Tanking for lottery balls may be a thing of the past.
The NBA has disclosed a new anti-tanking reform called the “3-2-1 lottery” to all 30 general managers that aims to deter teams from trying to lose games in order to gain better draft position, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Tuesday.
The proposal would expand the draft lottery to 16 teams, flatten odds, and have a relegation zone where the bottom 3 teams are penalized with fewer lottery balls for the No. 1 pick, Charania added.
The lottery currently includes 14 teams. The new system is dubbed the “3-2-1 lottery” to represent the number of balls potentially possessed by each team, with teams in the relegation zone losing a lottery ball.
Other details include that no team would be able to pick first in consecutive years, win three straight top-five picks, or protect picks in the 12-15 range.
Charania also reported that while there could be minor modifications to the proposal, the key points of the framework have support from the majority of teams.
Two teams were penalized for tanking this season in February. The Indiana Pacers were dinged $100,000 and the Utah Jazz $500,000 for “Overt behaviour … that prioritizes draft position over winning (which) undermines the foundation of NBA competition,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.
Now Silver has taken the first step towards making good on his word after insisting in March that the league will change its draft process and address tanking before the start of next season.
The NBA’s board of governors discussed tanking at a two-day meeting in late March.
Silver said then that the league has been working on a tanking resolution for months. The NBA last changed its draft process in 2019, flattening odds for the three worst teams and expanding the lottery field, also to discourage tanking.
Silver also said in March that the next step would likely be a board meeting in May that could conclude with changes to the draft rules.