Surely the Geneva Conventions prevent such an atrocity from happening

On the other hand, do I understand correctly that a 7 seed could get the 1st overall pick?

Imagine winning 45 games, getting to the playoffs, and getting a better pick than a team with 18 wins?

Hell, there could be a team whose superstar was injured in the first half of the season, came back and went on a win streak to secure the playoffs, and get the #1 pick. Even without injuries, Timberwolves are literally 4 losses away this year from being a “lottery team”.

Shams mentioned that there will likely be modifications to this proposal and a popular one is for there to be a “tier system” where, for example, the bottom-8 are separate from 9-10 and then they’re separate from 11-18.

Welcome to adam silvers nba where bad teams need to stay bad for eternity

Drawing every single pick through the lottery is so monumentally stupid

Yes all these anti-tanking ideas punish actually bad teams. Like I get trying to discourage the tanking, but if your team is actually bad and have no stars, then you will be forever at the bottom as you are stuck drafting late.

The thought is that teams won’t build 50 loss season teams because there is no longer an advantage to do so. Currently they put together rosters that have no business being on an NBA floor. Not due to lack of ability to field better players, but because the advantage of getting the #1 pick is too big.

They propably still would have protections like worst record can’t  drop out of the top 5 picks

There is no perfect solution. Yes, it would suck if a team lost 50 games and got the 18th pick. One player can make too much of a difference in the sport of basketball that if you want to have anti-tanking solutions, you have to stomach the negatives of these solutions.

Arguably the heat benefiting from this would be good for the league. The team that just is meh bit stays competitive getting high picks is good for the league

Y’all are exactly the type of team they should be aiming to reward. Always trying to compete but never getting to draft highly because of it.

Small market conspiracy theorists will be feasting for years

The league will probably turn to teams just having to try harder to compete without a blue-chip prospect WHICH IS FINE.

We have to stop acting like bad teams are bad because they put all of their effort and resources into being good and just failed. Most of every single BAD team was designed to be bad because they the world is telling them to not try because they won’t win a ring.

Let’s get back to every team having vets and trying to win as much as possible and let the lottery balls help them not just be the main strategy for roster building.

Last time this happened and lotto odds were changed we got screwed and ended up with the third pick

Which kind of worked out for us in the long run so maybe it won’t be that bad lol

Imagine the play in 2023 Lakers going on a WCF run and getting the #1 pick after. This sub would be in absolute shambles.

People complain about teams being trapped in the middle, not good enough to win but not bad enough to get high picks to get good. This actually helps fix that issue and benefits teams that are good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to go anywhere.

Honestly love it, good for everyone.

Its way worse lmao. If 10 teams get even odds then you’ll have 10-15 teams every year trying to make sure they’re bottom 10

Hard disagree. I think it’s a great proposal.

Why woild you tank? You can try hard, finish 11th, and still get equal lottery odds while giving your fans and players a much better experience. Or maybe you overperform and make the playoffs. Win win.

No team is going to tank out of the top 6, lose playoff experience and revenue for 4% lottery odds.

The only downside is that truly bad teams will have a harder time climbing out of the hole. But that is inherent to any tanking fix. It also means teams won’t be as bad since they will have less incentive to build teams to suck. I’d also like safeguards against teams getting top 3-5 picks multiple years in a row.

All is does is make it worse, as the expanded odds have given teams incentives to tank

I think the point is that once you’re guaranteed a bottom-5 place in your conference, there’s no reason to race to the bottom.

So tanking will move up in the standings - teams that could make the play-in will now try to get out of it and into the bottom 5, and teams that are more or less guaranteed to be first round exits will try to get into the play-in.

It eliminates draft protection tanking.

Most draft protections are like top 10 protected, top 4 protected etc.

I think this yr Utah was top 9 protected so they were tanking. 

With this new rule, Utah has little incentive to tank. Being 10th worst or the absolute worst record is the same.

Only difference would be from 11 to 10, so there’s still that. Utah would have incentive to not be the 11th worst record this year.

If you’re a gm relying on 8% odds, I don’t think you deserve a job

HELLO THERE

Considering the Pacers have historically been one of those teams it’s hilarious this happens the minute we do

Riley is spearheading this proposal

THIS IS OUR TIME

THIS IS OUR MOMENT

And a 7 seed that gets hit and goes in a run could get 1st overall. 

We’re probably falling to the 7th spot and that seems catastrophic. I can’t imagine 18th lmao.

That’s the real issue. Teams tank because there is no other way to get good. Now the only way to get good is going to be have cap space to overpay FAs, which is like impossible for at least half the league, or get lottery lucky. That’s it, be LA, Miami, etc, or be lucky. 

