The NBA has circulated a singular proposal for draft lottery reform to every team’s general managers, according to a report by ESPN’s Shams Charania. The league floated three disparate proposals back in March, but appears to have coalesced around one extremely complicated proposal. It’s worth noting that the NBA Player’s Association countered the league suggestions with a much simpler proposal that tied revenue sharing with winning, but the league office unsurprisingly has taken no action to pursue
that approach.
Instead, the proposal would expand the lottery to include 16 teams, comprising the 10 teams that miss the Play-In Tournament, the two losers of each conference’s 7-8 play-in matchup, and the four 9-10 seeds. Rather than giving the most lottery balls to the worst teams, the system would instead most heavily favor teams with the 4th through 10th worst records in the league.
Teams that finished with the three worst records would each receive two lottery balls and could not fall below the 12th pick. Teams that finished 4-10 would receive three lottery balls. The 9-10 seeds would receive two lottery balls. The loser of the 7-8 play-in game would receive one lottery ball. Most impactfully, the lottery would be drawn for all 16 picks (as opposed to the current system that only picks the top-four before going in reverse standings order).
The reform also would not allow the same team to receive the first overall pick in back-to-back years, would not allow any team from receiving a top-five pick in three consecutive years, and would not allow teams to protect picks in the 12-15 range.
What do you think about this proposal?
