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The NBA is rethinking its lottery draft system to discourage teams from tanking
According to Zach Lowe, the idea of lottery reforms dominated discussions within the NBA over the summer.
The NBA's current lottery system gives the team with the worst record a 25% chance of winning the no. 1 pick, the second-worst a 19.9% chance, a 15.6% chance for the third worst-record, and falling odds through the final 11 lottery teams.
There have reportedly been several suggestions for how to change the lottery. The most popular is creating a flat rate for the four or six worst teams in the NBA, giving each approximately an 11% chance. The odds would decline from there, but according to Lowe, the team with the best record in the lottery would have a 2% chance of winning the no. 1 pick, up from the .5% under the current system.
Tanking has been on the rise in recent years, as teams have placed new value on draft picks and more willingly moved into rebuilding periods. To many NBA owners and GMs, if a team isn't a championship contender it's a waste of time to try to win "right now," and better to tank so they can have a higher draft pick to rebuild for the future.
If the NBA lessens the incentive to have the worst record, teams will hopefully not tank as frequently, creating a more competitive league.