While many teams are able to acquire star players through trade or free agency, the most likely opportunity for many teams to get their hands on a young star is through the NBA Draft. It is because of that, that many teams who are far from championship contention begin ‘tanking’ in hopes of getting better odds of landing the top draft pick.
This strategy has been criticized by many and the NBA has explored some ways to prevent this from happening. Now according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver are considering serious NBA Draft Lottery reform.
Among those changes, according to Wojnarowski, would be the league evening the odds of the three worst teams to land the top pick:
Currently, the teams with the three worst records have an ascending chance of winning the No. 1 pick, including (No. 3) 15.6 percent, (No. 2) 19.9 percent and (No. 1) 25 percent.
The NBA’s proposal would flatten those odds, and give the three teams with the worst record the same percentage of earning the No. 1 overall pick, league sources said. Now, the worst record to the fifth worst record has a gap of 25 percent to 8.8 percent, but new legislation would tighten that difference significantly, league sources said.
Another potential change, that isn’t in the initial proposal, but could still be considered is teams not being allowed to pick in the top-3 in consecutive years:
Another idea born out of the Competition Committee itself that could gather support, league sources said: No team can pick in the top three of the draft in consecutive years. For example, if Minnesota wins the No. 1 pick and drafts Karl-Anthony Towns, it can pick no higher than No. 4 in the next lottery. For now, that idea is outside of the league office’s proposal but is expected to be considered in the upcoming committee meeting, sources said.
These would be huge changes for the league if they were to go into effect. While it is impossible to guess what kind of effect these changes would have across the league, teams would have to change their entire re-building strategies.
Commissioner Silver has been very proactive in trying to fix the issues he sees with the NBA, such as trying to prevent teams resting healthy players. Working on the draft lottery is another big change as Silver is undoubtedly making his mark on the league.
