The NBA is considering radical changes to the draft lottery system aimed at steering teams away from tanking for the chance at higher picks.
According to Grantland.com, under the direction of new commissioner Adam Silver, league officials are set to consider a proposal that involves “a cyclical pattern or set draft order, repeating every thirty years.”
Silver, who served as David Stern’s top assistant over the last several years of his 30-year tenure, recently told reporters “there may be an issue with the way the lottery is structured. I mean, by definition, the fact that we have the lottery means that we were concerned about tanking. You do not want to have an improper incentive to lose games. The lottery was designed so that teams would not see any advantage to having a bad record because they wouldn’t be assured a certain pick.”
More specifically, the plan, which is tentatively slated to be presented to owners sometime next year, would eliminate the draft lottery entirely and replace it with a system where each of the 30 teams cycled through all the first-round draft picks from year to year with each team picking in a certain numbered slot once each over the next three decades.
Grantland adds the system would be weighted where each would be guaranteed at least one top-six pick every five seasons and at least one top-12 pick over every four-year span.
Some top league officials are already expressing reservations about the proposal, arguing that the slotting does not afford the league’s worst teams the chance to quickly rebuild themselves by, more or less, being assured of having the chance to land the top players from each draft class.
“In terms of the word ‘tanking,’ I think it’s used differently by different people,” Silver previously told reporters. “To me, tanking means a team goes out to intentionally lose the game. I think there’s genuine rebuilding in our system, especially when you have a cap-type system and you have to plan for the future. Just like any business, there’s short-term and long-term results.”
