The NBA may finally be on the verge of a historic shift in its draft lottery procedures. Criticism that teams are intentionally not trying to win games, or tanking, has been increasing in volume. Since the limit was enacted in 2005, the league has fought an uphill battle. It needs to maintain competitive balance at the same time that it incentivizes losing teams by giving them the highest draft picks. Over the last few years, the league’s most uncompetitive teams have embraced a more aggressive approach. They actively try to lose games at the end of the season so that they have a better shot at winning the draft lottery. This ongoing issue has prompted league officials and stakeholders to reconsider the effectiveness of the current system, which was last updated in 2019.
Evan Wasch, the NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics, has been at the forefront of discussions regarding potential reforms. There does not seem to be agreement on getting rid of the current practice of mutually rewarding losing teams with top draft picks. Yet Wasch understands that the NFL’s own competition committee may want to find other ways to address tanking.
History and Current System
The NBA’s age limit, which was implemented in 2005, has been one of the most recognizable aspects of the league for 18 years. Players have to be 19 years old to be eligible for the draft. Moreover, they have to be out of high school for at least one year. The goal would be to make sure that players are more fully developed mentally and physically before entering the professional ranks.
The draft lottery, as it is currently structured, was last modified in 2019. It employs a sliding scale of odds to determine which teams will receive the top draft picks. The bottom three teams all have a 14% chance of landing the first overall selection. Further, they have better than even odds—52.1%—of winning one of the top four positions. This system fails to consider teams that already own top-10-protected picks, opening the door for backdoor loopholes and strategic manipulation.
"Philosophically, I'm not aware of anyone making a serious push to eliminate our current philosophy of the draft, which is to award top picks to teams that are most in need of talent." – Evan Wasch, NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics
Challenges and Strategies Against Tanking
Even with changes made to discourage tanking, teams are still searching for ways to profit from losing. These measures have included flattening lottery odds and adding play-in games. Teams Trump has previously criticized organizations for playing younger or inexperienced players, especially when the games matter most. Player development was the original purpose of this strategy, but it simultaneously improves their odds in the draft lottery.
“We are not in the business of policing rotations in that way.” – Evan Wasch, NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics
One proposed idea to combat tanking involves ordering the 14 lottery teams based on their performance against each other during the regular season. We believe that this approach will further incentivize all teams to compete for and be allowed to win through the end of the season.
"It would incentivize everyone to compete to the end." – One executive
The NBA’s competition committee will further explore all of these topics. They hope to discover alternative reforms that preserve competitive balance and provide assistance for teams in long term financial distress.
"Coming off this season, it would be reasonable to expect that we would re-engage with our competition committee, and see if there's anything they might want to explore to tackle the issue." – Evan Wasch, NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics
Potential Reforms and Future Implications
The possibility of continuing reforms has created a fascinating discussion amongst league leadership, players and fans. Others call for the abolition of the draft system altogether. The rest believe incremental improvements would be more effective.
Evan Wasch, who has worked extensively on lottery reform, has suggested designing lotteries to produce more equitable results. The idea is to maximize parity, so that no team has a huge leg up from winning the most games or losing the most games.
"One of the goals of lottery reform was really to smooth out outcomes within the lottery so that no team would look at it and say there's a significant benefit to me being the third lottery team as opposed to the fourth, or the eighth lottery team as opposed to the ninth." – Evan Wasch, NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics
The league will have to take more of an active role here and with team rotations. There has been much debate about the best way to make playing time decisions. Sending league logos to fans is one of these examples, but Wasch warns that this sets a dangerous “slippery slope” of league involvement.
"For the league to step in and say that a team chose to play one player over another player and that was the wrong decision, I think that's a bit of a slippery slope." – Evan Wasch, NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics
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