out and as someone who has watched that approach first hand for the last 2 decades, IT DOESN’T WORK.
If every consecutive year you spend in the bottom 4 you lost 2% of your max odds, would that not be what the league is trying to do in a much more efficient and fair way? Hell make it bottom 6 teams. It would still be infinitely more simple than whatever circus act Silver has been doing.
Limiting protections on picks to either top 4 protected, lottery protected, or unprotected seems like it would stop a lot of the end of season ultra tanks as well, maybe even more so than the odds. Teams trying to duck commitments on trades has added another element to “tanking”.
How many people get paid very well by the league offices just to submit what I can only assume to be ChatGPT responses to this complex issue? Why am I doing it for free?
Lottery reform is a waste of time when most fans cannot trust the integrity of the referees…
The integrity of the game isn’t going to be fixed because a few teams have to get creative to pretend to win…
I think the NBA should adopt something like Premier League in soccer. The worst two teams get demoted to the G League, and the best two teams in the G League gets promoted.
The whole lottery thing is a farce, anyways. Teams are still going to tank and you can’t stop them. Plus tanking can’t be 100% proven. Just go retro, give teams draft picks based on standings like they used to do.
Just get rid of the draft. No draft means no tanking. Problem solved.
This is the best possible solution. And there’s literally no downside – it’s not like the Lakers can sign the top 8 picks every year, as there’s only so much money/so many roster spots to go around. And the upside is that teams try to get better every year to attract the new crop of free agents, no matter where they are in the standings.
The only “problem” is the draft is big business/high ratings/constant league chatter throughout the year. But that could easily be replaced by something else (a national signing night for rookies?).
I really hope you’re joking
The real issue with the “3-2-1” plan isn’t the lottery math; it’s the recovery curve for small-market teams. If you’re prohibited from back-to-back top-five picks, your “Unit” construction has to be perfect. You can’t afford a wasted year of development due to injury or sub-par medical integration.
In high-stakes performance, whether it’s an NBA roster or a patient managing Treatment-Resistant Depression Lyfeunit
The biggest problem with the lottery is no one believes in it. Folks think it’s rigged every year, and the league refuses to air it live and just announce it after. Between that and the officiating, outside of the diehards, the sports world takes the league as seriously as they do the WWE, and that’s real, real bad.
So whatever you do, it has to be simple and transparent.