It’s almost always the small market teams too. Without a hard salary cap, teams like the lakers and Celtics will always be able to get the free agents a team like the hornets will never be able to afford. Small market teams rely on the draft. So many times, they’re not even tanking and still end up as one of the worst teams because it’s not an even playing field

Imagine a circumstance where a contender loses their best player for an extended period of time, falls to the seventh seed, and then winds up with the number one pick lol

Same thing literally just happened when they flattened the lottery odds with the last tanking “fix”. Then people got mad teams like the Mavs jumped in the lottery because the odds for non bottom feeders improved drastically.

People are so dumb and lazy and bad at even simple foresight.

This is by far the worst proposal I’ve heard yet and anyone who thinks into it even a little can see it causes even more problems than it solves, and likely doesn’t even improve the tanking issue…

In pretty much every thread about tanking, I see people suggest taking away draft picks for tanking. These people dont want to actually solve tanking and balance the league, they just want to punish bad teams.

100% agree. Tilted lottery odds weren’t just randomly decided on, they help with the very real issue of making sure that atrociously bad teams have a semi-reliable path to becoming competitive again.

It’s obviously not perfect but all it’s going to take is a 7 seed getting a generational #1 talent or a 15-67 team getting b2b picks >15 for people to regret this.

Especially if you’re a small market. Even if you’re a good team now in a small market, you should recognize that this rule is going to hurt you once your team is bad.

tbf, the quote says this proposal has the “most momentum” which doesn’t necessarily mean it has the votes. Maybe it has 10 yeses but that’s more than any other proposal. 

The NBA has previously used Shams/media to soft launch ideas and get a sense of their popularity (see: expansion). Hopefully this is more shenanigans like that because this is such an idiotic proposal

Or you can view it as let’s reward teams for trying to win even if they aren’t good

The 2025 draft lottery might’ve been the worst outcome in NBA History and all they did was increase the likeliness of an even worse outcome.

Is that so bad that luck gives a good team a great prospect?  I mean you have teams stuck in purgatory for trying to win.  Why shouldn’t they have a better shot at #1

There is no way a top 6 team tanks a guarenteed playoff spot (and millions in revenue) to have a shot in the play in, some small lottery odd, and a worse seed.

If you’re closing in on the 6th seed, you’re more likely to gun for a higher seed than purposely tank into the Play-In and lose that week off before the playoffs.

If a playoff team would tank for a miracle lottery pick instead of fighting for a miracle championship, this league has lost the plot.

Yea, zero chance a team intentionally falls to the play-in for a slightly better draft pick.

So it wouldn’t stop tanking. It would just make teams do it longer since their odds at getting franchise changing talent worse.

Raise the salary cap for bottom 5 teams so they can get some decent role players. Raise their salary cap floor as well so they’re forced to pay more.

When owners get financially penalized is when you will see teams stop tanking.

I mean that’s just because there’s much less connection between top draft picks and success in the nhl right?

Cavs got #1 pick 3 out of 4 years and people complained that a shit team picked that high which lead to flattening the odds.

Flattening odds led to people tanking to get better odds. And now their solution is to flatten them more.

Nobody needs tanking bro. Above all we want to see a league where every game is competed fairly and matters to the fans/players/orgs

Having top of the top draft picks are way less important to winning than people think. Like actually, look at what is driving winning for the best teams today and you’ll realize that coaching staff and front office matter far more, followed by being in a desirable location.

Really the only exception is the Spurs who lucky to get Wemby with a 14% chance, which yes would be a lower percent in this new system. But this is maybe one of the only times in modern history that a singular top pick can be so important (basically him and Lebron). Dont think we should base our views on the idea of there being a Wemby at the top of the draft every year.

Thunder, Nuggets, Pistons, Celtics, Cavs, Knicks, etc. top draft talent is helping in some cases, but not the top component of what makes the teams actually good. The Celtics are a prime example this year. The Thunder are incredible with or without Chet. The Pistons are a winning team even without Cade. The Pacers last year had like no high picks and almost won the championship. The Heat, the same as the Pacers.

It just shifts the tanking to different points in the draft order, it doesn’t truly eliminate it. By the nature of the sport and how influential 1 player is, there will always be tanking around any position where draft odds improve.

just as Steph gets ready to retire.

What is wrong with that? Those teams need a star to contend just as much as Jazz. Why punish them for trying to be competitive?

4-5 teams tanking is still pretty bad. Like the wizards are an obvious one rn but you can’t have 4-5 teams a season consistently resting half their squad the whole second half of the season

A 7th seed that WON in the play in could get the 1st pick. 

Wizards three years ago were trying with Beal and Westbrook and porzingis. Everyone clowned us saying to rebuild because being stuck in the middle made no sense. Now we are tanking like okc, spurs, pistons did and you’re mad. Use your brain man